Don’t mess with the Catholic Mass

By: Dale M. King

I was born and raised Catholic, and continue to practice the religion

As a child, I joined my parents each Sunday morning for the service.  Of course, at the time, the Mass was celebrated in Latin, so I really didn’t get a whole lot out of it.

At times, we would go to the church in the French section of my hometown, which complicated things even more.  The Mass was in Latin – and the homily was in French.

Thankfully, when Pope John XXIII ascended to the top spot in the liturgical hierarchy, he had the sense to call the now famous – or infamous – Vatican II.  It made some dramatic changes in the way we practiced our faith.  But most important, at least from a communications standpoint, was to allow the Mass to be said in the vernacular – that is, for us Americans, in English.

So, for more than 40 years, Catholics have uttered the same familiar refrain at SundayMass.“The Lord be with you,” the priest tells his congregation. “And also with you,” worshipers dutifully reply.

But that greeting, along with prayers, the celebration of certain Masses and musical arrangements, changed on the first Sunday of Advent – the start of the new liturgical year. The Catholic Church and English-speaking parishes are transitioning to a new translation of the Roman Missal, the text containing the chants and prayers used in the traditional Catholic Mass.

So, on that Sunday, we got new Mass books with the changes.  Now, when the priest says, “The Lord be with you,” parishioners must answer “And with your spirit.”

It didn’t work very well that first day.  No one seemed to be reading the changes; they just spoke what they had been saying for four decades.

I remember the conclusion of the Mass that morning.  It was a mess.  The priest and the deacon sort of stopped speaking, like they didn’t know what to say.  A muffled whisper crept through the crowd. And the priest, in his jovial way, looked to the congregation and quipped, “Perfect.”

Other changes: Small sections of the Nicene Creed prayer have been tweaked and the acclamation “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” is gone.

I really wonder if all this messing with the Mass is really necessary.  Vatican II seemed to give us an understandable script and responses that were to the point.  I’ve always had a little trouble with the Nicene Creed, so making changes here and there did nothing but force me to pick up the book and read it.

The Nicene Creed prayer formerly proclaimed Jesus is “begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.” Under the new translation, that has switched to “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.” That’s going to tongue-tie a few people.

And the changes are scattered throughout the text of the Creed. To the layman, there seems little rhyme or reason to it.  And even the priest said something about having to go to confession to a Franciscan cleric – a task he apparently didn’t have to do until now.

I checked online for a reason to make the changes. The stories I read said the new translation is closer to the original Latin used by the church, creating a more formal, reverent service for which dioceses, priests and prayer groups have spent more than a year preparing.

This forces us out of our comfort zone to meet the challenge of re-memorizing prayers and greetings that have become second-nature through the years.

But as they say, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.

Amen to that!