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Liturgy, Scripture, Spirituality, Writing

Lost in Translation

Christine Eberle

I really ought to get over it. The “new” translation of the New American Bible hasn’t been new since I was in college (1986), and it’s been in liturgical use for more than two decades now. But, every once in a while, something about the revised edition hits my ear badly and sets my head shaking again. This was one of those days.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is on his way to heal the dying daughter of synagogue leader Jairus when they are halted by an afflicted woman who (literally) reaches out for a cure by touching the tassel of Jesus’ cloak. The ensuing conversation delays the trip to Jairus’ house long enough for people to arrive with news that the child has died. Turning to the stricken father, Jesus says . . .

“Do not be afraid; just have faith.”

Seriously?

I suspect it’s the word “just” that bugs me. Such a dismissive little word. Like the “Just Say No” anti-drug campaign of the 80’s, or Nike’s “Just Do It” commercials, the reality is so much harder than the word “just” implies. In the old (1970) New American Bible—the version engraved on my heart—Jesus says: “Fear is useless; what is needed is trust.” That has always moved me. “Fear is useless” sounds so much stronger than “Do not be afraid.”

I remember, in grad school, learning about the continuum of approaches to biblical translation. On one end is literal translation–as close as possible to word-for-word. On the other is paraphrase–rendering the ancient languages in chatty, accessible prose. In the middle is something called dynamic equivalence, which aims to convey the meaning of the original as fluently as possible in the new language. As I understand it, this was the intent of the 1970 NAB, but it was perceived as having gone too far. The 1986 version is more literal, but to me it feels like they’ve sucked the poetry out of all my favorite texts.

I’m on this today not to lobby for the old translation—clearly, that ship has sailed—but because of a realization that hit me as I was fussing about it.

Last week, I reviewed the suggested copyedits for my new book, including the insertion of translation acronyms after every Scripture citation. In addition to the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE), I’ve use the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE), the King James and New King James Versions (KJV & NKJV), and even something called the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB). What is wrong with me? I wondered as I went through the text. Why can’t I just pick a translation and stick with it? (Hah! Once again, “just” is harder than it sounds.) This morning, I realized why: it’s because the translation in my head doesn’t exist anymore, so I’m forever searching for the one that comes closest.

The next time a line of Scripture catches your attention, I highly recommend visiting Bible Gateway, where you can see it in over sixty English translations. (But not the 1970 NAB; for that, you have to haunt used bookshops like I do!) Perhaps you’ll discover a nuance you hadn’t grasped, or a phrasing that speaks to your present circumstances. The most important thing is that you let the Word “dwell in you richly” (to cite many translations of Colossians 3:16), remaining close to your heart where it can make a difference in how you approach the world.

As for me, I’m just going to keep muttering “fear is useless” . . .

Liturgy, Scripture, Spirituality

Do You Not Care?

Christine Eberle

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” (Mark 4:38)

These words from today’s Gospel are on my shortlist of saddest lines in Scripture. It’s right up there with Martha’s and Mary’s response when Jesus finally shows up after Lazarus has been in the tomb for four days: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

In the other accounts of the Storm at Sea, the disciples simply cry out “Lord, save us! We are perishing” (Matthew 8), or “Master, master, we are perishing” (Luke 8). Those sound like the desperate prayers any of us might utter in a crisis. But in Mark, they say “Do you not care that we are perishing?” Ouch. (I suspect that “Do you not care?” was the subtext of the sisters’ words as well—implying that a caring Jesus would have arrived in time to save his friend.)

Mark’s Gospel is shorter and terser than than the other two, so it’s unusual that his account would have more words. It’s also the oldest Gospel, though, so perhaps the other evangelists edited out the apostles’ accusation, finding it unseemly. Yet their question strikes me as perfectly human—and refreshingly honest.

Read more: Do You Not Care?

The feeling that we are going under, or that someone we love is about to slip from our grasp, is indeed terrible. This morning, I’m thinking of the people evacuating Ruidoso, New Mexico ahead of raging wildfires, the couple from my parish racing across the country to be there for their son’s brain surgery, and all the suffering souls in Gaza, Israel, Ukraine, Sudan, and countless other places. The enormity of what people endure is staggering; feeling like God is asleep or indifferent compounds the misery.

Does knowing that even Jesus’ closest friends doubted his care for them offer any consolation? Does belief in their eventual rescue—the storm stilled, Lazarus raised—offer the least bit of solace when we’re in the thick of our own distress? That, my friends, is a question only you can answer for yourself.

What helps me is remembering how many times I’ve reached the other side of a metaphorical storm—emotional, medical, financial, interpersonal—and found my feet on the damp sand of life’s next chapter. Awareness of what God has done nurtures trust in what God may yet do, so I try to begin from a place of gratitude.

One of my favorite Easter hymns is “Sing with All the Saints in Glory,” set to the tune of Beethoven’s “Hymn to Joy.” It contains these marvelous lines:

All around the clouds are breaking,
Soon the storms of time shall cease;
In God’s likeness we awaken,
Knowing everlasting peace.

The song doesn’t minimize suffering, but it does put it in perspective. No storm lasts forever. We will know relief, whether in this world or the world to come.

Whatever storms you are experiencing right now, I invite you to be as honest with God as Martha, Mary, and those soaking-wet disciples were with Jesus. From that place of honesty, may you grasp the outstretched hands of gratitude and hope, waiting to lead you to a place of peace.

Scripture, Spirituality, Writing

What Happened Next?

Christine Eberle

What treasures from my chest would I not shove
if Jesus looked at me with that much love?

For months now, I’ve been playing around with the story of the Rich Man in Mark (which you can read here) as an assignment for the Jesuit Media Lab’s Imagining the Gospel series. It’s the Gospel for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (October 13), so I have months left to muse on it. But when I began my morning with Pray As You Go, I discovered that it is also the Gospel for today—Monday of the 8th Week of Ordinary Time. So it felt right to share with you my thoughts in progress.

Although poetry is not my medium, something about this passage kept pulling me in that direction—specifically, the discipline and economy demanded by a sonnet. Perhaps Jesus’ invitation to pare down the rich man’s possessions made me want to do the same with my words?

I’m not saying it’s a good sonnet; mostly, it feels like a high school English assignment—compressing my thoughts into fourteen lines of iambic pentameter. But the ending couplet that began this post has stayed with me:

What treasures from my chest would I not shove
if Jesus looked at me with that much love?

The story begins with the rich man running up to Jesus, ostensibly seeking guidance but quick to say he’s kept all the Commandments from his youth. (Oy. Brag much?) We know how it ends: after Jesus tells him he’s only lacking one thing (go, sell all you have, give to the poor, and come follow me), the man goes away sad, for his possessions are many. But sometimes we forget the middle, the pivot-point: “Jesus, looking at him, loved him.”

Why did Jesus love him? I don’t think it was his spiritual resume. (Oh, you’ve kept all the Commandments?) Perhaps he was touched by the man’s earnestness or even his anxiety—that someone who’d followed all the rules would still have such deep unease about the path to salvation.

On the other hand, maybe asking “why” Jesus loved him is not the right question. Maybe that spontaneous, compassionate regard is the nature of the beholder, not the merit of the beheld. Maybe to be looked at by Jesus is to be loved by him.

So, what happened next? Was that love transformative? Did the rich man go away sad because he knew he wouldn’t be able to tear himself away from all those possessions—or because he knew how much work lay ahead of him?

I hope it was the latter, but the pressing question today is simply this: Can we allow ourselves to stand in that divine gaze long enough to be transformed by the knowledge of how deeply we are loved?

“What Happened Next?” (with apologies to Shakespeare)

As on a journey they were setting out,
I bet the muttered epithets were rife
When some rich guy delayed them with a shout:
What must I do to gain eternal life?

Our Lord, so patient, listed out the Ten
Commandments. Oh, I’ve kept them from my youth!
“You have but only one thing lacking, then:
Sell all and give, then come and follow Truth.”

Poor foolish burdened ass, you well may say—
Too tied to “stuff” for generous reply.
But I suspect that, as he walked away,
Sheer magnitude of work’s what made him sigh.

What treasures from my chest would I not shove
If Jesus looked at me with that much love?

And here’s the final version, if you’re curious.

Uncategorized

Pilgrimage is Life: Camino Stories

Christine Eberle

In April, I had the privilege of being a panelist on a webinar co-sponsored by Le Moyne College and the Ignatian Volunteer Corps. Click here for an engaging conversation facilitated by John Green (IVC’s VP for Partnership Engagement) with me, Jim Casey (one of my Ignatian Camino buddies) and his wife Evelyn Cannon (with whom Jim has made many pilgrimages along the Camino de Santiago).

Enjoy!

Spirituality

Sprucing Up

Christine Eberle

They’re not even ours. The twin spruce trees with gnarly intertwined branches belong to our up-the-hill neighbor. Given the vagaries of property lines here in coastal Maine, however, they are right outside our dining room window. They’re what I gaze at over every meal, almost close enough to touch. I love these trees. And someone has butchered them.

Continue reading “Sprucing Up” →
Book Tour, Spirituality, Writing

Finding God Along the Way: Coming January 14 from Paraclete Press

Christine Eberle

You may remember that I made a month-long pilgrimage in the fall of 2022 in the company of twenty-four remarkable souls inspired by the life of St. Ignatius Loyola. Finding God Along the Way: Wisdom from the Ignatian Camino for Life at Home traces our spiritual adventure from its pre-pandemic conception to the lasting transformations we experienced on the far side. Although the book might inspire future pilgrims, I wrote it for those who will make the journey only in their imagination, as the fruit of this experience should not be reserved for those with the freedom to walk away from their life for a month.

I am so grateful to the good people at Paraclete Press for their enthusiastic embrace of my book and their prayerful approach to every aspect of its production and marketing. By mid-May, I’ll have a cover image; stay tuned.

1736812860

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Pub Date!

Note: We’d originally thought that the book would launch on February 25, and were excited about its being the feast day of Blessed Sebastian de Aparicio, patron saint of travelers and road builders. But we want to have it firmly in people’s hands in time for Lent, so January 14 it is. I can’ wait! (But I shall.)

To ensure that you receive the pre-order announcement for the book, make sure you are signed up for my newsletter (which I send approximately monthly).

I promise not to flood your inbox or sell your address; unsubscribe at will!

Blessings for the journey . . .
Christine

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mountains with an arrow painted on the rocks

Pictured here: one of the countless orange arrows marking the Ignatian Way!

Liturgy, Scripture, Spirituality

This is Only a Test

Christine Eberle

“In this you rejoice, although now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6-7)

For decades, I have maintained that the Lent we get is harder than the Lent we choose.  We choose give-ups and take-ups that feel challenging yet manageable, then life gets busy throwing at us things that are challenging yet unmanageable. That’s why I’m always encouraging people to “Live the Lent You Get,” allowing life to become its own Lenten discipline.  Nevertheless, the intensity of this one caught me by surprise.

Photo of Valerie Lee-Jeter McKenzie with a link to her obituary.
Valerie Lee-Jeter McKenzie
1957 – 2024

Or maybe it was just February. In the first half of the month, four friends lost close relatives—not one at a “ripe old age.” One former colleague died; two others landed in the hospital. On the evening of February 6, one of my aunts broke her hip and my choir director stopped breathing at home. My aunt came through surgery and is progressing well, but Valerie never regained consciousness, dying on the day before Ash Wednesday after forty years at the musical helm of St. Vincent’s.

That’s how this Lent began.

Continue reading “This is Only a Test” →
Spirituality

Here Comes Valentine’s (Ash Wednes) Day Again!

Christine Eberle

When this weird overlap of sacred and secular observances happened in 2018, it was the first time in 73 years. But we get a do-over now, and another in 2029, so I guess we should pay attention.

Here, then, is a lightly edited version of my previous post on the topic . . .

Bleeding heart flowers with link to previous blog post

I’m not sure how many people are dismayed by the collision of Catholic and Hallmark holidays. Probably not as many as the Internet would have us believe. But those who would persuade us that this is a conflict are misunderstanding both days, selling us—literally—on an artificial, commercial understanding of love.

Every February, we’re told that we should “say it with flowers,” and the price of roses shoots up. Grocery stores’ seasonal aisles fill—on the day after Christmas—with giant heart-shaped boxes of chocolate.  Jewelry stores run commercials featuring gifts in the the “now I know you love me” price range.

But real love – romantic or otherwise – has never been about that stuff.  Real love is much more akin to the three disciplines of Lent—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving:

Flowers v. Prayer
Whatever the “it” is that needs to be said, I’d rather have the words. Sincere words / meaningful conversation / shared vulnerability—things that don’t wither up and die by next Wednesday. It’s what we need in our personal relationships, romantic or otherwise, and it’s what we need in our relationship with God. Showing up. Saying what we feel. Listening for the response. Being vulnerable before the One we love.  That’s a pretty good description of prayer, and an open invitation to spend a little extra time with God this season.

Candy v. Fasting
I do not understand why chocolate is invested with so much power: THE symbol of Valentine’s Day and THE thing to give up for Lent. Real love is always more about sacrifice than consumption. And by sacrifice I don’t mean “Oh no, I can’t eat that; it’s Lent!”  I mean that we give up stuff for each other all the time. Parents give up sleep for their infants; teachers give up weekends to grade their students’ papers; housemates give up couch time to do the dishes; college students give up whatever when a friend needs a ride or a shoulder or a study partner. That’s the spirit in which we can frame our Lenten sacrifices, too . . . not setting up some sort of Olympic deprivation hurdle for ourselves, but simply asking what we can let go of in order to create more space in our hearts / minds / lives / schedules. This, then, frees us to be more responsive to the needs of those we love and those God loves—which is everyone.

Jewelry v. Almsgiving
TV commercials would have us believe that love is best expressed with a jaw-dropping price tag. We know that’s not true. But real love is generous. Love is open-eyed and openhearted. Love sees the need—the need of the person right in front of us, and the needs of people we will never meet. And love responds—sometimes with money, other times with attention or service or time. Lent invites us to that kind of generosity, and calls it almsgiving.

So as we move into the season of Lent, go ahead and let this divine alignment of Valentine’s Ash Wednesday set the tone.

  • Carve out quality time with the God you love.
  • Give up something that gets in the way of your freedom to love.
  • And let that love overflow with generosity.

Blessings as you go . . .

Christine

Scripture, Spirituality

The Grace of Pajamas

Christine Eberle

We’ve reached the end of the Christmas season. Today, Luke’s shepherds and angels yield to Matthew’s magi with their exotic gifts. Tomorrow is the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. On Tuesday, with a sigh of sadness or possibly relief, we return to Ordinary Time.  As we put away our nativity sets, it may be comforting to remember John’s description of the Incarnation, which needs no crèche to hold it:

“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.”  (John 1:14)

Often, nuances of familiar passages can reveal themselves in unfamiliar translations. Using Bible Gateway, I discovered that the Orthodox Jewish Bible (a 21st century English translation drawing on Yiddish and Hebrew cultural expressions) tells us that “the Dvar Hashem (Word of God) made his sukkah among us.” This is a poignant image for those of us blessed to live in Jewish neighborhoods, where even Catholics know it’s the Feast of Sukkot because of the sukkahs that spring up in nearby yards—or, for the yardless, on decks and balconies.

My favorite translation, however, may be the Message Bible’s chatty paraphrase: “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

Image by Alisa Dyson from Pixabay

What each of these translations captures in its own way is the startling proximity to which God committed in the Incarnation—experiencing life among and as one of us.  This has me musing about times when I have experienced the goodness of proximity with others, or what I’ve taken to calling The Grace of Pajamas.

Three times during this season, Porter and I have awakened in someone else’s home—with family over Christmas and New Year’s weekends, and now in Boston, at the home of fellow pilgrims from our Ignatian Camino.  As fun as it is to talk on the phone or go out to dinner, there’s nothing quite like sharing space: encountering sleepy relatives or friends over the coffee pot, experiencing their morning routines, cooking together, visiting the local shops that mark their days, accompanying them on their favorite walks or to their beloved place of worship.  There’s a quality of conversation that unfolds over time, an intimacy that grows from the simple sharing of life. 

Such opportunities are as golden as they are rare.  We can’t do it with everyone; a certain threshold of comfort precedes the invitation to pajamas. But these encounters point—as all good and beautiful things do—to an everyday truth.  In Jesus, God has taken on flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. God shares life with us not just in the special times, but especially in the ordinary ones.  

The One who made us and loves us and knows us better than we know ourselves promised to be with us always (and thus in all ways). We don’t need to clean up for God. We don’t need to put our face on. We just need to say, Welcome! 

In this new year, as you go about the ordinary routines of your days . . . coffee pot, meal prep, dishes, laundry, work, errands, rinse, repeat . . . may you know God’s startling proximity, trust God’s abiding friendship, and experience the grace of those divine pajamas.