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Q u i c k Q u e s t i o n s
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This Rock
Volume 13, Number 1
 January 2002 
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Word for Word?
Q: In the Our Father, Jesus taught his disciples to pray for deliverance from the "Evil One," not merely from "evil" as such. Why hasn’t this prayer been translated accurately? Shouldn’t we be praying what Jesus taught us to pray, word for word?
A: First, Jesus probably didn’t teach the Our Father in Greek (the language we have the Gospels in) but in Aramaic, so any English version is a translation of a translation.
Second, you can’t always translate word for word because the results would be awkward or even unintelligible. Translation invariably involves splitting words in two, combining them, dropping them out, adding them, or rearranging them, depending on the rules of the language you are translating into. To refuse to do any of these things would result in a lousy translation.
If it were translated in a strictly word-for-word manner, the Our Father would read like this: "Father of-us the in the heavens, let-be-made-holy the name of-you, let-come the kingdom of-you, let-come-about the will of-you, as in heaven also upon earth. The bread of-us the daily give to-us today and dismiss to-us the debts of-us, as also we dismissed to-the debtors of-us. And not into-bring us into trial, but deliver us from the evil."
Third, languages obey different rules and translations cannot be done in a strictly word-for-word manner. Translators are sometimes confronted with situations where they have to make a decision about how to render something, because the original can have more than one meaning, and there is no good way to express this ambiguity in the translation.
An example of this is the one you mention. Greek tends to use the definite article (in English, the word the) much more than we do. For example, you might read about "the Paul" going and saying something to "the Peter" about "the Jesus the Christ." Because it gets used in Greek so frequently and in ways that English doesn’t use it, translators have to decide when to drop it and when to include it in their translations.
One such case is at the end of the Our Father. The Greek literally says "the evil." Does this mean "the evil one" or does it just mean "evil"? Because of the way the article is used in Greek, it can have either meaning. In fact, because language can be deliberately ambiguous, it could mean both—i.e., "deliver us from the evil one and from evil in general."
The English translators of the Our Father chose one option rather than another, but it isn’t an option where you can look at the Greek and say, "That’s wrong. That’s not what the Greek says." On the other hand, one can look at the "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" and say "That is wrong. The words in Greek are clearly debts and debtors, not trespasses and those who trespass against." This criticism affects only the English version of the Our Father. (The Pater Noster, for example, has it right: debita and debitoribus.)
Q: Why does the Catholic Church allow Protestant ministers that have converted to Catholicism become priests if they are married and have children? It would seem that their family would be their priority rather than the Church and the parishioners.
A: The Church makes a pastoral provision for the priestly ordination of former Protestant ministers because it seems prudent to allow those who have served as ministers to continue to pursue the calling to ministry that they feel, that they have trained for, and that they have exercised throughout their careers. The prudence of this pastoral provision is especially obvious in the case of Anglican ministers who desire to become Catholic along with their parishes. In such cases, the minister has a special relationship with his parishioners that facilitates the full communion of the entire group.
However, in other cases it is true that a minister with a family would have difficulty serving as the pastor of a Catholic parish. In these cases they are not assigned as pastors but serve in another capacity.
Q: I have come across many early Christian writings from the likes of Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage, Ambrose of Milan, as well as Augustine that support baptism by desire. My question is whether there is anywhere in Scripture that supports this.
A: The conversion of Cornelius’s household appears to be a case of baptism of desire in Scripture. In this case we know that Cornelius and his household had not yet been water baptized (for after the experience Peter orders that they go on to be water baptized; Acts 10:47–48).
While still in their pre-baptized condition, they hear the gospel from Peter (10:34–43), and as they respond to it the Holy Spirit descends upon them and enables them to speak in tongues (10:44–46). This proves to Peter that they are acceptable to God and do not have to become Jews in order to become Christians.
Since the reception of the Holy Spirit is one of the blessings of salvation and is associated with baptism, it appears that they were placed in a state of grace by their response to the gospel and filled with the Holy Spirit even though they did not yet have water baptism. They thus would seem to be saved by baptism of desire, God allowing them to share in the blessings of salvation that are normally associated with baptism (Acts 2:38) even before the reception of the sacrament. Peter is quick to insist, however, that they go on to receive the sacrament that their desire for Christ has already initiated.
Another possible example of baptism by desire is the thief on the cross. In his case we do not know that he was not baptized (by this time thousands of people in the area had been) and he likely died in the transitional period in history before baptism was mandatory for salvation.
Q: How is Easter Sunday determined? Palm Sunday? Ash Wednesday?
A: Jesus rose from the dead on the first Sunday following the feast of Passover. (Technically, he may have risen Saturday night, but that still counts as Sunday on the Jewish reckoning, which begins each day at sunset instead of at midnight.)
The date of Passover is a complicated thing. Theoretically, the date should be the fourteenth of the Jewish month of Nisan, and it should correspond to a full moon (the Jewish calendar being partly lunar). In practice, it didn’t always work out that way. The month-moon cycles got out of synch, and sometimes feasts would be held on a "liturgical" full moon even when it was not an astronomical full moon. As a result, rabbis periodically had to announce when Passover would be celebrated.
Christians didn’t like being dependent on the pronouncements of rabbis for how to celebrate Christian feasts, so they came up with another way of determining the date. They decided that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after (never on) the Paschal full moon.
Theoretically, the Paschal full moon is the first full moon occurring on or after the spring equinox. However, this day can be reckoned in different ways. One way is by looking at the sky, which yields the astronomicalspring equinox. But since this shifts from year to year, most people follow the calendrical spring equinox, which is reckoned as March 21.
On the Gregorian calendar (the one that we use), Easter is the first Sunday after the Paschal full moon, which is the first full moon on or after March 21. Easter thus always falls between March 22 and April 25.
Now, to find Palm Sunday (the sixth Sunday of Lent) you start with the date of Easter and back up one week: It is the Sunday before Easter Sunday.
To find Ash Wednesday, you start with the date of Easter Sunday, back up six weeks (that gives you the first Sunday of Lent), and then back up four more days: Ash Wednesday is the Wednesday before the first Sunday of Lent.
Q: My mother was divorced six years ago now, and has just recently been thinking about starting the annulment process. A question arose when we were discussing this: Would my siblings and I be considered illegitimate, that since the marriage was annulled, it is considered to never have existed, thus making us born out of wedlock?
A: The bottom line answer to your question is that an annulment has no effect whatsoever on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the children born from a particular union. Children either are or are not illegitimate, regardless of whether an annulment is granted or not.
Most of the time, even when an annulment is granted, the children are still legitimate. This is because canon law specifies that "Children conceived or born of a valid or putative marriage are legitimate" (CIC 1137). "An invalid marriage is called putative if it has been celebrated in good faith by at least one of the parties, until both parties become certain of its nullity" (CIC 1061 §3). This means that as long as oneof the parties thought they were being married, all of the children born of that union will be legitimate.
The only way for invalid children to be born would be if neither party thought they were getting married (that is, both knew going in that the union was invalid) or if both at some point become certain that their union is invalid yet keep having children anyway. (In the latter case, the only illegitimate children would be those born after the point that both parties became certain.)
It is also possible, even when children have been born illegitimately that they can be rendered canonically legitimate (CIC 1139). This is possible because legitimacy is a legal rather than a moral concept. It is used in various law systems to determine such things as child support and inheritance rights, but it is no reflection on the child.
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