A FLAWED TRANSLATION?
by Peter Roman
Early reviewers of John Paul II's <Crossing the Threshold of Hope>,
have generally failed to note that the English-language edition
leaves much to be desired, several Roman sources have told <Inside
the Vatican>.
In November, a Carmelite priest stationed in Rome brought of his own
accord to our Rome offices a photocopy of the first pages of the
Pope's book in both its English and Italian versions. The priest told
us he believed the English translation was "just terrible," filled
with "minor and major changes" in comparison with the original.
Several others in Rome we queried on this matter advised us that
they, too, were unhappy with the translation.
In all honesty, the changes seemed rather minor to us, but we only
had a half-dozen pages before us.
We grew more concerned when a Polish author living in Britain
contacted our offices in England, again without any prior initiative
on our part, and told us that she had compared the English
translation with the original Polish, and found the English version
extremely problematic. We asked the author to provide us with a
detailed list of the alleged problems, and she agreed, but as of
press time we had not received her report.
Our own re-reading of the text suggests to us that in at least one
area, there has been a type of "ideological" tension at work,
suggesting that this book has not escaped the current language battle
in the Church.
As we are daily reminded, the creature labeled <homo sapiens> by
science, and <man> by traditional theologians, is now called <human
being> by most writers in English. The translators of the Pope's
original Polish favored the term <man> for most of his remarks about
the species, but the quotations he cites from Scripture were from a
gender neutral translation which has <human> in places where man
formerly appeared.
The result is an occasional linguistic schizophrenia between John
Paul's general use of the traditional <man> and the Scripture
translators use of <human> and its variations.
We await further information on this matter, and will publish a
fuller account when we have that information in hand.
The early commentators have tended to see the book as more or less an
innovative catechism. The question and answer exchange between the
Pope and Italian journalist Vittorio Messori invites such an
approach, at least initially. (See <Inside the Vatican>, November,
1994.)
In catechetical fashion, questions are asked about God, faith,
redemption and salvation, Mary, prayer, the Church (especially the
"Scandal and Mystery" of the papacy and Vatican II), other religions,
evil, heaven-hell-purgatory, the present age, human rights, and the
coming millennium. Thus, a reader tends to look for the Pope's
answers to specific moral, dogmatic, historical, and philosophical
questions.
His answers have inevitably drawn responses that reflect the
predisposition of individual reviewers. Those with little or no
appreciation for traditional Christianity reject his responses as too
traditional. Some who apparently detest hierarchal religion even
accuse Messori of collusion with the Pope, as though the two were
involved in a rigged quiz show. Others have alleged that the book is
an <Opus Dei> plot, aided and abetted by crass, multi-national
commercial interests.
But seekers of various persuasions-despite what might appear to be
the case from notices in the publications like the <Washington Post>
and <The New York Times>- have, generally, found the book rich and
informative. This includes Catholics of both liberal and conservative
sympathies. Msgr. F. X. Murphy, "Xavier Rynne" of Vatican II fame,
for example, judged that the book "surpasses the usefulness of the
Catechism."
One thing that needs to be stressed is that <Crossing the
Threshold>is Karol Wojtyla's testament for this age and for the ages.
The 74-year-old Christian, Pope, priest, poet, mystic, theologian,
wrote this work to tell the widest possible audience what he
believes, what he thinks should be believed, and in the course of
doing this, he also tells why he has lived the life of faith that
he's lived.
Totally caught up in his labor of love for Christ, he stole minutes
from his fiercely self- punishing Pauline evangelizing to reveal, in
a conversational, informal manner, his total commitment to Christ and
His Church, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic.
The soul of this book is a man's absolute belief in God, and his
conviction that this world is leading to an eternal world.
Though there are 244 pages of reflections on history, other
religions, theological and philosophical subjects, all doctrine,
analysis, and argument is secondary to the writer's belief and faith.
One could compare the intellectual discourses to the vestments,
words, petitions, music and hallelujahs that lead to and surround the
Real Presence. That presence, in this book, is the living God who
loves his creature, who has fashioned a world in which mankind <may>
not only share but must share in God's existence if His will is truly
to be done.
In essence, this book is a long, discursive meditation by a man of
prayer.
The relationship between the triune God of Christianity and his human
creatures is central to the book.
John Paul feels that one of the chief sources of the bleak view most
moderns have of their species can be traced to the extreme
rationalism of French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596-1650), the man
who gave us one of philosophy's most memorable one- liners: "I think,
therefore I am." John Paul argues that defining mankind by mental
activity without reference to God destroys the creator-creature,
Father-child relationship that is absolutely fundamental to mankind's
true sense of itself, its world, and God. Following St. Thomas, he
stresses that existence determines thought, thought does not define
existence: "I think the way I think because I am that which I am-a
creature-and because...I am-a creature-and because He is He who is,
<the absolute uncreated Mystery>. If he were not Mystery, there would
be no need for Revelation...." (p. 38)
Since the 17th Century increasingly negative views of <homo sapiens>
have been dominating Western intellectual life, until today the
Western <zeitgeist> seems to view human beings as a botched job. The
human creature is now held to be a product of impersonal, mindless,
random elements. It enjoys a short period of consciousness, and is
soon annihilated. The only comfort this view offers human beings is
momentary pleasure-acquired by power, possessions, and the
distractions of sensual life. This scheme of things sees the highest
pleasure as physical, the most lasting the esthetic-the arts.
For John Paul this view is destructive and is caused by fear and the
absence of hope. Thus, his insistence that human beings "Be not
afraid!" He would have creatures concentrate on the joy implicit in
the very act of creation itself (p. 20). He, not surprisingly,
expresses the traditional Catholic view of creation, found (again) in
St. Thomas Aquinas: human life is best explained as a loving
Creator's expression of his love. Human beings must become active
participants in the Creator's expression of love, by recreating
themselves, by creative acts, especially by love (<caritas>), prayer,
meditation, contemplation, which will unite the creature with the
Creator.
The initial and absolutely crucial truth John Paul would have us
grasp to realize our true identity is: "the certainty that Someone
exists who holds in His hands the destiny of this passing world;
someone who holds the keys to death and the netherworld (cf. Rev
1:18)... And this Someone is Love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8, 16)-Love that became
man, Love crucified and risen, Love unceasingly present among men. It
is Eucharistic love. It is the infinite source of communion" (p.
222).
Only one who comes to believe "in the essential goodness of creation
is capable of discovering all the secrets of creation" and able "to
perfect continually the work assigned... by God." For, the great work
of men and women "is to perfect creation- be it oneself, be it the
world."
In the eyes of the secularist, life is birth, 70 or so years of
higher animal consciousness, then annihilation; for John Paul life is
creation, redemption, salvation and eternal fulfillment in that abode
of "essential joy" (p. 21), creation perfect and unending-that is,
heaven.
So, how does <Crossing the Threshold> see creatures made for eternity
getting there? What does it recommend for this modern secular and
consumer generation? It recommends precisely what holy people of God,
the mystics and saints, have always prescribed-loving God entirely
and neighbor as self. What is fresh about the Pope's recommendations
is his enthusiasm, his optimism, his fervor, his insistence on joy,
and his personal example. His words ring with the sincerity of a man
who has lived the life he is advocating others live.
Yet, his teachings are the centuries-old teachings of the Church: man
comes to a knowledge of God by God's grace, through the Holy Spirit,
by Scripture, by faith, hope, and charity (love), by prayer and the
sacraments.
No one is more ready to admit than the Pope that the process whereby
the creature of nature "puts on Jesus Christ" and becomes Christlike
is a mystery, and not completely open to rational analysis. He has no
twelve-step program. The Pope does, however, describe a process that
reminds us we must be ready to deal with mysteries. He does deal in
the images, contradictions, and paradoxes presented by Scripture and
the poet- mystics. In these remind us, if we need reminding, that he
himself is one of those mystic poets -and at the same time one of the
clearest and most rational expositors of doctrine.
Both the mystic-poet and the rational expositor are at work in this
book. To take just one significant example, the book's title. The
image of someone <crossing> a <threshold> into hope captures the
essence of the book -the mysterious movement into hope, faith and
charity.
The title where this image is embedded is the Pope's own, Messori
tells us in his preface. And even if we had not been told, it would
soon dawn on us that the words in the title are symbols of an
essential passage a believer undergoes, not once, but many times, and
in many ways. It is a life-process and a faith-process that goes back
to the earliest of John Paul's writing-his poetry.
The word <Crossing> does not really mean what it at first seems to
mean. It does not really describe a simple movement like "crossing
the street" to enter "the abode of hope."
<Crossing> in John Paul's usage depends on the Holy Spirit. "Men will
not cross the threshold of hope," he tells us, "without the help of
the Holy Spirit." (p. 25) Again, speaking of the title in the next to
last chapter of the book he says: "It is very important... to let
oneself be led" (p. 224). <Crossing>, then, means <being led> by the
Spirit.
Every important action in the search for God is like this <crossing>
in that it is an undertaking made possible by God's guiding hand.
Consider John Paul's reply to the question, "How does the Pope pray?"
"As the Holy Spirit permits him to pray" (p. 19).
Instructive instances of the common and sacramental nature of
<crossing>s are frequent in the poetry Karol Wojtyla wrote over a
40-year period, from 1939-1979. Much of the poetry is published in
<Poezje i dramaty> (Cracow, 1980), has been translated by Jerzy
Peterkiewicz's in <The Place Within: The Poetry of John Paul II> (New
York, 1982). The quotations that follow are from that translation.
What these poems demonstrate is that numerous everyday instances of
thought, reading, encounters with others, withdrawal from the world,
provide almost sacramental occasions to for God to lead us. <Seams>
is a meditation on <being drawn into>:
this drawing into...more inward
than any visible world-this drawing in by the Word:
by silence rather than speech,
this drawing in by Love which both moves and halts motion,
this drawing into "the shattering and enchanting mystery"-
it must have a sign.
The sign is Christ, and the <crossing> is both going into the silence
of one's inmost being and going out to meet "Him who walks always
ahead."
When one is drawn into Christ, one is led into an intensified inner
awareness, but not without pain. It can be like the pain of carrying
a cross:
I would not carry it. And now this pain-
how much longer is it to last?-
feebly accepted at first, now like the moth
slowly eating its way through the fabric
wearing out iron.
The Pope's book insists that Christianity is a demanding religion,
but if <followed> will prove a light burden. The poetry told us that
the reality of God's "leading" turns out to be "more magnificent than
painful." (<Now I Begin to Discern Individual Profiles>)
<Crossing the Threshold> emphasizes the influence of St. John of the
Cross had on the young Karol Wojtyla: "Before entering the seminary,
I met a layman named Jan Tyranowski, who was a true mystic. This man,
whom I consider to be a saint, introduced me to the great Spanish
mystics and in particular to Saint John of the Cross.
"Even before entering the underground seminary, I read the works of
that mystic, especially his poetry. In order to read it in the
original, I studied Spanish. That was a very important stage in my
life. (p.142)
The Spanish mystic is hovering in the background of Wojtyla's poetic
journeys and crossings, upward or downward. In a series of poems
about "The Woman at the Well," the descent into the well and the
drawing up of "living water" each images union with the divine.
"Maturing" is seen as "a descent into a hidden core."
Even a footbridge can lead to a thought and to a mystical drawing in:
"I take my first step on a footbridge./ My heart... Is thought a
footbridge?" <Thought> itself is as sacramental an action as any the
poet experiences. But it is in silence that the deepest serenity
occurs:
The distant shores of silence begin
at the door. You cannot fly there
Like a bird. You must stop, look deeper,
still deeper, until nothing deflects the soul
from the deepmost deep.
(<Shores of Silence>)
The books title makes it quite clear that <hope> follows the
crossing, but what precedes "being led"? What enables one to cross to
the "Place Within," or to live in the landscape of hope in the face
of the world's hopelessness? God's grace, is the book's response.
Moving toward hope is comparable in some ways to being able to pray,
which is the worship of God in "Spirit and truth" (p. 142).
But also somehow a part of all <crossings> is the paradoxical
overcoming of fear and being moved by the "fear of the Lord." There
is no easy explanation of how fear is both prevents <crossing> and
makes it possible. But the book does state clearly is that "fear of
the Lord" is fear that originates with a loving father, not a fear of
authority or punishment.
The two bedrock texts of John Paul's pontificate are <Totus Tuus> ("I
am completely yours, O Mary.") (p. 212), and "Be not afraid." How
Mary is connected with overcoming fear is instructive. The Pope
writes: "When I inherited the Ministry of Peter in Rome, more than
anything else, it was... devotion to Mary in my native land which I
carried with me." He goes on to remark that Christ did not address
the words "Be not afraid," to Mary because, "Strong in her faith, she
had no fear." (p. 220)
Shortly after, when speaking of the attempt on his life on May 13,
1981, the anniversary of the day Mary appeared at Fatima, he writes:
"With this event, didn't Christ perhaps say, once again, 'Be not
afraid'? Didn't he repeat his Easter exhortation to the Pope, to the
Church, and, indirectly, to the entire human family?" (p. 221)
Earlier examples of the Pope's associating courage with the hope that
leads to faith are assertions in the poetry such as: "We must not
consent to weakness," and "Weak is a people that accepts defeat"
(<Thinking My Country, I Return to the Tree>).
The Pope cites the courage of the Polish patriots as significant to
his own faith: "I think of the Warsaw uprising in 1944-the desperate
revolt of my contemporaries, who sacrificed everything. They laid
down their young lives. They wanted to demonstrate that they could
live up to their great and demanding heritage. I was a part of that
generation and I must say that <the heroism of my contemporaries
helped me to define my personal vocation>.
The courage of soldiers is, of course, but a reflection of the almost
unimaginable love that Christ showed in accepting crucifixion. The
Gospel text that John Paul repeatedly uses to demonstrate that
sacrifice <is> love comes from John 3:16: "God so loved the world
that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might
not perish but might have eternal life."
The word <cross> itself evokes the need for courage and the necessity
of not being fearful, as does the <crossing> of the Red Sea and,
above all, the Paschal crossing into eternity.
The Pope stresses that Christianity is an active, not a passive
faith, one that engages the world, not withdraws from it. In his
chapter on Buddhism he takes pains to insist that one cannot save the
world by becoming indifferent to the world. The Christian's
withdrawal is to find God, his mysticism to share in Christ's love
for the world.
Of this he writes: "When Saint John of the Cross... speaks of the
need for purification, for detachment from the world of the senses,
he does not conceive of that detachment as an end in itself.... This
Doctor of the Church does not merely propose detachment from the
world in order to unite oneself to that which is outside of the
world. He proposes detachment from the world to unite oneself to that
which is outside the world... a personal God. Union with Him comes
about not only through purification, but through love. (pp. 86-87)
As the word <crossing> suggests the need for courage and willingness
to sacrifice, so also do the roots of the word <threshold>. The word
<threshold> now simply means an entrance way, doorway, or door sill.
But of the two original root words, both from Indo-European roots,
one means to thresh, the other the place where the threshing takes
place.
Threshing is the breaking open of grain-wheat, corn, barley-to
prepare it as food. In passing over the <threshold of hope>, the
believer may be seen as being changed, transformed, as grain must be
transformed.
Christ himself pointed to the transformation of wheat into bread as
an analogy of his own sacrifice, whereby he became the bread of life
for all.
Then there is the word <hope> in the title. Why hope and not faith,
or love? Perhaps for the same reason John Paul's gives for choosing
"Be not afraid" as the first words of his pontificate, because the
Holy Spirit led him to. And the Spirit probably led him to choose
<hope> because the age most requires hope.
The poetry, one final time, also provides additional insight into
John Paul's mind. In <Hope Reaching Beyond the Limit>, he meditates
on the relation between hope and death.
Hope rises in time
from all places subject to death-
hope is its counterweight.
The dying world unveils its life again in hope.
A few lines later he says, "Death is the experience of...
annihilation." He then concludes:
I use hope to detach my own self,
I must tear myself away
to stand above annihilation
.....................
I wrestle with myself,
with so many others I wrestle
for my hope.
<Hope>, then, is at the beginning of the struggle for faith. Faith's
"basic usefulness," say John Paul, "lies precisely in the fact that a
person believes and entrusts himself," and comes to realize the good
of "rational natures" (pp. 189,192).
St. Paul's "faith is the substance of things hoped for," (Heb 1:11)
seems to say that hope is antecedent to faith. Perhaps the book's
title also says that. Regardless of the order, the book describes a
relationship among the virtues in which the Spirit, being led, the
over- coming of fear, and prayer always have a part. And as for hope,
once one has courage to "to stand above annihilation" and "wrestle"
for hope, prayer has already occurred, that prayer which "is a search
for God but... also a revelation of God." (pp. 25-26)
This article was taken from the December 1994 issue of "Inside the Vatican."
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