New Translation Monday: Pater Noster

As a reminder, past editions of the New Translation Catechesis can be accessed via the right side bar.

For the last two weeks we have been going through the changes to the translation of the Nicene Creed.  Because of today’s close proximity to Christmas and the hustle and bustle of travel and other plans, we will take a brief hiatus from the Creed and present a short catechesis on the Pater Noster.  Next week we will again take up the Nicene Creed.

In the translation of the Our Father there is not a single change.  If I had to guess, there are two reasons for this.  First, the Church in her wisdom recognizes that the recitation of this prayer is so imbedded in people’s consciousness that any change would be imprudent.  After all, this prayer is recited by the faithful outside of the context of the Mass, perhaps even more often than within the Mass itself.  Second, the current translation to the Pater Noster is already a great translation.  It achieves all three goals set forth in retranslating the Roman Missal: fidelity to the Latin, fidelity to Scripture, and a greater sense of the sacred in the use of language (“hallowed be thy name”, for example).

There is a change to the priest’s part prior to the recitation of the Lord’s prayer.  Currently, there are four options:

1.  Let us pray with confidence to the Father in the words our Savior gave us.

2.  Jesus taught us to call God our Father, and so we have the courage to say:

3.  Let us ask our Father to forgive our sins and to bring us to forgive those who sin against us.

4.  Let us pray for the coming of the kingdom as Jesus taught us.

The Latin text reads:

Praeceptis salutaribus moniti, et divina institutione formati, audemus dicere

The new translation will have the priest read:

At the Savior’s command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say

Let’s briefly look at the Latin.  Praeceptis is a form of praeceptum, which can be rendered in a variety of ways, one of which is “command”.  Salutaribus is best translated as “of our Savior”.  Moniti is a form of monere, meaning “warned”, “advised”, or “reminded”.  The literal translation of the first clause is “having been reminded by the command of the Savior.”

Divina is an adjective meaning “divine”.  Institutione is a form of institutio, meaning a wide variety of things: in this case “instruction”, “education”, or “teaching”.  It can also mean “institution” or “custom”.  Formati is a form of formere, meaning “formed”.  The literal translation of the second clause is “having been formed by divine teaching,” although “having been formed by divine institution” would also be appropriate in the context of the Lord’s Prayer.

Finally, audemus is a form of audere, meaning “dare”, “risk”, or “venture”.  Dicere means “to say”, “to declare”, or even “to call”.  A literal translation is “we dare to say” or “we dare to declare.”

Therefore, a slavishly literal translation of the Latin is:

Having been reminded by the command of the Savior, and having been formed by divine teaching, we dare to say ...

A casual glance at the new translation reveals a very good rendering of the Latin, whereas each of the four current options fails to even remotely capture the Latin text.  They truly are inventions of the 1973 translators rather than accurate translations of the Latin.  The most striking part of the prayer will undoubtedly be “we dare to say.”  The only phrase among the four current options that attempts to capture the spirit of this is “we have the courage to say.”  However, having courage and “daring” are potentially quite different in meaning.  “Courage” does not necessarily invoke a feeling of humility, whereas “we dare to say” inherently recognizes our own insignificance before the Father.  We can “have courage to say” based on our own efforts and accomplishments (much like a solider can “have courage” in battle due to his own talents in warfare), but when “we dare to say”, it is because of nothing we have done or can do on our own.  Rather it is only because of “our Savior’s command” and our having been “formed by divine teaching.”  The whole phrase, actually, is one of great humility.