If you don’t laugh you will cry
There are just so many things that happen in a parish, that if you do not learn to laugh (often to yourself or with brother priests) you would be crying all the time. Here is an example.
My pastor, Fr. Mick, told me yesterday (as we were heading to the gym), that someone left the 11 a.m. Mass on Sunday very angry with me. I had that Mass, and from my posting of that homily, you can see it was all about loving in the same way as Jesus lives us. I had no idea what I could have said to make this person so angry that they sought out the pastor to complain about me. They told Fr. Mick that I had called a child dumb during the Mass. Fr. Mick said that that did not sound like something that I would ever do, so he asked for the context of the statement.
They told him, “right after he baptized that baby he called the baby dumb.”
Fr. Mick then had to explain that I was saying the Ephphetha Prayer, which goes, “The Lord Jesus made the deaf hear and the dumb speak. May he soon touch your ears to receive his word, and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father, amen.”
He went on to explain that I could not change the words of the rite, and that the word “dumb” in that context means “not able to speak”. He said they still seemed upset.
I guess they will need to take it up with ICEL (the group responsible for translating liturgical texts into English). But PLEASE let ICEL first finish the Missal.
May 21st, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Apparently they don’t attend mass often enough to understand the context in which this was meant.
June 4th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Well I certainly hope they don’t let this hinder them.
Certainly it happens many times I see the dumb speak when they should be quiet.
Of course many time it is myself who is the dumb and the one who should not speak.
The challenges of lanugage and translation have caused many problems over time.