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Mass Changes
Aug
30
Written by:
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Mass Changes
Pastor’s Column
22nd Sunday Ordinary Time
August 30. 2009
It is expected that a new translation of the Mass into English from the Latin will be coming in Advent, 2010, according to the Vatican. The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops has just opened a new website dedicated to explaining these changes and giving many examples of the new translations, side-by-side with what we are currently using. Make a note of this website: http://www.usccb.org/romanmissal/examples.shtml. Over the next 14 months we will share all of this with you in the bulletin and at Mass, but it is always good to get a head start!
Although I was young at the time, I remember very well when English began to be introduced into the mass in the mid-1960s and the priest began to face the people. My parents didn’t seem to understand nor was it adequately explained why these changes came about so suddenly, and, like them, many Catholics were rather ill-prepared for these dramatic changes. By contrast, what we will be experiencing next year will not so much be dramatic as semantic changes; that is, how the Latin is translated into English.
These days, Mass is celebrated in virtually every language around the world, but all of these various translations are taken from the foundational Latin text. As a priest who has celebrated Mass in Spanish for the last 12 years, there is quite a difference between what we say in Spanish and what has been rendered into English. In almost every case, the changes we will see in English in 2010 are already in use in Spanish and have been for many years. These fresh translations will bring a new poetry, beauty and accuracy to our prayers. In some cases, the changes will be very subtle; in others, more substantial.
There is a phrase in Latin that all priests know: lex ordandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. What it means is that as we pray, so we believe, so we live. How we pray and what we pray form what we believe and how we live. Active Catholics, who attend Mass every Sunday and perhaps even during the week, by being present and praying the parts of the Mass are being formed in the faith by the words we hear and pray. The translations really do matter.
Just to take one example: In the third Eucharistic Prayer, in the current translation in English we hear, “From age to age you gather a people to yourself, so that from east to west a perfect offering may be made to the glory of your name.” Now contrast this with the new rendition: “You never cease to gather a people to yourself, so that from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name.” “East to west” implies directions and seems to leave out “north and south,” but “from the rising of the sun to its setting” is not only more poetic, but more accurate: the gospel encompasses the whole world! Father Gary
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