Undusted Texts

Christ is risen! A translation is always a balancing act between an ungrammatical, too-strict word-for-word replacement and a new work merely "inspired by" the original text.  I've always loved the way John Dryden describes the issue in his essay "Ovid and the Art of Translation."   Dryden defines three distinct styles of translation: "metaphrase, or turning an author word by word, and line by line, from one language into another"—about which he later says, "'Tis much like dancing on ropes with fettered legs: a man may shun a fall by using caution; but the gracefulness of motion is not to be expected"—"paraphrase, or translation with latitude, where the author is kept in view by the translator, so as never to be lost, but his words are not so strictly followed as his sense; and that too is admitted to be amplified, but not altered," and finally "imitation, where the translator (if now he has not lost that name) assumes the ...

The Canon for the Third Sunday of the Great Fast , the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross, comes as a shock.  We know Sundays are always mini-Paschas, celebrations of the Resurrection, even in the depths of the Fast. (So they always have full canons, rather than the penitential three-ode canons found during weekdays, for which the  Triodion  is named.)  We have continued to sing the resurrectional hymns from the Octoechos throughout the Fast.  Yet the Canon for this week hits us with unbridled Paschal joy, for the ikoi come from the great Paschal Canon that we gloriously shout out during Paschal Matins. The Cross is the great reverser: through the Cross, a Person bearing the deathless divine nature dies; through the Cross, we deathbound men gain deathlessness. So perhaps we should not be surprised that the Cross brings a burst of joy in the middle of the somber Fast, just as its feast on September 14 is a day of fasting n the midst of the year's longest gap b...

The Byzantine tradition has some beautiful prayers for absolution at the end of the Mystery of Confession or Penance, but I have had trouble finding them online, so I have copied them out here. The simplest, and probably most common, prayer is the following: May our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, through the grace and mercies of His love for us all, forgive you all your transgressions.  And I, an unworthy priest, by His power given to me, forgive and absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  However, the original Byzantine prayer of absolution is the following: God, who forgave David the evil deeds he confessed through Nathan the prophet, who forgave Peter his denial when he wept bitterly, who forgave the sinful woman who shed tears on his feet, and who forgave the publican and the prodigal, may this same God, through me, a sinner, forgive you (Name) both in this age and in the age to come, and make you stand u...

I have added a number of old papers to my website.  One of them, "The Marriage Liturgy and the Married Life," is an interesting reflection based on the Byzantine Rite of Crowning; it certainly wasn't for a class, and I don't think I ever attempted publication of it.  (In connection with this essay, one might want to peruse my undergraduate thesis, "The Symbolism of the Mystery of Crowning." )  Most of the rest are old school papers, mostly from my graduate courses: "Θεία νύξ: The Mystical Union as Unknowing in St. Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite" (2012)  "The History and Legacy of Photios I, Patriarch of Constantinople" (2014) "The Exegetical Principles of Joseph Ratzinger" (2014) "The Spirituality of St. Hildegard of Bingen" (2015) "The Effects of Liturgy on Culture" (2016)  Finally, I have rescued from the abyss of the Internet my very first published writing, "The Best Meani...

 Introduction The Byzantine Rite's Vespers for Great and Holy Friday ends with a beautiful and solemn procession with the shroud, with has an image of the dead Jesus lying in the tomb; the procession ends by placing the shroud in a replica tomb.  The faithful then approach the tomb—traditionally, on their knees—to venerate the shroud.    Below is a description of this procession, which I wrote in 2015.  At the time, my parish was housed in the basement of a former convent; as we walked through the darkened halls with the shroud, we would pass an old mural of a deer in the forest ("As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after thee, O God" (Ps 42:1, Douay-Rheims)).  This is my literary recollection of this experience. Great and Holy Friday  For that night, we were outside the gates of Jerusalem, accompanying a bloodied corpse. That Missouri basement faded away as the penumbra enwrapped us and angels’ wings carried us to that...