SHE TAUGHT ME HOW TO WRITE

DR DIANNE M. STRONG

 

Father Dueñas Memorial School in my day was a great school, especially in the Social Sciences and Foreign Languages. I'm glad I went there for high school. As far as English was concerned, we learned proper grammar and we read English literature, but I didn't know till later that the school seemed to have overlooked English writing and composition in those days.

I hope that's changed, by now. Learning how to express yourself in writing is extremely important as a life skill, never mind a work skill, as important as that is.

So in the fall of 1980 when I enrolled at the University of Guam and had to take English 101, I was surprised to learn that it was a writing class. No more diagramming sentences, in-house spelling bees or vocabulary memorization. We had to come up with something I had never been taught to do at Father Dueñas; write essays!

SCHAFER AND STRONG IN UOG'S 1980 CLASS OFFERINGS

Dr Strong taught FOUR classes in that one semester

I started out with a professor named Schafer (I believe Sarah was her first name). She was no-nonsense and knew her stuff. Even though I had zero training in writing essays, she liked my work right away and would read excerpts from some of my essays to the class, all smiles and with a giggle or two. I remember she liked this line, "I'm a Pisces, and we're feet people."

But the next English composition teacher I had made a much bigger impact. Her name was Dr Dianne Strong. She taught me in the Spring Semester of 1981, building on what Dr Schafer had planted earlier.

When I first walked into Dr Strong's class, I didn't know what to expect. At first glance, I saw that she was taller than most women I knew, blond and tanned. But I knew we were in for a good time right away because she taught with such verve and gusto, and yet she meant business. She wanted to teach us how to write well.

DR STRONG AS I KNEW HER IN 1981

though this photo is from 1974

She taught us that there were different kinds of essays. One could compare and contrast; or one could argue a position. In another essay you could describe something, such as an event or a process.

My father had always subscribed to Time or Newsweek and would get them in the mail. As a kid I'd leaf through them, looking mainly at the photos but rarely reading the articles. But Dr Strong had us read articles she liked and she'd share with us what made a particular article good.

Dr Strong explained that an effective piece of writing grabs people's interest in the first lines. By the end of that first paragraph, the reader better know clearly what the article or essay is all about and what the author wants to either argue or explain. This would be the thesis of the essay.

The rest of the essay, the body, would be made up of three or four parts that either defended the thesis, if one were arguing a position, or fleshed out the theme of the writing if one were describing something.

The conclusion would wrap it all up and restate the thesis with, perhaps, a secondary conclusion or an  interesting observation.

I learned to organize my material. First I'd jot down everything I might include in the essay and then group similar points together. Then I'd try to see which headings were better to start with and which ones flowed better afterwards. I learned how important transitions were, going from one paragraph or section to the next, as if moving the reader along on a ride and not losing any momentum.

One of my essays in Dr Strong's class was published in a UOG literary journal called Xanadu. In it I tried to explain how hard it is to diet on Guam! I included this line, "It isn't any wonder why Weightwatchers Anonymous meets at Andersen Air Force Base, far away from the allurements of the Chamorro food traps."

My thoroughly competent English teacher from Connecticut, who either knew or lived close by some famous playwrite (was it Arthur Miller?), gave me the self-confidence to express myself through writing. I realized then that writing was such a valuable skill to have because nearly everything I achieved later to earn my Bachelor and Master degrees rested in large part on writing. If you could write well, you were so much ahead of the game. Even though preaching is different from writing, many of the same lessons apply to both. Have a clear message and deliver it with structure and order, and keep it interesting.

DOCTOR METGOT THE PERSON

Later on in life, Dr Strong volunteered to teach clients incarcerated at the Department of Corrections. It was her Chamorro students serving sentences there who christened her METGOT, the Chamorro word for "strong."

She not only taught DOC clients how to write, a skill that was rewarding in itself but which could also help them when back in society, Dr Strong became their advocate, a voice for the voiceless, who often suffered inexcusable hardships and violations while incarcerated.

DR STRONG IS RECOGNIZED FOR HER SERVICE TO INMATES

Dr Strong also successfully opposed, with many others, the construction of towers at Pago Bay which would have had a negative impact on the environment and scenery. Because these voices were raised, the permit to build was revoked.

The world beckoned to her all her life and she responded. She has traveled near and far to enjoy Mother Nature, different cultures and the ocean she loves. She is a consummate diver and has explored all the region's diving sites. She wrote a book, Witness to War : Truk Lagoon's Master Diver Kimiuo Aisek, a biography of Chuuk's premier diver who put the lagoon on the diving world's map.

Her contagious joie de vivre is to be admired and inspires us not to be afraid of life's risks, but to enjoy life while we have it. Writing for The Sunday News on Guam in 1975 about her motocross experiences, she wrote, "Don't think about the danger, just the fun."

I, like all others, will one day be dead and forgotten. But, if perchance, someone may stumble across an odd article I wrote or the occasional book, even after I'm gone, or even this blog post, and may have learned something, perhaps smiled and was hopefully inspired by something positive I wrote, then I have Dr Strong to thank for that.

Si Yu'us ma'åse'. Kinisou chapur.

IT HAPPENED IN SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

 

FATHER DANIEL MULHAUSER, JESUIT

When I joined the Capuchins in 1981 as a postulant, we were required to get a Spiritual Director.

A Spiritual Director is someone (usually a priest) who helps you recognize the things that God is trying to accomplish in your life. God might be trying to help you learn a certain lesson, develop a virtue or lead you to a new kind of work....and sometimes it's not easy to see this. So a Spiritual Director is there to help you see things a bit clearer.

Typically you meet once a month with your Spiritual Director.

I chose Father Dan Mulhauser for my Spiritual Director. Father Dan was a very approachable, friendly and (as all Jesuits are) intelligent man. I knew he would be able to give me good insights and advice. He seemed to be everywhere, doing so many things, all while being Director of the Saint Ignatius House of Studies in Mangilao where seminarians from the Caroline Islands lived while attending the University of Guam.

Conveniently, Father Dan was Campus Minister for the University of Guam which I was also attending. It all worked out for me because I could easily meet Father Dan for spiritual direction in between classes by walking the short distance from the University to the Campus Ministry center.

ONE DAY

Our monthly meetings were always pleasant and productive, but without anything out of the ordinary.

Except this one day.

Maybe after only fifteen minutes into our discussion, I saw Father Dan lose his focus on me for the first time. The expression on his face told me he was thinking of something else at that moment. Whatever it was, I sensed something was amiss.

Father Dan interrupted me and said, "Don't be alarmed. It will pass. But I do sometimes have these heart palpitations and my doctor says the best thing for me to do is lie flat on the floor till they pass." So Father Dan got off his chair and lay straight on his back on the floor. There was nothing else out of the ordinary. He was not panting or gasping for breath; he was not clutching his chest in pain.

Silently, to myself, I wondered if I should call an ambulance, but he didn't seem to be in distress. As a matter of fact, he quickly returned to spiritual direction, asking me to go on with what I had been saying. So there I was, sitting on a chair going on about things on my mind, and the Jesuit priest sharing his reactions and feedback in as normal a tone of voice as always, but lying flat on his back on the carpeted floor.

After five minutes or so, he got back up and sat in his chair, apologizing for his brief change in posture but assuring me that all was well. I joked with him that I hoped it was nothing about what I was saying about my own life that caused his heart to go into a panic. He laughed and said no; it just sometimes happened. We continued our talk till the hour was up and that was that.

But I'll never forget how I talked to a priest about my spiritual life, while he was lying flat on the floor waiting for heart palpitations to go away.

He must have been a healthy man, despite this, because Father Dan just passed away at the ripe old age of 96. Rest in peace, and thanks for everything!

REFUSED TO SING

 

Father Pete Marcial was a Filipino priest on Guam and quite a character.

He came to Guam in the early 1970s and was a chaplain to the Filipino workers at Black Construction Company. He landed a job as a counselor at the government Vocational Rehabilitation department and stayed there a long time.

There was a time when we weren't sure if he was an AWOL priest. Rumor at the time was that he refused to return to his diocese in the Philippines, so he was on Guam, they said, without his bishop's permission. When he showed up now and then to concelebrate at a Mass, people looked at each other not sure what to do. I myself never saw him being told to leave. So it remained a mystery. In time, though, he squared everything away with his bishop and all was well. But, in the meantime, he earned his living employed by Voc Rehab.

There was a time when he was coming to our Friary each and every week. He'd have dinner with us and then stay many hours into the night, sharing story after story. I wondered if half his stories were true, but whether or not they were true, they were certainly entertaining.

Here's one of his stories.

Father Pete went on a trip off-island but it was a short trip, so he decided to park at the airport in long-term parking so he could just drive off once he returned.

But his flight back to Guam arrived at two or three in the morning, and Father Pete was very sleepy. He got to a red light on a deserted highway in northern Guam. Already sleepy, he got even more sleepy waiting for the light to turn green, with no other cars in sight. He fell asleep at the wheel, the car in park.

Well the light changed from red to green, back to red then green again, several times, and Father Pete was blissfully unaware as he continued to sleep, the engine running.

In time one or two more cars were waiting behind him and Father Pete wasn't moving at all. Very soon, a police man drove to the scene and tapped loudly on Father's window, abruptly waking him up.

Father explained he had just landed late at night and was sleepy, but the policeman didn't care. He was going to write him a ticket. Father Pete protested; the other drivers behind him could have easily moved around his motionless car; there was hardly any traffic on the road at all at that early hour of the morning.

Still, the policeman handed Father his ticket and asked him to sign. Father Pete refused. The policeman said, "Well, here's your ticket and the court date is on the back. Make sure you appear if you're going to contest this ticket. And I'm putting down here, 'REFUSED TO SIGN.'" Father took his ticket and went home.

When Father appeared at the court house, the judge looked over the ticket and declared, "Case dismissed." Why? Either the policeman was dyslexic or was just as sleepy as Father Pete that morning he was ticketed. Instead of writing "REFUSED TO SIGN," the policeman wrote "REFUSED TO SING."

The judge asked out loud, "How can a police officer force a man to sing?"

It was stories like these that I looked forward to each week Father Pete came to the Friary for dinner. I've forgotten all of them but the REFUSE TO SING one. Rest in peace, Father.

FATHER PETE WHEN POPE JOHN PAUL II VISITED GUAM IN 1981

UNPRECEDENTED?

If you grew up listening to grandma's / grandpa's war stories, you know we've been through worse. Perspective is important. It can give hope.

2020 : We have stay inside for a month or two.
1944 : Your loved one was just taken by the Japanese to work on airfields and you may never see him or her again.

2020 : My kids need fresh air and things to keep from boredom.
1944 : Your kids need a place where they can hide during bombing and things to keep them alive.

2020 : I can only Facetime with my relatives and friends and cannot see them.
1944 : You cannot even write a letter to your son who is somewhere in the US Navy far from home.

2020 : Netflix needs to fix its problems; I can't watch a movie without it crashing.
1944 : We are sitting in the dark so that the Americans in their planes don't see a light and shoot us, or the Japanese come and punish us for having a light.

2020 : Every man for himself. I'm going to hoard whatever I can to survive.
1944 : I will trade my corn for the fish the man by the sea catches. Together we will survive.

2020 : Payless has reduced hours and has a maximum number of customers at any time.
1944 : You pray no typhoon, drought or pests ruin your one and only field of corn.

These are not unprecedented times nor difficulties.

We have been through worse. And most survived.

A DUEÑAS TRADITION : JUG

FD BOYS ON JUG

Early 1970s

FD men never had detention. They had jug.

As soon as you enrolled at Fr Dueñas Memorial School, you quickly learned an FD tradition unfound in your prior schools. You could be punished with jug.

Jug meant you had to stay behind when school was out and do manual labor. It usually involved work on the campus grounds. For many years, jug meant getting a machete and whacking away at the tångan tångan surrounding the school. The school had a lot of land, but a lot of it was covered over with the stubborn tångan tångan and other bushes. Thanks to jug, a lot of that was cleared away.

Besides clearing the ground, jug could include almost any other kind of manual labor.

The thing was, nobody could explain what the word "jug" meant.

I couldn't even get a straight answer from one of the teachers who used to give out jug liberally. Years after he left Guam, I asked Capuchin Father Knute Kenlon, an FD teacher for many years, what jug meant. He said the three letters stood for "Jesus Universalis Gaudia," Latin for "Jesus the Joy of the Universe." Instinctually, I knew not to believe his answer.

Others thought jug stood for "Justice under God," or "Judgment under God." For a time, Brother Gregory, a Marist, was school principal so we said it stood for "Justice under Gregory." Of course we knew that couldn't be the real meaning, since jug existed long before Brother Gregory became principal.

We think jug only started with the Capuchins, who took over Fr Dueñas in 1959. We can't be sure, but maybe Fr Peter (Aloysius) McCall started jug. Fr Peter had a lot to do with new traditions at FD, including starting the sports teams and calling them the Friars. Fr Peter came on board in the early to mid 1960s.

JESUIT SCHOOLS

JUGEES AT A JESUIT SCHOOL IN THE U.S.

The term jug actually came from Jesuit all-boys high schools in the US.

When the Jesuit teachers punished the boys, the punished were put "sub jugum," Latin for "under the yoke" or "under the burden." Jesuits in those days really stressed the learning of Latin, to promote vocations to the priesthood and also because knowing Latin is academically rewarding.

A yoke, or jugum, typically bound two work animals, such as oxen. Boys under jug also worked in pairs or in teams, doing manual labor around school.

So, from the Latin jugum (yoke) came the shortened term jug. The person getting jug was jugged and became a jugee.

Since Jesuit high schools were common in the New York-New England area from where the Capuchins sent to Guam came, some of them having been educated in Jesuit schools, the New York Capuchins adopted the term jug and used it at FD.

Had I known this historical origin of the term jug, I would have told my FD teachers who did jug me, "But Christ said, 'My yoke is easy and my burden light.' Put me to work in the air-conditioned library."

MOWING THE LAWN AT FD

Late 1960s

THE THREE R'S

Sometimes we don't see things unless they are pointed out.

Millions of Catholics go to Mass every Sunday; sometimes more often than that. They hear the prayers over and over again. I don't blame them if they never noticed that there is often a pattern to these prayers. Some things just need to be pointed out.

Take, for example, the opening prayer at Mass, called the Collect. It's the first time at Mass (in the Ordinary Form) that the priest says, "Let us pray," and then proceeds to say a prayer.

All Collects have some sort of address; a way we call out to God. Most of the time, it's to God the Father. These addresses are usually short, sometimes one word!

All Collects also have a conclusion and, since most Collects are addressed to the Father, the conclusion is often a reference to Christ in unity with the Holy Spirit.

But besides the opening address and the conclusion, many Collects have a three-part structure or pattern.  We can call this pattern the Three R's, because the three parts are words starting with R.

First comes a RECALL; a remembering of some truth about God or something that God has already done in the past. A more traditional way of calling it is "acknowledgement." The purpose of this recall is to understand that the God we are speaking to in our prayer is a good God, a powerful God, a merciful God, who has shown these things to us in the past. The Collect can become specific about a characteristic of God, or a specific thing He has done for us in the past. If God has done good things for us in the past, then we have every reason to believe fervently that He can and will give us good things today.

Next comes the REQUEST. Many times the request is spiritual in nature. That God pour out His mercy; that God help us to love Him above all things; that God fill us with holy joy. There are times in the rest of Mass that we ask for earthly or material blessings, and at times even the Collect asks for them. But the Collects make the spiritual connection with God most important because, by being united to God, the creator of both the material and the spiritual, blessings of all kinds come to us, including the material, but especially the ones that last forever. The traditional word for this part of the Collect is the petition.

Finally comes the RESULT; what happens after the blessing we requested is given to us by God. The gifts of God produce results. One good thing leads to another. This the nature of goodness. It spills over; it spreads itself. In traditional terminology, the result is called the aspiration (something hoped for).

Let's take a look at two examples of the Three R's at work in the Collect.

First, we see that this prayer is addressed to God the Father and so we're not surprised that it concludes stating that we pray through God the Son.

We recall in this prayer that God is the giver of every good gift. Therefore we have confidence that we are going to the right person seeking good things. He is also the God of might; He has the power to give good gifts. The address also contains something we should recall.

Next comes the request. We ask God to put a certain type of love into our hearts. It's a love for God's name. Why do we ask that? What will be the benefit of loving God's name?

We find the answer in the result of that request. We will deepen our sense of reverence for God. He will increase and develop in us what is good, and He will keep safe from all threat and harm the good which He has nurtured in us. This Collect is from the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

And now, from the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, another Collect.

Here, we address God the Father once again, as the Almighty and Ever-living God. And the Collect concludes in the name of God the Son, in union with the Holy Spirit.

Then we recall that the Father has given us the Holy Spirit who taught us to call God our Father. Since it was God Himself, in the person of God the Holy Spirit, who taught us to call God our Father, we have no hesitation in calling God our Father. This was revolutionary. People in the past had no fear calling God "Lord," "God," "King" and other such grand names. But to call this Almighty God who created us, before whom we are but tiny, insignificant creatures, "Father" is to make us His children, not merely His creatures! How could man dare to be so bold, as to claim such an intimate relationship with God!

But the believer has the courage to make that claim, because Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit, who made us the adopted children of God, enabling us to cry out, "Abba! Father!"

If, then, God is so good as to adopt us as His beloved children, being for us not only creator and ruler, but also a loving and merciful Father, then we can move on, after recalling this, to make a request.

That request is for God to perfect in us the spirit of adoption as His sons and daughters. We were made His adopted children in baptism. That was the beginning. But children grow. They develop, they mature. And so we ask God to do this in us.

Why? What is the result hoped for? The aspiration? The result we hope for is to inherit what God has promised His obedient children; life eternal.

So this is the pattern, but it is not the rule for every single Collect, all the time.

In some Collects, the order is changed, as when the request comes first! But some mention of God who is addressed in the prayer is made, even if not at the very beginning.

In some Collects, no result connected with the request is mentioned.

But the Three R's is a pattern, in some form, for many of the Collects.

THE THREE R'S IN THE TRADITIONAL MASS

Just so that we can see that the pattern of the Three R's is an old one, such that it appears often in the Traditional Latin Mass, whose prayers go back in some cases 1500 years ago, let's look at the Collect for the 2nd Sunday of Lent in the 1962 Missal.

Here we see, once again, an absolutely simple and straightforward address. "O God." At the end, the prayer is concluded in the name of the Son of God.

Next comes the recall. We recall that God knows that we humans have no power from ourselves. We know it, and God knows it. That's key. Because if we have no power in ourselves, then God surely has to come to the rescue. And that motivates us, then, to make the Request. We ask of the one person who has the power - God.

In older language, "to keep" also meant "to protect, to preserve, to guard" and many similar things. We say that a clean, maintained house is "well-kept." So the request is that God keep both our bodies and souls, the outer and the inner, protected and safe.

What is the result, if God does protect us? Harm of the body (troubles or adversities) and harm of the soul (evil thoughts) won't come to us.

TRANSLATION WORK

The following is a study of a Chamorro translation of the Roman Missal, which is the "book of the Mass." It's what a priest reads from when saying Mass.

The original Missal is written in Latin, the ancient language of Rome which the Catholic Church keeps as its official language, both for official worship (the "liturgy") and for government.

After the 2nd Vatican Council (1962-1965), the Roman Missal was allowed to be translated into the vernacular, the language of the people at hand. But the rule was, and is, that the vernacular edition must be translated from the original Latin. It's risky enough to translate from one language to a second language; it's even more risky to involve a third language; that is, a translation of a translation.

The Chamorro Missal we have now is just that; a translation of a translation. Our Chamorro Missal was translated from the English Missal, which was itself translated from the original Latin.

So I am interested in seeing how faithful our Chamorro translation is to the original Latin. Since I cannot compare the whole Missal in one setting, I have chosen to look at the 5th Sunday of Easter, and just one prayer from that Mass - the Collect, which is the opening, or first, prayer.

So here's that Collect, or opening prayer, in the original Latin. Don't worry, I'm putting a, more or less, word for word English equivalent underneath each Latin word. Then I will show a clearer English version.

ORIGINAL LATIN 

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, 

(Almighty)   (always eternal) (God)

semper in nobis paschale perfice sacramentum,

(always) (in) (us) (Paschal, that is, Easter) (perfect) (mystery but also sacrament).

ut, quos sacro baptismate dignatus es renovare,

(so that) (those) (by means of holy) (baptism) (pleased) (you are) (to renew)

sub tuae protectionis auxilio multos fructus afferant,

(under) (your) (of protection) (help) (many/much) (fruits) (may produce)

et ad aeternae vitae gaudia pervenire concedas.

(and) (to) (of eternal) (life) (joys) (arrive) (you allow).

IN CLEARER ENGLISH

Almighty eternal God,

perfect in us always the paschal mystery,

so that those whom you deigned to renew by means of sacred baptism,

may under the aid of your protection bear many fruits,

and that you will grant them to attain unto the joys of eternal life.

MORE THAN ONE WAY

Right away, you can see that you have choices. Some Latin words can be translated using more than one English word.

Auxilio, for example, can mean "help, aid, assistance." But all of these options, more or less, mean the same thing.

Concedas can mean "you grant, you allow, you permit," and several other closely-related meanings.

OFFICIAL ENGLISH

Now here is the official English translation, approved by the Vatican. This is what was used to come up with a Chamorro version of the Collect of the 5th Sunday of Easter.

Almighty ever-living God, constantly accomplish the Paschal Mystery within us, that those you were pleased to make new in Holy Baptism may, under your protective care, bear much fruit and come to the joys of life eternal.

Now.....does this somehow depart from the original Latin? In any big way? Or in any small way?

Let's see.

SEMPITERNE. This is the original Latin. It means "eternal." The approved, official English translation says "ever-living." This is certainly a possible English meaning of sempiterne. Something that is eternal has no end, so it keeps on going and going and going (haha I know you're thinking of the Energizer bunny). It lives forever; it has no end. But....the Christian idea of God's eternity is that He also has no beginning. He has no end, but also no beginning. Christian eternity means "no-time," timeless or above time, outside of time. I suppose "timeless" could be used, but I've never seen God described as "timeless" in official prayers. Even the word "timeless" does not make it abundantly clear that the timeless thing has no beginning because, once something has started, it can then start to be timeless, that is, without end. Many things, such as a piece of art or music, are said to be timeless because they never grow old, but they all had a start. But God had no beginning. He never "started;" He always was, is and will be. Above time. Outside of time.

PERFICE. This Latin word is a command, and it means "perfect." The English version says "accomplish," which can mean to accomplish perfectly, but not necessarily perfect. You can accomplish your house chores, but not perfectly. The Latin prayer commands (humbly, of course) God to make the effects of the Easter mystery (the saving effects of Jesus' death and rising) perfect in us. In other words, that we be perfectly saved, redeemed, renewed, made holy. So "accomplish" is a bit of a distancing from the clear idea of "perfection." But this translation was approved by Rome. 

BY MEANS OF. I have switched to the English because it's too complicated to explain why the original Latin says that we want God to perfect in us the Easter (or paschal) mystery BY MEANS OF the sacrament of holy Baptism. It deals with Latin grammar. The point is that the approved English translation doesn't say "by means of" but simply "in." We are perfected in the Easter mysteries in baptism, which can mean "because of, by means of" baptism, but not as clearly as saying so clearly : by means of holy baptism. "In holy baptism" can mean to someone else that we are perfected in the Easter mystery and, by the way, it just so happens that, it happens in baptism. When we say "by means of," it's very clear that if there is no baptism, there is no perfection of the effects of Christ's death and resurrection.

PROTECTIONIS. The Latin says "under the help of your protection." The key idea is protection. It is God's protection, and His protection is an aid, a help, an assistance. The approved English translation switches the attention to "care," and modifies that care, saying it is a protective care. What is described in the Latin as a help (aid, assistance) is elaborated in the English as "care." That help is a kind of caring. Both elements, care (help, assistance) and protection, are present in both the Latin original and the approved English translation, but the focus is different; care which is protective, and protection which is a help.

CONCEDAS. This Latin word means "you concede, allow, permit, grant" and so on. The original Latin prayer says that we don't go to heaven unless God allows us to. The approved English translation simply says that, after all what came before happens, we may come to heaven (the joys of eternal life).

FIRST CONCLUSION?

From these comparisons, we can see that the approved English translation does move away from the original Latin in a few ways, but nothing alarming, depending on your point of view. The translation was approved by the Vatican, after all. Personally, I would have liked perfice ("perfect") to have been kept rather than "accomplish." The original Latin is very clear and strong in presenting the idea that so much depends on God, on His good will towards us and on His working through the sacraments. The English includes that idea, but, in my opinion, not as clearly and not as strongly.

NOTABLE DIFFERENCES IN THE CHAMORRO

When the translator(s) came up with a Chamorro Missal, they turned to the approved English Missal I have been quoting above. As far as I know, the original Latin Missal was not consulted, or at least not as the actual text to be translated.

So, we may find that the Chamorro version moves away, not only from the Latin Missal, but maybe even from the English one!

So let's look at the Chamorro version of the Collect of the 5th Sunday of Easter. Again, I will put a, more or less, word for word English equivalent under each Chamorro word.

CHAMORRO MISSAL

Todo un na' siña todo i tiempo låla'la' na Yu'us, 

(All) (you) (can do) (all) (the) (time) (living) (God),

ti påpara hao chumo'gue i Misterion Påsgua

(not) (stopping) (you) (to do) (the) (mystery of) (Easter)

gi sanhalom-måme, kosa ke ayo siha i magof hao 

(to/at the) (inside-us), (so that) (those) (happy you are)

un na' fan nuebo gi Såntos na Baotismo gi papa' i inadahi-mo na proteksion, 

(you) (make new) (in) (holy) (baptism) (to/at) (under) (care-your) (protection),

u fan mannokcha' mås produkto, 

(they will or may produce) (more) (fruit)

ya u fan måtto gi minagof i taihinekkok na lina'la'. 

(and they may come) (to/at the) (happiness/joy) (the) (endless) (life).

ISSUES

PERFICE. Now the entire idea of "perfecting" from the original Latin prayer is completely lost. The original Latin prayer commanded (again, humbly) God to perfect in us the effects of the Easter (paschal) mystery. The English used the more ambiguous word "accomplish," but it still commanded God to do that for us. The Chamorro uses the word cho'gue which simply means "to do." God does, works, performs the Easter mystery within us. Cho'gue can mean "one completes" a thing. He was told to sweep the floor, ya ha cho'gue. "He did it," meaning he completed what was asked of him. But cho'gue does not necessarily mean completion, and much less perfect completion. You can do something, but not completely well or not perfectly. The idea of arriving at a completion, or even a perfect completion, is entirely missing.

Secondly, the respectful command (imperative) is also missing. Now it is a description. God is described as never ending His working in us of the Easter mystery. We can assume that God's doing this has to end sometime, and hopefully to a perfect completion. But the prayer does not state this explicitly in the Chamorro as it does in the original Latin.

A Chamorro translator might want to use the word na' kabåles ("make complete") or na' fonhåyan ("make finish"), or even na' kabåles gi prefekto na manera, "to make complete in a perfect way," or na' fonhåyan gi kinabåles, "bring to end in completion, in fullness." They can also use the word kumple ("to complete, fulfill") in a variety of combinations, too. Translators can have a merry ole time doing this.

PROTECTIONE. The Chamorro follows the English in using the word "care" (inadahi) rather than "help" (in Latin, auxilio). But the construction is interesting. The translators were faced with the challenge of putting into Chamorro the phrase "your protective care," following the English rather than the Latin version. A care that is protective. "Care" was easy enough to translate. Adahe or adahi means "to be careful of, to care for," so the noun form is inadahi (care), but how to translate "protective?" Their solution was "i inadahi-mo na proteksion," which means "your care which is a protection." In both the English and the Chamorro, the shift in focus is towards care (not "help") and not on protection, as in the Latin. It's like telling the teacher, "I will pass the course with the help of your guidance." The focus is the teacher's guidance, which is a help. The focus is not on the teacher's help, which can mean many things. Guidance is more specific, as is "protection" in the original Latin prayer. What kind of help does God give? The help of His protection. Perhaps "i ayudon i proteksion-mo" or "i ayudon i gineggue-mo" could be used.

MULTOS FRUCTUS. The original Latin speaks of "many fruits," multos fructus. The Chamorro version speaks of "more fruits," mås produkto. If a tree first bears three lemons, and then the next day bears one more, that one more is "more fruit." But the prayer speaks of many fruits, not more. Four lemons on a lemon tree is one more than there were yesterday, but four lemons do not make many fruits when a tree can bear much, much more. "Meggai na produkto" or "meggai na tinekcha'" could be used.

CONCEDAS. Like the English on which it depends, the Chamorro version just speaks of us coming to the joys of eternal life, but nothing about God allowing or granting that. Verbs such as sedi ("to allow") or na' siña ("to make possible") can be used, or even just the prefix na' (to make, to make happen, to make be) in conjunction with a verb or adjective.

FINAL CONCLUSION

So here is a graph showing the three versions side by side; the Chamorro, the approved English translation and the Latin original. I have marked the areas where, either in Chamorro or English or both, the wording diverges from the Latin, either somewhat or in a major way, as explained above.

So, if I were to meet with Chamorro translators, I would strongly suggest we find ways to express in Chamorro the following ideas contained in the original Latin prayer that are missing in the Chamorro version we have now :

1. That we ask God to perfect in us the Easter (paschal) mystery

2. That it is with the help of God's protection

3. That we bear much, not more, fruit

4. That God has to allow, permit and grant us to enter the joys of eternal life.