Sunday, July 25, 2021

God isn't in the business of "sanctify[ing] our present way of life"

"Accept, O Lord, we pray, the offerings which we bring from the abundance of your gifts, that through the powerful working of your grace these most sacred mysteries may sanctify our present way of life and lead us to eternal gladness.  Through."

"Suscipe, quaesumus, Domine, munera, quae tibi de tua largitate deferimus, ut haec sacrosancta mysteria, gratiae tuae operante virtute, et praesentis vitae nos conversatione sanctificent, et ad gaudia sempiterna perducant.  Per."

     Super oblata, Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Missale Romanum (and earlier).  The  problem with this translation is that though conversatio can certainly mean "way" or "manner," and though God is certainly interested in making our present ways of life progressively more holy (i.e. transforming them), it can give the impression that God is in the business of "sanctifying our present way of life" in the sense of giving it, unconverted, a kind of stamp or imprimatur.  (Also, the direct object of sanctificent is nos, not praesentis vitae . . . conversatione.)  So here's my stab at a more accurate rendition:

"ut haec sacrosancta mysteria . . . et praesenti vitae nos conversatione sanctificent, et ad gaudi sempiterna perducant":  that these most sacred mysteries may both sanctify us in the midst of (or even via (ablative of means)) the affairs of th[is] present life, and conduct [us] through [the latter] to joys eternal.

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