‘And with your spirit’ better than ‘right back at ya’: US Missal implementation specialist

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON – The opening greeting and closing sending off of the newly translated Missal texts help the congregation identify the priest in his proper role and clarify their own mission as the baptised, said priests who have been preparing liturgists for its implementation on the first Sunday of Advent next year.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ announcement on 20 August of the Advent date marked the formal beginning of a more than 15 month period of education and training leading to the first use of the “third typical edition” of the Roman Missal at English-language Masses in the United States on 27 November, 2011.
The Australian Bishops’ National Liturgical Council will prepare for their dioceses parish bulletin insert articles, laminated Mass cards with the new texts, particularly the people’s parts, a PowerPoint presentation of the reworked texts and hymns, homily notes for priests on the new texts and parish commentators’ notes.
These will be downloadable for free on the ACBC website and Bishops’ Commission for Liturgy page.
The Missal, expected to be introduced in Australia at Easter 2011, was announced by Pope John Paul II in 2000 and first published in Latin in 2002.
It has undergone a lengthy and rigorous translation process through the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, followed by sometimes heated discussions over particular wording at USCCB and ACBC general assemblies during much of the past decade.
The changes to be implemented in 2011 include new responses by the people in about a dozen sections of the Mass, although changes in the words used by the celebrant are much more extensive.
At several points during the Mass, for example, when the celebrant says, “The Lord be with you,” the people will respond, in a more faithful translation of the original Latin, “And with your spirit.” The current response, “And also with you,” was “not meant as ‘you too’ or something like ‘back at you,’” Fr Richard Hilgartner, associate director of the USCCB Secretariat of Divine Worship, told CNS.
Rather, it is “an invocation to the priest as he celebrates the Mass, a reminder that he is not acting on his own, but in the person of Christ” – a distinction that the new language will highlight, he said.
“The order and structure of the Mass will not change at all,” he added, but Catholics will see some new texts for prayers, new observances for saints added to the Church calendar in recent decades and such additions as a Mass in thanksgiving for the gift of human life and an extended vigil for Pentecost, similar to the Easter Vigil.
Since mid-April, Mgr Anthony Sherman, director of the USCCB Divine Worship Secretariat, and Fr Hilgartner have been conducting workshops around the country for priests and diocesan leaders on implementation of the new Missal.
Mgr Sherman said participants often tell him that they had seen introducing the new Missal as “an absolutely impossible task” before the workshop but said afterward, “I think I can actually do this,” especially because of the wealth of resource materials that will be available to them.
The USCCB  and the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference  have separately prepared parish implementation guides that include for their countries a detailed timeline, bulletin inserts, suggestions for homilies and adult education classes on the liturgy and a wide variety of other resources.
Audio, visual and print resources for priests, liturgical musicians and laypeople also are available now or in the works.
Sr Janet Baxendale, a Sister of Charity of New York who teaches liturgy at St Joseph Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York and its Institute of Religious Studies and a consultant to the Bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship, said the new translation has been needed for a long time.
When the Second Vatican Council endorsed a new Missal and permitted Catholics around the world to begin celebrating Mass in their local languages, the translation work that followed “was at its best a rush job,” she said.
The Vatican’s translation principles at the time also favoured “a looser construction, with the thought that in this way it could be adapted to various people more readily,” she added.
“As time went on, it became evident that … in many instances, the richness and power of the Latin text didn’t really come through,” Sister Janet said. “This was true of all the translations, not just the English.” The new translation offers “more poetic texts, more beautiful texts,” she said.
Fr Hilgartner said Pope Benedict XVI has placed his own personal stamp on the liturgical changes by adding two new options for the dismissal prayer at the end of Mass, emphasising the “connection between the Mass and living the Christian life.”
In place of the current “The Mass is ended, go in peace,” celebrants will be able to choose from four options, including the Pope’s suggestions – “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord” and “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”
“There’s a reaction of some awe and enthusiasm for just these two phrases, and I think that’s worth getting excited about,” Fr Hilgartner said.