Important Changes in Mass

We are Stewards of the Faith of the Church

In last Sunday's Gospel, Jesus identified his followers as the new tenants of the Vineyard of the Lord (Mt 21:43). His Apostles, and those to whom they passed on the Faith down through the ages, have been given the sacred duty of tending to the vineyard of the Lord and laboring to help it bear fruit.

You and I are today's tenants of His Vineyard—we are the stewards of God's world, God's creation, and God's Church. Our task is to care for these and help them all bear fruit.

Most precious in the Vineyard of the Lord is the Faith that has come to us from Jesus, through the Apostles, and handed on to us through the ages. Early on Christians knew the value of passing on this tradition faithfully (Acts 2:42; 1 Cor 11:2, 23, 15:3-7; 2 Thes 2:15; 1 Tim 3:15).

We Pray What We Believe

The Apostolic Faith became established in the prayer of the Church, giving rise to the principle that "we pray what we believe" (lex orandi, lex credendi). The prayers of the Church, most especially the liturgy—the public prayer of the Church—is the Church's statement of faith put into the action of prayer.

Our ultimate form of liturgical prayer is our celebration of the Eucharist (Mass). The Mass is an entirely Biblical prayer and statement of our Faith.

Each Mass is a proclamation of the story of salvation—what God has done for the life of the world in Jesus—which is why much repeats from week to week, Mass to Mass. At every Mass we recall God;s faithfulness and the gift of Jesus. We pray what we believe—lex orandi, lex credendi.

This tradition of praying what we believe begins with the Scriptural accounts of the establishment of the Eucharist at the Last Supper (Mt 26:26-29; Mk 14:22-25; Lk 22:14-20; 1 Cor 11:23-26). Tradition builds with the Didache (The Teaching) written about 107 A.D., which includes some description of early Christian celebration of baptism and Eucharist. A century later, Bishop Hippolytus's Apostolic Teaching of 215, records various prayers.

Languages of the Early Church were Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek. By the 4th and 5th centuries, Latin had become the dominant language of the Church based in Rome, and the prayers of the Eucharist (Mass) began to be written down in official collections called Missals.

Over time we have followed the practice of praying what we believe—lex orandi, lex credendi. While the postures and degrees of communal participation at Mass have changed through time, the core beliefs and prayers have not, being preserved in the Missals.

The Missal of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) drew together and regularized many different traditions of celebrating the Mass, using the common tradition of prayer—lex orandi, lex credendi—in one Roman Missal, which we used until 1973.

Translation into any Language Needs to Preserve the Tradition of Faith

Pope John XXIII and the Bishops of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) sought to restore greater participation of the community of believers in the liturgy of the Church. This partly involved recovering a sense of the Early Church's celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy.

Part of broadening communal participation allowed for celebration of the Mass with increased use of the vernacular, or local languages, in place of the Latin. Church leaders took great care in translating from the Latin of the Roman Missal into local languages.

Translating into English proved tricky, because many of the of theological and biblical prayers preserved in the Latin of the Roman Missal sounded clunky and odd when rendered literally into English. The Church decided to make translations more akin to spoken English, using equivalent wording rather than literal translation.

The 1973 translation of the Missal into English did in fact draw many English speaking Catholics into greater participation in the Mass, the highest point of the prayer of the Church. But some of the translations left some things weakened in their rendering and meaning.

Take for a simple example the following prayer formula for the way we greet each other in prayer in English: V/ The Lord be with you. R/ And also with you. This is a beautiful greeting and Christian turn of phrase. Compare this with the Latin tradition of past and present use, and other languages:

• Latin: V/ Dominus vobiscum. R/ Et cum spititu tuo.
• French: V/ Le Seigneur soit avec vous. R/ Et avec votre esprit.
• Spanish: V/ El Señor esté con vosotros. R/ Y con tu espiritu.
• German: V/ Der Herr sei mit euch. R/ Und mit deinem Geiste.

Anyone familiar with any of the above languages, will notice one thing present in those words, but absent from the English version of the prayer: "spirit". By omitting "spirit" in English, we make this a simple greeting, but restoring it raises up our greeting to a higher plane, and makes stronger statement of faith, as intended in our Latin tradition, for we live in the Spirit of God.

For many years, popes, bishops and theologians have been looking over the English translations, trying to find ways to more fully and accurately express what we believe—lex orandi, lex credendi—in our prayer at Mass.

This is increasingly important because English has also become the universal language of today, with cable networks and the internet. Many Catholic people in the world are using our English printed Missals and other materials for their own celebration of Mass and teaching the faith—even if English is not their first language.

New Translation of the Prayers – But No Change in Our Celebration of Mass

Blessed Pope John Paul II, of late, current Pope Benedict XVI, and the English-speaking Bishops around the world have worked out an adjusted translation, and have asked English-speaking Catholics around the world to begin using the new wording this First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011. Some wording will change, a lot will not.

Over the coming weeks, I will review the adjusted wording at Masses. I will take a little section at a time, reviewing the words, why we say them or why we are changing them, and also review that part of the Mass to better understand why we say and what we do.

Hopefully, this will be an opportunity to renew our celebration of Mass. Meanwhile, our music leaders have been working on some new music settings for our prayers at Mass, so we will have some beautiful new music to add to our celebration later in November.

We have printed copies of the revised wording of the prayers for you to take and begin reading over. We will also have special Mass cards for use in church and some other Mass cards for you to eventually take and keep, when we begin officially using the prayers at the end of November.

Please note that only the wording of some of our prayers is changing, not the way we celebrate Mass. Hopefully, we have even greater participation with greater understanding. We will also not be changing the way we receive Holy Communion, and will still offer Holy Communion under both forms (Host and Chalice).

I hope we can work together to learn this new wording and become a model Catholic parish for how well it can be done! Remember, this is about being good and faithful stewards of the Gospel Faith, the great treasure in the Vineyard of the Lord.

God's Blessings and Peace upon you,
Fr. Matthew O'Leary
Pastor