Vocative Case

This has not been published in the Northern Cross, but here it is:

Another year, another Patronal Festival here at Lanchester, and another outing for the Happytudes. Useful though the Jerusalem Bible’s footnotes are, the text itself is atrocious. I know that they are really supposed to translate the liturgical books exactly as they are. But at the very least, could someone not reissue the RSV Edition of the Missal?

After all, the Ordinary of the Mass has now been translated accurately, giving the Modern Rite a fair go in the English-speaking world for the first time. Thus, among many other blessings, we do now say “Blessed” where the frightful old rendition insisted on “Happy”, as in “Blessed are those who are called to the supper of the Lamb” (“Beati qui ad cenam Agni vocati sunt”), rather than the gravely inadequate “Happy are those [never mind “Happy are we”] who are called to His supper”. Yet, when it comes to the Beatitudes, we are still living in the long-faded summer of 1968. It is time to let the sunshine in.

Meanwhile, as the seasons turn, we are doubtless to be treated again to the following: “Like a sea without a shore, love divine is boundless. Time is now and evermore, and His love surrounds us.” What does that mean? What does it mean? It does not mean anything at all. Catholic hymnody also includes endless little examples of dumbing down, often to the brink of doctrinal error, not only of lyrics by Protestants, but sometimes even of those by Catholics which continue to appear in their original forms in Protestant hymnbooks. There, you will also find the continued use of the vocative case, against which Catholic editors have a merciless vendetta.