"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."
Zora Neale Hurston
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
TEMPTATION:
WHOSE FAULT IS IT?
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily for this
6th 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 theprayer can sound like it’ssort 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.
February 13, 2018
Black History Month Thought for today:
“Greatness
occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you
have peace of mind.”
