Today’s gospel we’ve just heard might be difficult to understand – obviously not because of the reader – but because this text is complicated itself. Is there are a problem with the translation? Yes, there is. Let me explain this on my own. I was born and grown up in Poland, a country with its own history, culture and of course language. I’m a native Polish speaker and I can express myself naturally using this language. Saying it simply: I think in Polish. Beside my native language I also speak English; in recent years I’ve improved it significantly (or at least I think I have). But everyone talking to me can easily pick up my foreign accent (several times I was called a Scandinavian), errors, mistakes I make and strange constructions of my statements, disclosing I still think Polish while speaking English. I suppose I’ll never be able to speak English as naturally as you, native English speakers.
Saint John, the author of today’s gospel, had quite a similar problem. He was a Jewish man, born, grown up and educated in the Jewish culture, and using Aramaic as his native language. Apparently he wrote his gospel, letters and the Apocalypse directly in Greek; but his Jewish legacy didn’t disappear. Actually it applies to all texts of the New Testament: Semitic way of thinking expressed in the Greek language; and then translated into modern English. This level of complication might be too difficult even for MI5, CIA or Mossad.
Because a language is something living it’s always changing. Some words change their meanings, some fall into disuse, some new ones appear. This is the reason why some old poems, novels or plays, although written in English, are barely understandable to modern readers; however it sounds funny they have to be published with glossaries, descriptions or explanations. It concerns every living language, like English or Polish; but it doesn’t concern dead languages, like Latin.
In the next few months we will gradually introduce a new missal: a book used in the Catholic Church for the Eucharist. Personally I can see two particular reasons for this new translation. The first one concerns changes in the English language; there are divided opinions about the quality of the translation; I’m not a linguistic expert, so I don’t take part in such a discussion. The second reason I regard as much more important. It’s not a big secret that quite often we attend mass half-conscious; after many years of using the same responses we respond quite automatically without particular attention or awareness to what we say. This new translation, with changed responses, gives us an opportunity to refresh our liturgical experience and make it full-conscious. There is just one single purpose and it is simply expressed by the Lord in today’s gospel: ‘to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’.