Coming Sunday: A change for the Masses

The changes start Sunday, the beginning of Advent.

And the words that Catholics have said, and many have memorized, will be different.

“It is a big story for us Catholics,” said Turner, who has a doctorate in theology from a Rome university and is pastor of St. Munchin Catholic Church in Cameron, Mo. “This is probably the biggest thing to happen to the Catholic Mass in 40 years.”

The main changes will be in the words that both the priests and the people in the pews say, he said. The actions are staying the same.

Turner doesn’t see complete changes, “but just enough to trip people up. The concepts are all the same, but we will hear a different vocabulary, style and sentence structure.”

One of the most talked about changes is this dialogue between the priest and the congregation.

For 40 years the priest has said, “The Lord be with you,” and the people have answered, “And also with you.”

Now the response will be, “And with your spirit.”

Many people will wonder what that means and whether those words are appropriate in our culture, Turner said.

“We just don’t talk that way. If someone asks, ‘How are you?’ we don’t respond, ‘And how is your spirit?’ ”

The words to various parts of the Mass are also changing: the Confiteor (expression of sorrow for sin), the Gloria (hymn of praise to God), the Credo (profession of faith), the Sanctus (hymn of praise to God) and the Memorial Acclamation (short expression of the community’s faith), he said.

Vatican II in the 1960s brought a huge change, allowing the Mass to be said in the languages of the people instead of Latin.

But it ended up being a rough equivalent of the original Latin and not literally from the Latin, said Michael Podrebarac, director of the office of liturgy for the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas.

The new words are a more literal, more formal translation from Latin to English, he said.

“It is a reminder that our liturgy in the Roman Catholic world is a continuation of a very ancient liturgy that reflects the Roman mindset, and that there is a certain culture that we belong to liturgically, even though we can celebrate the liturgy in our language and culture,” he said.

Since Vatican II, minor updates have taken place. The new translation process has been going on since 2002, and it is the most extensive change since Vatican II, he said.

For the next several months people will be reading from the books and pamphlets with the new translation, including those parts of the Mass they once had memorized.

Reactions to the changes are varied, Turner said.

“Some priests are apprehensive,” he said. “Some are looking forward to the revised words. But many of them are not.

“Some who like the revised words can see that the new translation is deeper and richer. The most common resistance is that this has worked for 40 years, so why change it.”

Podrebarac said the new translation will require priests and laity to focus more carefully on what they are saying, “and in the long run, this will be a very good thing.”

Catholics will get used to the new translation as they did when the Mass went from Latin to the vernacular, Podrebarac said.

“Change brings discomfort,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the new translation. It will provide an opportunity to a deeper understanding of the mysteries of the Catholic faith expressed in the liturgy.”

Although there will be some resistance to it, he said most Catholics will get used to the new translation, and improvements can always be made.

Turner said most Catholics will accept the changes, with the attitude that “if this is what the church wants, I’ll do it,” even though there is a lot of apprehension that the new words may not be an improvement over the old ones.

“But scholars have worked hard to make the new words better,” he said.

Also, some people wished the people had been consulted on a project that is going to affect them so deeply, he said. But starting Sunday, new words will be heard in Catholic churches throughout the land.

“In a sense, we all have to go back to school until the new text becomes as familiar as the old one,” Podrebarac said.