yrieithydd

Thanks to emperor for the image manipulation of this userpic which is taken from my photo of the Visitiation window in the Church at Taizé. I've added it to a couple of old entries too!

When I last visited curig we ended up attempting to render the Angelus into Welsh as neither of us knew it but felt that we ought. We got something but I intended to google for it. I forgot. We ended up talking about the Ave Maria at lunch on Friday (because the current senior organ scholar at Peterhouse doesn't mind singing it for concerts but objects to it in services) and I ended up admitting I didn't know the Welsh. This evening I remembered to Google for it.* I guessed that it would start Henffych Well Mair and thus found this page which gives Welsh forms of various prayers including the Ave

Henffych Well Mair
yr Arglwydd sydd gyda thi;
bendigedig wyt ti ymhlith merched;
a bendigedig yw Ffrwyth dy groth di Iesu

Sanctaidd Fair, Mam Duw,
gweddïa drosom ni bechaduriaid, yr awr hon ac yn awr ein hangau ni.
Amen

(I've updated the spelling slightly, but I typed that from memory).

I'm having less luck finding the Angelus in Welsh.

I've learnt that Cadeirlan Y Santes Fair, Wrexham has a monthly mass in Polish but not Welsh AFAICS; the only Welsh I've noticed on the site is the name! The Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales is similar. I didn't notice the Welsh name (Yr Eglwys Gatholig yn Lloegr a Chymru) the first time I went to the site. In fact, as I changed my default language to Welsh** in the meantime part of my wonders whether that changed it. But I'm not sure I believe that because I'd be surprised if they'd managed to do that for so little Welsh. A search of the site did find me a document which contained the Angelus in English; at first glance/navigation I couldn't find it. I have to say it's a horrible translation:

The Angelus
The angel spoke God’s message to Mary,
and she conceived of the Holy Spirit.
Hail, Mary...
‘I am the lowly servant of the Lord:
let it be done to me according to your word.’
Hail, Mary...
And the Word became flesh.
and lived among us.
Hail, Mary...
Pray for us, holy Mother of God,
that we may become worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray.
Lord,
fill our hearts with your grace:
once, through the message of an angel
you revealed to us the incarnation of your Son;
now, through his suffering and death
lead us to the glory of his resurrection.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
R. Amen.

I prefer Cranmer's rendering of the collect:
We beseech thee o Lord,
pour thy grace into our hearts
that, as we have known the incarnation of the Son Jesus Christ
through the message of an Angel
so by his cross and passion
we may be brought to the glory of his resurrection
through the same Christ our Lord.

Actually, now I have the Ave in Welsh, I can construct a fair amount of the text as I'm guessing that that collect will still be used by the CinW for the Annunciation and two of the versicles and responses are Biblical ... .

Mmm. The diocese of Menevia get points for having its diocesan prayer in Welsh, but that seems to be about it! I have to say I'm not impressed with the Roman Catholic web presence at all and especially not in relation to Wales. I've just skimmed down the list of parishes in that dioceses and four (all in Swansea) have websites and a similar number have an email address but no website. This strikes me as poor!

*This being the first time I've spodded since 6ish on Friday!
**I'd done that on Mozilla but when the uni switched to Firefox my defaults hadn't come across. I'm not convinced they'll remain now as it doesn't load the pages I've specified for homepages.