Feast of
St. Mark the Evangelist
Entrance
Antiphon
Mark 16:15b
Lectionary:
Go into all
the world, and proclaim the Gospel to every creature, alleluia.
NAB 1970/1986
Go into the
whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.
Nothing to
see here, really. I suppose the
lectionary text is marginally more poetic.
Alleluia, of course, isn't from the bible text. I suppose this is one of those little things
that causes changing a lectionary to take a decade.
First
Reading
1 Peter 5:5B-14
Lectionary:
Beloved:
Clothe yourselves with humility
in your dealings with one another, for:
God opposes the proud
but bestows favor on the humble.
So humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God,
that he may exalt you in due time.
Cast all your worries upon him because he cares for
you.
Be sober and vigilant.
Your opponent the Devil is prowling around like a
roaring lion
looking for someone to devour.
Resist him, steadfast in faith,
knowing that your brothers and sisters throughout
the world
undergo the same sufferings.
The God of all grace
who called you to his eternal glory through Christ
Jesus
will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and
establish you
after you have suffered a little.
To him be dominion forever. Amen.
I write you this briefly through Silvanus,
whom I consider a faithful brother,
exhorting you and testifying that this is the true
grace of God.
Remain firm in it.
The chosen one at Babylon sends you greeting, as
does Mark, my son.
Greet one another with a loving kiss.
Peace to all of you who are in Christ.
New American Bible 1970/1986
And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility in
your dealings with one another, for:
“God apposes the proud
but bestows favor on the humble”
So humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that
he may exalt you in due time. Cast all
your worries upon him because he cares for you.
Be sober and vigilant.
Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking
for someone to devour. Resist him,
steadfast in faith, knowing that your fellow believers throughout the world
undergo the same sufferings. The God of
all grace who called you to his eternal glory through Christ Jesus will himself
restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you after you have suffered a
little. To him be dominion forever. Amen.
I write you this briefly through Silvanus, whom I
consider a faithful brother, exhorting you and testifying that this is is the
true grace of God. Remain firm in
it. The chosen one at Babylon sends you
greeting, as does Mark, my son. Greet
one another with a loving kiss. Peace to
all of you who are in Christ.
Exactly the same except for the
incipit, which provides an antecedent for the “you” in the reading as it
appears in the NAB.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 89:2-3, 6-7, 16-17
Lectionary:
R. For ever I
will sing the goodness of the Lord.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The favors of
the LORD I will sing forever;
through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness.
For you have said, "My kindness is established forever";
in heaven you have confirmed your faithfulness.
The heavens
proclaim your wonders, O LORD,
and your faithfulness, in the assembly of the holy ones.
For who in the skies can rank with the LORD?
Who is like the LORD among the sons of God?
Blessed the people who know the joyful shout;
in the light of your countenance, O LORD, they walk.
At your name they rejoice all the day,
and through your justice they are exalted.
New American
Bible 1970/1986:
The favors of
the Lord I will sing
forever;
through all
generations my mouth
shall proclaim
your faithfulness.
For you have
said, “My kindness is
established
forever”;
in heaven you
have confirmed
your
faithfulness”
The heavens
proclaim your wonders,
O Lord,
and your
faithfulness, in the
assembly of
the holy ones.
For who in the
skies can rank with
the Lord?
Who is like
the Lord among the
sons of God?
Happy the people who know the
joyful shout;
in the light
of your countenance,
O Lord, they
walk.
At your name
they rejoice
all the day,
and through
your justice they are exalted.
For contrast,
the NABRE:
I will sing of
your mercy forever, LORD
proclaim your
faithfulness through all ages.
For I said,
“My mercy is established forever;
my
faithfulness will stand as long as the heavens.”
The
heavens praise your marvels, LORD,
your loyalty
in the assembly of the holy ones.
Who in the
skies ranks with the LORD?
Who is like
the LORD among the sons of the gods?
Blessed
the people who know the war cry,
who walk in
the radiance of your face, LORD.
In
your name they sing joyfully all the day;
they rejoice
in your righteousness.
And the
Revised Grail Psalms:
I will sing forever of your mercies, O LORD;
through all ages my mouth will proclaim your fidelity.
I have declared your mercy is established forever;
your fidelity stands firm as the heavens.
The heavens praise your wonders, O LORD,
your fidelity in the assembly of your holy ones.
For who in the skies can compare with the LORD,
or who is like the LORD among the heavenly powers?
How blessed the people who know your praise,
who walk, O LORD, in the light of your face,
who find their joy every day in your name,
who make your justice their joyful acclaim.
The
response is an adaptation of the 2nd verse of the psalm, which
matches neither the lectionary text as the reader or cantor presents, nor the
NAB. The lectionary shows its allergy to
the use of the word “happy” when “blessed” is an option. I tend to agree with that decision. Many translations seemed to opt for “happy”
in the heady days of the mid 20th century, but I suppose the word
simply seems banal and overused now.
Here, the
NABRE shows how one must take the sour with the sweet when it comes to formal
equivalence translations. “I will sing
of your mercy forever, Lord” is magnificent in its simplicity and its
beauty. Other parts (“skies”, “sons of
the gods”, “war cry”) remind us that the original context of the psalms was one
much different from ours. The world of
the psalter is an untamed one, and to ignore that is frankly to ignore the
psalter. Notice the difference in Verse
3 between the NABRE and the original 1970 translation.
As you may
know, the Revised Grail Psalms are another choice for the liturgy. Rumor was that it would become the norm for
the Liturgy of the Hours and the Mass, but that may not end up occurring. I am unsure if that would be because the
Bishops' Conference is nervous about the official Psalter of the American
Church being so tightly controlled by GIA or their not wanting to see the NABRE
psalms orphaned after years of effort.
Perhaps someone with much more knowledge can add something to the conversation.
My first
instinct while reading the responsorial psalms back to back to back is that the
Revised Grail version is head and shoulders above the others, but I wonder what
an expert in Hebrew poetry would think of this.
Like the Grail Psalms themselves, this revised version seems to be sandpapered
of any rough edges and obscure bits. In
the NABRE, some of the psalms sound like dirges, some sound like war songs, and
some sound like prayers. In the Grail
Psalms, by contrast, they all sound like prayers. I'm not sure if that is a bad thing or a
great thing. The vocabulary of the Grail
Psalms seems to have been preserved in this Revised Version—perhaps this joyous
familiarity is simply that it sounds a lot like the Liturgy of the Hours.
Alleluia Verse
1
Corinthians 1:23A, 24B
Lectionary:
We proclaim Christ crucified:
he is the
power of God and the wisdom of God.
New American Bible 1970/1986:
But we proclaim Christ crucified, Christ the power of
God and the wisdom of God.
Note that the NAB text would make more
sense with I:23B included. So far in
this study, the lectionary seems to use the most freedom in the antiphons and
alleliuia verse. Here, the lectionary
has mercifully added a verb to the final clause. Perhaps some Greek expert will tell us if the
NAB's odd syntax there is faithful to the Greek or simply a snatch of English
which is odd to these ears.
Gospel
MK 16:15-20
Lectionary:
Jesus appeared to the
Eleven and
said to them:
"Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved;
whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These signs will accompany those who believe:
in my name they will drive out demons,
they will speak new languages.
They will pick up serpents with their hands,
and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not
harm them.
They will lay hands on the sick, and they will
recover."
Then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them,
was taken up into heaven
and took his seat at the right hand of God.
But they went forth and preached everywhere,
while the Lord worked with them
and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.
New American Bible 1970/1986
He said to them:
"Go into the whole world
and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved;
whoever does not believe will be condemned.
These signs will accompany those who believe:
in my name they will drive out demons,
they will speak new languages.
They will pick up serpents with their hands,
and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not
harm them.
They will lay hands on the sick, and they will
recover."
So then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to
them,
was taken up into heaven
and took his seat at the right hand of God.
But they went forth and preached everywhere,
while the Lord worked with them
and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.
These two texts are exactly the same
except for the incipit and the deletion of the word “so” in the
lectionary.
Communion Antiphon
Matthew 28:20
Lectionary:
Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age,
says the Lord, alleluia.
New American Bible 1970/1986:
And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.
The “and” which make this last verse
of Matthew so pleasing to the ear is unnecessary when shorn of its context as
an antiphon.
Final observation:
The NAB 1970/1986 proves to be all but identical to the
lectionary.
The first comparison with the NABRE reveals the limits of
a formal equivalence approach to the Old Testament, as well as some of that
translation's underrated beauty.
