During the season of Advent we ponder the great story of God’s plan of salvation unfolding over many generations, told through different voices in the pages of the Old Testament, culminating in the moment when the eternal Word of God took our human nature to himself in the womb of his Blessed Mother, and began to live visibly among his own people in the stable of Bethlehem.
On the first Sunday of Advent in every year we begin a new year in the church’s calendar, and the next year of the three-year cycle of readings at Sunday Mass. Each year focuses on one of the gospels; in this coming year, Year C, we will approach the life and mission of Our Lord through the testimony of the physician, St Luke.
This year, however, the first Sunday of Advent has an extra significance for the church in England, Wales and Scotland. Our bishops, after some years of careful deliberation and close study, have selected a new translation of the Scriptures to be used for the proclamation of the Word of God at Mass.
Since the early 1970s, when the church began to celebrate Mass in the ‘vernacular’ (i.e. English), we have been using what was then a fresh new translation, the Jerusalem Bible, produced by French Dominicans. In the nearly 60 years since there have been two new versions of the Jerusalem Bible, and the Roman Missal itself has undergone two revisions, with a revised English translation introduced in 2011. In that time, scholars of various disciplines have brought new discoveries and insights that have enabled bible translators to produce translations that bring us closer to the Word of God. Our new translation reflects some of these developments, changes in the way language is used in our own society, and a shift towards more direct translation rather than paraphrase. Pope Francis has called for scripture translators to be faithful in three ways: “first, to the original text; [second] to the particular language into which it is being translated; and, finally, to the intelligibility of the text”.
The translation chosen by our Bishops, in common with the Church in India, is the English Standard Version – Catholic Edition. Its lineage can be traced back through the Revised Standard Version and ultimately the Authorised Version of King James I & VI. Although the ESV is comes from an American Protestant tradition (and we can appreciate the important contribution of this tradition to scripture studies), nevertheless the Catholic Edition signifies that it includes all the books counted as part of the Catholic canon of scripture that Protestant bibles tend to omit. It has also been Anglicised, in terms of spelling and vocabulary. In addition, the copyright owners have agreed to a number of adaptations proposed by the committee charged with producing the new lectionary in consultation with the Bishops’ Conferences.
The Catholic Truth Society were entrusted with producing suitable books for the proclamation of the Word, and these will be formally blessed and brought into service on Advent Sunday – they are indeed fine books appropriate for the sacred liturgy. A number of publishers have produced peoples’ missals and aids to participation in the Mass, and we have replaced our stock of Parish Mass Books – the books given out by our welcomers which contain the order of Mass and readings, each volume covering half the year.
The readings for the coming week can always be found (in the new ESV from Advent Sunday) at universalis.com – make sure you have the calendar set to England.
You can listen to a talk given by Fr Matthew during Advent 2024, reflecting on how the Advent season particularly helps us to get a sense of the great story of salvation and understand how to read scripture not just for its literal sense but the spiritual senses – teaching us how to act, unfolding the mystery of our salvation in Christ, and leading us to our heavenly. The talk concludes with some background to the introduction of the new translation of the lectionary, which is of particular significance this Advent. Use the media player below or click here.
