|
|
| Lord's Prayer |
|
The living rosary seen by Purina Sansfoy features men with foghorns as the Our Fathers [St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, 44].
Mother Ximenes' Handbook for Grade School Nuns features a section that says Protestants have a funny way of saying this prayer [St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, 110].
Mother Ximenes' Handbook for Grade School Nuns also features a section that discusses ways to turn any parish's procession into a spectacular event - or close to it [St. Fidgeta & Other Parodies, 112-3]. It is noted St. Semina's grade school once amassed a number of these prayers, among other, in two months.
And how do Catholics say it? Bowen notes two differences of the Our Father he was aware of in his youth. "Where at least some Protestants said 'forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,' Catholics said 'trespasses' and 'those who trespass against us.' The big difference, however, was Catholics did not, at that time, recite the Doxology at the end - that is (and I remember this very well from public school), after we all said 'and deliver us from evil,' the Catholic kids fell silent and waited while the Protestant kids said 'for Thine is the kingdom...' etc., and then we came in again on the 'Amen.' I believe that Catholics did start saying the same Doxology later, which must have caused great confusion to those old souls (no doubt including many grade-school nuns) who had believed all their lives that we said the true and original version, which the Protestants had somehow diluted."
Myers believes at the heart of this is an obscure textual dispute over what the Bible actually says. "For what it's worth, the Catholics here apparently have the facts on their side. The oldest extant versions of the Gospel of Matthew do stop at 'deliver us from evil.' The 'For Thine is the kingdom, etc.' was a pious bit of marginalia appended by some obscure medieval monk who was copying a manuscript. The practical effect of this textual dispute was that during the era of John's and my boyhood, when at some public gathering or other the Lord's Prayer was being recited you would hear a distinct drop-off in volume as all the Catholics would shut up after 'deliver us from evil.' Or if Catholic schoolboys were present, 'For Thine is the kingdom' would be greeted with a good hissing. In comparing our separate childhood experiences, Bellairs and I both cracked up at the discovery that both of us at one time or another had hissed the Protestant version of the Our Father.
"However if we can segue forward to the post-Vatican II period, we find that in the English version of the mass The Lord's Prayer ends with 'Deliver us from evil,' but after an intermediate phrase the liturgy continues with 'For Thine is the kingdom,' so the olive branch has been proffered. This isn't the only Catholic/Protestant textual divergence: for some reason, the numbering of the Ten Commandments is somewhat different and Catholics & Orthodox Bibles have 72 books while Protestants & Jews recognize only 66. One other is that rather trite Christmas cliché, 'Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men,' which the Catholics render in a more hardheaded and realistic manner: 'Peace on Earth to Men of Good Will.'"
|
| |
|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord's_Prayer |
|
|
|
|
