Third Edition of the Roman Missal - Credit: Mazur
Posted on 11/27/2011 6:41:43 AM PST by NYer
.- As English-speaking Catholic parishes begin using the new translation of the Mass on the first Sunday of Advent, leading members of the hierarchy are predicting great gains for the Church.
“I have a feeling that this will be a great moment for deepening people’s liturgical piety and liturgical spirituality,” said Cardinal Raymond Burke, a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, in comments to CNA.
“The prayers are much more beautiful and they carry with them a staying power,” observed Cardinal Burke.
He predicted that the newly-rendered prayers would “get people thinking about what they prayed, and taking consolation from it, and also inspiration.”
The Rome-based cardinal has been waiting until this weekend to start using the new English missal, in line with the Church in the U.S. But he offered Mass with the new texts on a recent visit to England, where many dioceses have already switched over.
“I have to say the texts are really much, much richer and much more beautiful,” concluded the cardinal, who described the previous translation as “often very bland and stripped of any richness.”
With his promulgation of a new edition of the Roman Missal in 2000, Blessed John Paul II gave the Church the opportunity to make a more faithful English translation of the Mass. The previous version had drawn criticism for its looser adaptation of the original Latin.
New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, currently in Rome for his “ad limina” visit to the Pope, recently used the new translation for the first time. Earlier this week he offered the freshly-translated prayers while prerecording his televised Mass for the first Sunday of Advent.
“Awesome, poetic, reverent language,” he said, summing up his impressions to CNA.
Archbishop Dolan also pointed out that the new texts spoken by the laity have changed less than those prayed by the priest.
“I found myself, personally, having to understandably go more slowly at Mass because I was having to look more closely at the text,” he recalled, “and that’s no bad thing.”
New York's archbishop said he was “praying with more reverence and intention and awe” as a result.
Changes for the laity include the reply “and with your spirit” spoken to the priest, rather than the response “and also with you.” Elsewhere, the threefold “mea culpa” – “my fault” – returns to the Penitential Rite, and the profession of the Creed begins with “I believe” instead of “we believe.”
Australian Roman Catholics made these changes several months ago with their shift to the new English version. “We've had no mutiny or revolution in Australia yet,” said Canberra's Archbishop Mark B. Coleridge, chairman of the committee that prepared the new English lectionary.
“Predictions of chaos, and upheaval and revolution just haven’t come to pass,” he told CNA.
The archbishop added that after a “messy transition” in some places, priests and laypeople are starting to see the new language as “richer and stronger than what we have grown up with.”
He sees almost no hostility to the changes from lay Catholics, who he says are “just getting on with it.”
Among the clergy, Archbishop Coleridge has stressed the need for advance work. While the priesthood is “more than a profession,” he said, priests still have to do their “professional preparation” before Mass – because the new texts are “a different idiom.”
Priests, he cautioned, “can’t just open the book and go for it,” without the appropriate study and practice.
We sing the Greek/Latin ordinary and the Mysterium Fidei in Latin normally, so that didn't change (except for the normal changeover to Mass XVII for Sundays in Advent).
I'm anxious to hear the Roman Canon for the first time in the new translation. (Father used EP III this morning.)
Like a pew-mate said at Vigil yesterday: “It took me 20 years learning to say everything without reading it. I’m getting up in age, now, so I’ll probably die before I learn it all over again”.
>>I think you’re going to find (still) some minor different gestures and responses in different parishes. I wouldn’t be too concerned. <<
It’s the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
There shouldn’t be ANY differences.
That’s the Spirit of Vatican II that got us all in trouble.
“I recall when I first started here some articles I posted critical of the Novus Ordo ICEL mistranslations. I was hounded! (Remember the fake deacon, what was his name?) A heretic because I suggested that the Tridentine Mass was a better choice. Good to see that the world has changed, at least imho, for the better.”
This is a little exaggerated. The Catholic crowd here is pretty conservative, as these things go. There have been few folks here who have ever defended the ordinary form of the Mass completely, at least as regarding the translation to English from Latin. "Reform of the reform" has ever been the watchword of the critical mass of Catholic posters here. I don't recall whether sinkspur defended every last word of the old ICEL English translation, but that represents just about one poster.
The problem is that within what you just wrote, you move the goalpost, from criticism of the old ICEL translation (which has been a nearly-unanimous consensus opinion here in the Catholic Caucus at Free Republic) to stating that the Tridentine, or extraordinary form, is to be preferred to the ordinary form (or, as you call is, the Novus Ordo).
There are lots of folks, indeed, nearly all here, who had problems with the old translation. But smaller numbers prefer the extraordinary form to the ordinary form.
And now that the translation of the ordinary form has been changed, and, in my own opinion, significantly improved, you will continue to find that many folks prefer the more-faithful translation of the ordinary form, but might still not prefer the extraordinary form.
Thus, one thing (better translation of the ordinary form) doesn't equal the other (extraordinary form).
My own memory suggests that it had often been the proponents of the extraordinary form (then referred to mostly as the Tridentine Mass) who were rather obnoxious in telling those of us who didn't prefer the extraordinary form to the ordinary form that the ordinary form was 1) bad; 2) even intrinsically evil; 3) could only be thrown out, baby and bathwater together, in favor of the Tridentine Mass, and even 4) some folks who went as far to say that the ordinary form was invalid.
I think that current events rather vindicate the views of the great number of “conservative” Catholics here (as opposed to those who might style themselves “traditionalists”), who preferred a more-faithful translation of the ordinary form rather getting rid of it altogether.
sitetest
It is also good to bear in mind that for the Latin Rite of the Church Latin is - and always has been - the normative language for the liturgy. In point of fact, if not practice, any Priest anywhere in the world could have celebrated the Ordinary form of the Mass in Latin. In point of fact, they needed permission to celebrate in the vernacular.
It took 40+ years, but Deo Gratias, finally, an accurate (official) translation in English.
It is also good to bear in mind that for the Latin Rite of the Church Latin is - and always has been - the normative language for the liturgy. In point of fact, if not practice, any Priest anywhere in the world could have celebrated the Ordinary form of the Mass in Latin. In point of fact, they needed permission to celebrate in the vernacular.
It took 40+ years, but Deo Gratias, finally, an accurate (official) translation in English.
It is also good to bear in mind that for the Latin Rite of the Church Latin is - and always has been - the normative language for the liturgy. In point of fact, if not practice, any Priest anywhere in the world could have celebrated the Ordinary form of the Mass in Latin. In point of fact, they needed permission to celebrate in the vernacular.
It took 40+ years, but Deo Gratias, finally, an accurate (official) translation in English.
I recalled that myself when this translation came out. I guess that version was a temporary until the “new Mass” could be totally put together. But, I have been thinking, didn’t we say these things for some time at one time?
Rereading that old post is fascinating. The debate about what a Universal Indult might look like, the problems, the angst. And now the reality. First the Moto proprio, the lifting of the ex communications, the new translation of the new Mass. All trending towards a more Orthodox future. Truly an amazing decade in the history of the Church.
BTW your unfailing courtesy at a time when many of our faith used vitriol instead was then, and now, a breath of fresh air. If I have not said “thank you” it was an oversight on my part. Forgive the discourtesy as I now, (and I hope again) publicly thank you for that.
From various Masses I’ve been to in different areas of the Country, there’s always been differences. I just don’t see any real significance to the variations.
Reading that 2002 thread makes me very grateful for the pontificate of BXVI.
Absopositively! Viva il Papa!
Of course, not all are pleased. See http://www.salon.com/2005/04/21/vatican_6/
My first experience with the 3rd Roman Missal went very well. No complaints at my parish.
I have admit NYER I stumble on some of words Hey I think I stick with new missiel for few weeks until “I get confortable”
It take time and practice practice practice
Thanks, and the same to you! Being immensely pregnant gets one into the spirit of Advent ;-).
“>>Here’s a thought; let’s go back to the pre-Vatican II liturgy to restore some actual joy and power to the Mass.<<
All in time, my FRiend”
Absolutely! I think that’s His Holiness’ plan. It’ll likely take longer than his reign (though one can always hope). It took ~45 years for us to get this far, it’ll take awhile to get to there. I would love to have the Traditional Latin Mass a block and a half from my house (that’s how far our parish is). This is a step. The first, but not the last.
Went to 6 pm Mass. That is normally the “teen” Mass where most of the positions, except the readers, are from the teens, including the music. The mas was heavily attended, and there were no problems. Of course people my age found the “new” language very familiar because a lot of it is a translation directly from the old Latin. e slipped a coule of time, but Father took us back through it. He just beamed as we SHOUTED “And with your spirit!”
I don’t know why people are complaining. (I heard a guy on the radio complaining this afternoon.)
**Are the gestures supposed to be there or not?**
Absolutely! We pray with our bodies as well as with our words, mind, etc.
Have you ever done something wrong and said, “Mea culpa?” Even non-Catholics understand that.
Have you ever done something wrong or heard swearing or saw someone commit a sin, and you struck your breast, in a way, saying, “Lord, I’m sorry I heard, saw, witnessed that.”
I have. My kids knew very well when I struck my breast (no words) that I was saying that it was my fault.
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