TEMPTATION:

WHOSE  FAULT  IS  IT? 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 6^th Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “Temptation: Whose Fault Is It?”

A couple of months ago there were articles in the papers and on National Public Radio that Pope Francis wants to change the Our Father.

I read the articles back then - but didn’t give them enough time and thought and study.

So when I read today’s first reading from James and his comments about temptation, I decided to do a little research on what I might have missed  a few months ago in Pope Francis’ comments.

LETTER OF JAMES

James says, “No one experiencing temptation should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God is not subject to temptation to evil, and he himself tempts no one. Rather each person is tempted when lured and enticed by his desire.  Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.”  [James 1: 13-15.]

That’s rather dogmatic. That’s rather clear. Don’t blame God [POINT FINGER] when it comes to being destroyed by a temptation.  Check out those other four fingers pointing back on ourselves.

That text from James uses the language of pregnancy: desire, conception, birth - then death - an abortion of one’s spirit. Powerful poetry - language - imagery.

And in reading various articles and newspaper comments about Pope Francis’ comments about the Our Father being changed a bit - this text from James is used by various folks.

JUST ONE PHRASE

The hubbub is all about changing the phrase “and lead us not into temptation” into “do not let us fall into temptation.”

The pope and others want to point out that the Our Father prayer is saying, “God doesn’t tempt us - God does not tempt us into temptation - we do.” So we pray to God to not let us fall into temptation.

That’s basically the question in hand. That’s what the pope wants to possibly change. Right now the  prayer can sound like it’s  sort of saying that God leads people into temptation - whereas God doesn’t do that.

NOT ENGLISH

We better add that we’re dealing here with translations.

The Pope is aware that the Italian church has been dealing with this since 2001, 2002, and 2008. The Spanish speaking Catholic dioceses have also been studying this and suggesting a basic change. Lately, the immediate situation is the French Church.

Most of the articles I was reading last night talked about the prayer being started by Jesus in Aramaic. In time, we next  have 2 versions of that prayer in Greek. We can find them in Luke 11: 3-4 and Matthew 6: 10-13.

Then we have the Vulgate. That’s the Latin translation. Then in time we have the modern languages.

TO MAKE IT MORE COMPLEX AND COMPLICATED

To make it more complex and more complicated the Our Father is a rooted prayer in the prayer psyche of so many people.

So to change the wording, we’re tinkering with some deep stuff here.

Everyone knows the prayer - and this includes not just Catholics - but also our Protestant brothers and sisters.

For example, most Protestant scholars know that the addition of “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,” was added on long after the gospels were written - yet they are part of so many traditions. In fact, the Catholic Church added it onto the prayer in the Mass - but a bit further down in time.

To make it even more complex I noticed someone said  the key word is not the verb “to lead” but the noun “temptation”. That word “temptation” is the word and issue to change - and to change the prayer to say, “test” not “temptation”.

CONCLUSION

 I would think that they might change the Our Father a slight bit in our future. But when? My bet would be on when the next big revision of the Mass prayers takes place. Many agree that the prayers we have now at Mass - are tied too tight to the Latin prayers - and for our English Speaking world, a better translation is necessary. One was made - but pushed aside - for the one we have now - but Pope Francis recently said, “We need to get a better translation into local languages.”

I assume I will be dead - when and if this happens - so in the meanwhile pray as one prays and do it well. Amen.