On the Jussive Subjunctive in Liturgical Absolutions

Adelphoi,

More for you to think about as you pronouce the Absolution in Holy Week.


At the beginning of the Latin Mass after the Confession of sins, the Priest says, "Misereatur vestri omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis vestris, perducat vos ad vitam" and the people respond with "Amen". Then he Priest says, "Indulgentiam, absolutionem, et remissionem peccatorum nostrorum, tribuat nobis omnipotens et misericors Dominus" and the people respond with "Amen".

Here we have the use of the Jussive Subjunctive, that form of the Subjunctive which normally expresses a command or order. Fiat Lux - Let there be light.

Now there is no doubt but that Roman Catholic doctrine presupposes that an ordained Priest has been given authority by the Lord Christ to pronounce surely and really the absolution, remission and pardon of sins to the penitent. Thus the use of the Jussive Subjunctive in the Absolution is to be understood as putting this doctrine into place and action so that what the Priest says is a sure word of the Lord to the penitent.

So in whatever way we translate the Latin into English we must communicate this certainty, which is a divine certainty.

If we look in The Book of Common Prayer at the Absolutions there, which were written in the sixteenth century as translations of Latin originals, we find that the jussive subjunctive is rendered thus: "Almighty God, our heavenly Father,.have mercy upon you; pardon and deliver you from all your sins." Here the Priest utters a sure word of God to those who are repentant and believe the Gospel.

If we look in the Anglican Missals, produced by Anglicans to enrich the Order of Holy Communion in the Prayer Book from the Latin Mass, we find that the Latin quoted above is translated thus: "Almighty God have mercy upon you, forgive you your sins, and bring you to everlasting life" & "The Almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution, and remission of sins."

However, when we turn to several of the Missals of the 1950s and 1960s for use by Roman Catholic laity in the USA and where the Latin is on one side and an English translation on the opposite side, we find a different approach to translation. For example, in The Marian Missal (Regina Press, NYC, 1963), the English translations are: "May almighty God be merciful unto you, and forgiving you your sins, bring you to everlasting life" & "May the almighty and merciful Lord grant us pardon, absolution and remission of our sins."

And in the official translation of the modern Roman Catholic Mass, the use of "May" continues: "May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life." However, if one examines the German, French, Spanish, Portugese and Italian translations of the Latin they are more like the traditional English translation of the Anglican Missals, expressing a performative power of divine certainty.

Modern Anglican liturgists, while not abandoning completely the traditional English style and form of Absolution, seem to prefer the modern Roman Catholic way. In Common Worship (2000) of the Church of England, where a large variety of Absolutions are provided, the greater proportion of them is in the "May" form.

In that we are told that modern liturgy is to be simple, intelligible, accessible and meaningful, then the common sense meaning of the verbal form of "may" needs to be taken seriously. Very few people understand the mysteries of the subjunctive, let alone the jussive subjunctive, but, generally speaking, most people regard the use of "may" as not communicating a certainty - e.g. "I may come to see you" is far from certain and "May you get better" is merely the expression of a wish.

Why this preference for "may" forms in the new liturgies? Here are three possible answers which need not be mutually exclusive. The first is the general ignorance and awkwardness of liturgical language devised by committees of liturgists who are not specialists in language per se. For some, it appears, inserting the word "may" makes the text more elegant. The second is the possible egalitarianism of members of these liturgical committees,so that they prefer to avoid giving the impression that the priestly office carries with it some special authority or power of absolution that is not inherent in "the whole people of God. And the third is that with the generally lowered sense of sin in church people today, the desire for an absolution that is certain and clear is not intense.

It would appear that Thomas Cranmer and his fellow editors of the Prayer Book had the right sense of the jussive subjunctive in Absolutions and their style of translation is the correct one, if, and only if, we intend that the Absolution be a sure word of God to the penitent

The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon