15 June 2009

Punctuation

No liturgical edition is perfect. Here are some changes that ought to be made in a new edition of the Missal of S Pius V.

The Creed: "sub Pontio Pilato" should be punctuated to go with "Crucifixus etiam pro nobis", and not with "passus et sepultus". The Pauline Missal is right here, as the Greek makes clear.

The Preface: We should punctuate "Lord, Holy Father, Almighty everlasting God". "Lord" stands for LORD=YHWH= the ineffable Name of the God of our Hebrew Fathers. "Holy Father" is taken from John 17, our Lord's High Priestly Prayer, and is his distinctive mode of addressing His Father.

I feel the Amen should go from the end of the Pater noster.

There! I've finally come out in my true colours as a sort of second Bugnini.

Another detail: "... in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum." If one pauses, should one pause before or after Deus? My generation was taught to pause after it. I think this is right: Deus refers to the divinity of the Son with the Father and the Spirit, not to the Eternity of Divinity. In the Pian Ordo the ecphonesis "Per omnia saecula saeculorum" (not Deus per ...), and the punctuation of the text of the prayers before Communion indicate this. But some (self-taught?) young men make an emphasis of linking Deus with what follows it.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Indeed you have! These sorts of changes are really not necessarily a good idea. Remember what happened when they tried to do this to the Office under Pius XII? That is not even to mention the Ciceronianisation of the psalms in c.1600!

Anonymous said...

Not to mention, the voiced alveolar plosive "D" of Deus is auricularily tidier following the alliterated "S" of Spiritus Sancti. Aesthetically speaking, there is only one way to end prayers which is just as you, Father, have outlined.

The BCP made a total mess of prayer endings through lack of uniformity. Anglicans seeking to overcome this impediment must un-learn the varied tempers of it.

"Perfect practice makes perfect."

The Welsh Jacobite said...

Moreover the traditional music for collects demands a break after "Deus".

(Presumably Christian is referring to the classicisation of the hymns, not psalms.)