Today's new words
洒圣水歌 Sǎ shèngshuǐ gē Chinese title for Asperges Me, Literally "Sprinkle Holy Water Song"
For as long as we've been attending Mass in Chinese, I have often associated Asperges as a particularly Chinese practice. In the West, it is optional in the Roman Rite year-round. It is more common during the Easter Season, but with the antiphon Vidi Aquum (I saw water flowing from the right side of the Temple....). Here in Beijing (and other parts of China, as well), our priest sprinkles us with Holy Water during many Masses in Ordinary Time as well. Because I have experienced this more in China than anywhere else, I strongly connect it with Chinese liturgy.
More after the jump
During these last many years, one thing that has especially struck me, listening to and following along in my hymnal to 洒圣水歌, is how close the character for water, 水 shuǐ, is to the character 永 yǒng which means everlasting. In the Chinese Asperges Me, as well as many other parts of the Liturgy, 永 is used in combination with 远 yuǎn, 永远, meaning forever or without end.
When one Chinese character resembles another, the reasons are sometimes obvious to even early learners. For instance, the character for "ice" is 冰 bīng and it looks a lot like 水. Other characters contain slight pronunciation and possible meaning clues, like the second character in 永远, is close in pronunciation with a character used in words like garden and park, 园 yuán (and for such comparison, I do need to note that the Traditional Characters are 遠 and 園, and also bear resemblance to one another).
The word 永, though, doesn't appear to have obvious pronunciation connection to me (at least not the way we pronounce it now, and, looking at other Chinese pronunciations, in Cantonese 水 is seoi2 and 永 is wing5 . I also looked up the characters on an online Shanghaiese dictionary, and they seem to have distinct pronunciations in that dialect as well), nor is it like 冰, made from water. But the characters 水 and 永 are similar. Water, 水, is one of the bagua in Taoist cosmology. The character 永 itself has played an important role in the development of Chinese calligraphy. These are two characters that seem to have some foundational meaning in Chinese.
These are the sorts of things I think about when I am wondering how in Beijing we seem to use the Asperges more often than I have seen in use in the US.
Here's 洒圣水歌.
For as long as we've been attending Mass in Chinese, I have often associated Asperges as a particularly Chinese practice. In the West, it is optional in the Roman Rite year-round. It is more common during the Easter Season, but with the antiphon Vidi Aquum (I saw water flowing from the right side of the Temple....). Here in Beijing (and other parts of China, as well), our priest sprinkles us with Holy Water during many Masses in Ordinary Time as well. Because I have experienced this more in China than anywhere else, I strongly connect it with Chinese liturgy.
More after the jump
During these last many years, one thing that has especially struck me, listening to and following along in my hymnal to 洒圣水歌, is how close the character for water, 水 shuǐ, is to the character 永 yǒng which means everlasting. In the Chinese Asperges Me, as well as many other parts of the Liturgy, 永 is used in combination with 远 yuǎn, 永远, meaning forever or without end.
When one Chinese character resembles another, the reasons are sometimes obvious to even early learners. For instance, the character for "ice" is 冰 bīng and it looks a lot like 水. Other characters contain slight pronunciation and possible meaning clues, like the second character in 永远, is close in pronunciation with a character used in words like garden and park, 园 yuán (and for such comparison, I do need to note that the Traditional Characters are 遠 and 園, and also bear resemblance to one another).
The word 永, though, doesn't appear to have obvious pronunciation connection to me (at least not the way we pronounce it now, and, looking at other Chinese pronunciations, in Cantonese 水 is seoi2 and 永 is wing5 . I also looked up the characters on an online Shanghaiese dictionary, and they seem to have distinct pronunciations in that dialect as well), nor is it like 冰, made from water. But the characters 水 and 永 are similar. Water, 水, is one of the bagua in Taoist cosmology. The character 永 itself has played an important role in the development of Chinese calligraphy. These are two characters that seem to have some foundational meaning in Chinese.
These are the sorts of things I think about when I am wondering how in Beijing we seem to use the Asperges more often than I have seen in use in the US.
Here's 洒圣水歌.
Comments
My son's theory is that if there is a long version and a short version, in the Chinese church we will always do the long version. This is often said with a bit of a groan, until I remind him that every minute we are in the church, at Mass, without fear of arrest, is a hard-fought victory in this place, and not fought by us.