The First Sunday of Advent 2024 sees new Scripture readings at Mass. Although the Bible verses used haven’t changed, some of the words have. Some people will think, ‘About time, too,’ while others will complain that there was nothing wrong with the old readings. The reasons for the change go to the nature of the Bible.

We shall be using the English Standard Version – Catholic Edition, which you can see in the image on the right. It was first published in 2018, so is a fairly new translation. (Although it is based on a version published a few years earlier.)

You can read the Bishops’ Conference page about the change here.

The Language of the Bible

Jesus, of course, didn’t speak English. Neither did the apostles, nor Moses, nor the prophets. The New Testament was originally written in a form of Greek called Koine. This was the common form of Greek around most of the world at the time. Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, with some of it in Aramaic, and some books in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles in Greek. Aramaic was the language of theBabylonian empire and was the main language used in the Middle East from about 600 BC to about 700 AD.

Translating the Bible

A couple of centuries before Christ, the Jewish community in Alexandria in Egypt decided to translate the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. Living away from Judea, in a place where Greek was the main language spoken by everyone, many people could no longer understand Hebrew. The Septuagint (also called LXX) was the result. In some places it is different from the Hebrew Bible. If both are translated into English, most of it woud be the same, some a little different, and some very different.

In Christ’s time, Greek was the main language of the Mediterranean world. Paul’s letters are the oldest part of the New Testament, and they were written in Greek. Most of his quotes from the Old Testament are from the Septuagint, where the Greek and Hebrew versions are different. The same applies to the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament.

With the rise of the Roman Empire, Latin became the language spoken by almost everybody. Christians translated the Old and New Testaments from Greek into Latin. In the 4th century, St Jerome produced a new translation into Latin. He learnt Hebrew from a friend so that he could translate the Old Testament from the Hebrew. (He didn’t translate all of it; he left some bits the same.) His version is called the Vulgate. It was the official Bible of the Catholic Church for several centuries.

Later Translations

Some people are very good at foreign languages; some of us are not. The Venerable Bede died (in 735) after translating the Gospel of John into English. A couple of centuries later, Saints Cyril and Methodius invented the Cyrillic alphabet so that they could translate the Bible into the languages of the Balkans. Church Slavonic is still the official language of some Churches in that region. Over the centuries, Christianity spread, and peope translated the Bible into new languages.

All these translations were done by hand. Monks copied Bibles as part of their daily labour. The Jewish scribes had done the same thing centuries before (and still did). Since no one is perfect, errors crept in. This is probably one of the reasons the Septuagint is different from the Hebrew Bible. There were lots of different versions available at the same time. Sometimes a copyist would see something that didn’t look right and try to ‘correct’ it. When people translated the Bible, they had to work with whatever version they had.

Modern Translations

Languages change over time. New words are invented, some old words go out of use, and other words change their meanings. Many words have several meanings anyway. The Douay-Rheims Bible was translated in 1582 (New Testament) and 1609-1610 (Old Testament). The translators used the Vulgate for their translation. This means that the Old Testament is a translation (English) of a translation (Latin) of a translation (Greek) of the original (Hebrew). The King James Version, used by Anglicans, came out in 1611. As well as ‘thee’ and ‘thou’, both versions use words that are not usually used today. Some of the words in them have different meanings now than they had 400 years ago.

There are two ways of translating from one language to another. The first is to translate each word as literally as possible, and then try to make it make sense. The second way is to translate the overall sense, without getting bogged down in the literal meaning of a word. This is called a dynamic translation.

One example is the word ‘cubit’ which is an English word. The Hebrew word is ammah, the Greek is pechys, and the Latin is cubitus. Some translations will translate it as a distance in feet or metres, using 18 inches or 225 cm to a cubit. Poetry, such as the Psalms, is even more difficult to translate.

A major issue in recent translations is gender inclusiveness. St Paul often used the word adelphoi, which means ‘brothers’. In both Greek and Hebrew this includes women as well as men. The same used to be true for English but is now less acceptable. Many translations now use ‘brothers and sisters’. St Paul was not writing exclusively to men; he asked his letters to be read out in the churches (Col 4:16), so women would also hear them.

The more literal a translation is, the more difficult it is to read. On the other hand, a dynamic translation can easily lose important points about the original choice of words in the Hebrew or Greek. Every translation, therefore, is a compromise between readability and precision.

The ESV-CE

The English Standard Version Catholic Edition is now the official Bible for readings at Mass. It is a more literal translation than the Jerusalem Bible, which we have used for over 50 years. It still uses ‘brothers,’ with a footnote saying, ‘or brothers and sisters.’ In many other ways it is more accurate than the Jerusalem Bible, yet there are some verses that are clearer in the Jerusalem Bible. (Although I’ve read both, I haven’t done a verse-by-verse comparison, so I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head.)

There is also a new translation of the Psalms. We used to use the Grail Psalter, now we use the Abbey Psalms and Canticles. This is an updated version of the Grail Psalter. Both translations are designed to to make the Psalms easy to sing or chant, as we do seven times a day in the Divine Office. I mentioned above that it cn be difficult translate poetry. (For the time being, we are still using the Grail for the Divine Office.)

In ten or twenty years’ time, most of us will see the ESV-CE as the way we’ve ‘always’ heard the readings at Mass. Before then, just give it a try. If you have an old Missal, you could try comparing the readings in the two versions. When you see differences, pray to God to ask Him to help you understand what the differences mean.

The Annunciation celebrates Christ’s Incarnation. Every year we celebrate The Annunciation on 25th March. This year (2024), however, we don’t; instead we celebrate The Annunciation on 8th April. We also postponed The Annunciation in 2013, 2016, and 2018, and shall do so again in 2027, 2029, 2032, and 2035. In each of these years, March 25th falls in Holy Week, except 2035 when Easter Sunday falls on March 25th.

The Annunciation is the Incarnation

The Annunciation is one of the most important feasts in the Church’s calendar. It celebrates the day the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that God desired for her to become the Mother of the Saviour. Mary’s ‘Fiat‘ (Latin for ‘Let it be’) allowed the Incarnation, when God became man in the Virgin Mary’s womb. Therefore, The Annunciation celebrates Christ’s Incarnation. Without Mary’s ‘Yes’ there would be no Christmas and no Easter, and we would still be in our sins (1 Cor 15:17). We remember the Incarnation every time we pray the Angelus. Monks and priests (and others) pray the Angelus morning, noon, and evening every day except between Easter and Pentecost, when we pray the Regina Caeli.

Those five words, ‘except between Easter and Pentecost’ explain why The Annunciation is postponed this year. Christ was born so that He could die and rise again, and so free us from the eternal death brought about by the Fall. The Resurrection is the most important feast in Christianity because by rising Christ restored us to life, as we reply to the Mystery of Faith in the Mass. Christ’s death and Resurrection are more important than anything else. Even The Annunciation takes second place to the Resurrection.

Holy Week the Triduum, and Easter

Easter is a ‘movable feast’, not celebrated on a fixed date. It changes each year according to the full moon. (Easter is always the Sunday after the first full moon after March 21st.) Because it is so important, we celebrate Easter for a full eight days, from Easter Sunday to Divine Mercy Sunday. No other feast can be more important than Easter, so we do not celebrate other feasts that week.

The week before Easter is called Holy Week. It ends with the Easter Triduum (‘three days’) from Thursday evening to the Easter Vigil. The whole time from the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Maundy Thursday, through Good Friday and Holy Saturday, to the celebration of the Resurrection at the Easter Vigil is one multipart liturgy. We pass from sorrow to joy (Jn 16:20).

From Palm Sunday to the Wednesday of Holy Week we are in the final stages of preparing for Easter. Just as with the Easter Octave, nothing takes priority over these days. Most feasts are dropped from the calendar that year, just as they are if they fall on a Sunday. The only two general exceptions are the Solemnities of St Joseph and The Annunciation. The Church puts these back until after the Easter Octave. (Benedictine monks also put the The Passing of St Benedict back until after the Easter Octave.) When these feasts fall on a Sunday in Lent (before Palm Sunday) we celebrate them on the following Monday.

The Resurrection

Holy Week is a time for increasing our prayer before Easter. If we have slipped up in our Lenten penances, we can make one last effort. Nothing else gets in the way of Holy Week. When we get into the true spirit of Holy Week, we can celebrate Easter all the more heartily.

The Resurrection is the highlight of our faith. It was when they saw the risen Jesus that the disciples became filled with joy after their sorrow at the crucifixion. They saw Jesus and they knew that death had been conquered. Our baptism was a form of death and resurrection into new life with Christ. Every Easter we remind ourselves of this when we renew our baptismal promises.

The Annunciation in the Past

Until 1751, March 25th was also New Year’s Day in England, Wales and Ireland. Many other countries also started the year on March 25th. The Annunciation, which celebrates Christ’s Incarnation, is so important that it was seen as the best time to start the year. Easter is the new creation, when Christ’s Resurrection started the world on a new path to life with God, but it could not have happened without the Incarnation.

In 1750, Parliament passed a law adopting the Gregorian calendar, authorised by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. This calendar allowed for the fact that the year is slightly less than 365.25 days long. The Julian calendar, brought in by Julius Caesar in 46 BC, gave us a leap year every 4 years. The Gregorian calendar made century years normal years execept for 1600, 2000, 2400, etc. New Year’s Day 1751 was 25th March and New Year’s Day 1752 was 1st January. Most of Europe had already switched to the Gregorian calendar and adjusted the date for the errors in leap years since 325 (the Council of Nicea). Britain made the change in date on Wednesday 2nd September 1752, which was followed by Thursday 14th September. The tax office, however, did not want to lose 11 days tax. Therefore, the start of the tax year changed from 25th March to 6th April. Scotland switched New Year’s Day to 1st January in 1600 but still followed the Julian calendar until 1752.

The O Antiphons refers to the Magnificat antiphons at Vespers during the last week of Advent. This is the culmination of the Advent time of preparation for Christmas.

Advent is divided into two unequal parts. The first part looks forward to the second coming of Christ at the end of time, whereas the second part looks forward to Christ’s coming into the world in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. This second part starts on the 17th December, running up to Christmas Eve.

In the first part of Advent, the Gospel readings Mass are taken from the public life of Jesus. The other readings taken to match. From the 17th December, they are taken from the Infancy Narratives, which are the first two chapters of Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels.

The Magnificat Antiphons

Every evening we sing Vespers in the Abbey Church. Vespers is the evening prayer of the Church, comprising a hymn, psalms, a short Scripture reading, the Magnificat, some intercessions, the Our Father, and a closing prayer. It is a part of the Divine Office, the prayers which monks (and priests) say every day. Each psalm and the Magnificat has an antiphon at the start and end. On some special days, including the last week of Advent, we have a solemn Vespers.

The start of the Magnificat antiphon for 23rd December (from the Antiphonale Monasticum, copyright Desclee and Co, Tournai).

During the last week of Advent we sing the Magnificat antiphon in Latin. A different priest leads Vespers each night during this week. The Magnificat antiphons all start with the word ‘O’, so are called the ‘O antiphons.’ They have been in use since at least the eighth century. Each one is a Scriptural title of the Messiah. The full list of antiphons is:

At Solemn Vespers, during the Magnificat, the priest leading Vespers incenses the altar.

These antiphons (in English, at least) might sound familiar. That is because they form the verses of the Christmas hymn O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. The hymn was written in 1851, based on these antiphons.

People have often noticed that the first letters of the words after the ‘O’ can be written backwards to spell ‘ero cras.’ This is Latin for ‘I will be tomorrow’ or ‘Tomorrow I will be.’ Although it might be a coincidence, it is a nice thought that the Magnificat antiphons of this week have the message of what Christmas is really about – Christ will be here.