Our readings for Sunday are here.
The following are the poem, my notes, and interpretation of Fr Dennis’ homily from the Mass of
- September 17, 2017 Noon
_______
The poem Fr Dennis references is:
- 2017 homily — The Calculus by Paul Hovstovsky
In 2017
- This year (2017) Pope Francis changed canon law so that the national bishop conferences have direct authority and discretion regarding the Mass translations to be used in their dioceses, rather than the Vatican.
- The 2011 translation had a flavor of “We in Rome know English better than you do.” [laughter] But, seriously, it was an attempt to normalize the many global English translations (regardless of tone) and the lone translation used in 2011 was one that hewed closer to Latin language structure …
- … which all still raises issues of translation! We will always have such challenges.
- Per D2 — examples of translation challenges in the gospel “for this grey beard”:
- The gospel story used to be told “seven times” but now is “as many as seven.” The Ancient Greek verb form has an implied expectation of an answer from Jesus akin to “no, no, 3x was fine, Peter.” But, instead, Jesus says 7 x 70 or 77 times … but basically, “over and over.” [See also the Left Behind and Loving It blog associated with this gospel passage: Ridiculous Forgiveness and Reasonable Evil].
- In the original example of forgiveness (rather than later in the parable), Jesus offers no anger in forgiveness of “the Master,” as in “otherwise my Father will be compelled to do the same to you unless you forgive from your heart,” a parallel to the king later in the parable. In other words, our choice not to forgive carries its own consequence (and God always forgives … so those consequences are unknown to God, just to us).
- “Many talents” owed by the first debtor now is a “huge amount,” from literally “myriads of talents” where “myriad” is translated as “beyond number.” One talent was 20 years of day labor, so a “myriad of talents” is like a gazillion owed.
- D2 enjoyed Paul Hostovsky’s The Calculus, for its “open-mouthed astonishment.” 🙂 Perhaps much like Peter felt in learning to be one of Jesus’ companions. Like us, as we follow our astonishment to follow Peter following Christ.
And I (re)used the photo of a Monarch butterfly on goldenrod, attributed to Michael Barrick. This summer we saw more butterflies in our neighborhood than for some time, including Monarch butterflies. But, then again, we have also planted many native and nectar plants to feed the butterflies, buzzies, and humming birds! These lives thriving after having all (or so much) of God’s food for them removed and now bit-by-bit returning seems one face of forgiveness.
The Surest Sign 