Church Words

My French vocabulary is growing in two main areas : words about food, and words used in church. If you know me well at all, you know that this is perfectly in character; now I just need to learn to talk about how handsome someone is or how much I’m in love with people, and then I’ll be able to entirely replicate my conversational depth in English!

I’m learning these words because I go to Mass at the cathedral, and I’m learning them in a very interesting way—almost by accident, subconsciously, on the margins of my attention. Of course, this is because of both the liturgy (hooray liturgy!), which is near identical to the Book of Common Prayer (hooray BCP!), and the fact of my being exposed to so much of the Bible since my birth (hooray Evangelical upbringing!)—all the words and verses which I’ve read in a variety of English translations are simply being heard again, with different aural shapes and rhythms. What a blast! And now for some specific words :

One which took me an embarrassingly long time to get is autel. It sounds a lot like “hôtel” and “aula” (an open hall), but in fact means both “altar” and “pulpit”.

La chair means flesh, not to be confused with “la chaire” which means a “chair” of a university, which is also not “la chaise” : a chair (in English).

Chatîment is punishment, related to the English “chastisement”. (The circonflex (^) means that there used to be an s after the vowel.)

Évangile is “gospel”, used here as in the U.S. to mean both the written words (“l’Évangile de Saint Luc”) and the coherent whole, the story of Christ.

Pâques is the word used instead of “Easter”; it’s a significant difference, though, because it’s simply the French word for the Hebrew “Pessa’h”, which in English we say “Passover”. I imagine that this must create nuanced differences in the lived theology of our churches, to have an explicit equation with the Jewish celebration of Passover rather than using the descendent of a non-Christian Anglo-Saxon word.

I’m also getting good at using lots of words I already knew :
-the “we” and plural “you” form of croire (to believe)
-a lot of friendly adjectives in the singular masculine : miséricordieux (merciful), tendre (tender), fidèle (faithful) . . .
-the verb aimer (to love) in all its conjugations.
And a lot of imperative verb forms for the informal/familial “you” (which is, thank heavens, the way you address God)—this is the verb form for asking, demanding, pleading, or commanding something.


The word “Amen” continues to give me trouble. In Episcopal-land, home of slow-moving dignity, one should intone this word with wide vowels : Ahhhhmenn. Where I’m from (in the religious, regional, and socio-economic sense) we say it aYmEN. As far as I can tell, French-speaking Anglicans and French-speaking Catholics say it the same way—but for the life of me, I can never remember which way they do it!! Is it “a-mon”? “ah-mayne”? “ae-men”? They seem to do it differently every time! So I’ve continued what I’ve always done and always will do, sticking with “aYmEN”, an interjection suitable both for religious exultation and the wholehearted approval of a friend trouncing a bad boyfriend.

Thank heavens everyone says “Alléluia” the same, or else I’d really be lost.