USCCB encourages praying novena in lead-up to Roman Missal implementation

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has announced on its Facebook page that it will be posting a Novena for a Fuller Participation in the Sacrament of the Eucharist for the next nine Fridays, beginning tomorrow, Sept. 30, to help Catholics prepare for the new translation. The novena uses prayers that come from the Roman Missal, Third Edition. Here's the novena prayer for "Day One: That priests will celebrate the Eucharist worthily":

Receive, Lord, my entire freedom.

Accept the whole of my memory,

my intellect and my will.

Whatever I have or possess,

it was you who gave it to me;

I restore it to you in full,

and I surrender it completely

to the guidance of your will.

Give me only love of you

together with your grace,

and I am rich enough,

and ask for nothing more.

Amen.

VIsit the USCCB's Roman Missal page for more information and reflections.

USCCB blog: 10 things Catholics need to know about the new translation of Missal

As we hit the two-month mark before implementation of the Roman Missal, Third Edition on Nov. 27, the first Sunday of Advent, the USSCB Media Blog has a list of 10 things Catholics should know about the new English translation. Here are the first three:

1. It is not a new Mass, it is a new translation for a new edition of the Missal.

2. The translation of the new Roman Missal was carried out under the newest Vatican guidelines for translating prayers into modern local (i.e., vernacular) languages.

3. The new English-language Missal also includes Vatican-approved adaptations requested by the Bishops of the United States as well as texts for observances that are proper to the United States.

Read the seven other things Catholics need know. Is there anything you'd add to the list? And check out more USCCB resources at www.usccb.org/romanmissal.

Eureka (Springs) moment: 'We rise to a new challenge' of new translation of Missal

With just two months and one day to go before the Roman Missal, Third Edition is implemented in English-speaking parishes throughout the world, more and more parishes and dioceses are preparing for the new translation.

The Arkansas Catholic, the diocesan newspaper of Little Rock, recently covered a presentation on the revised Missal, to debut Nov. 27, by Eureka Springs priest Father Shaun Wesley at the West Ozark Deanery at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Rogers, Ark. Here is what the newspaper reported:

Father Wesley acknowledged that "change is always hard. After Vatican II, American Catholics were pressed to translate the Mass into the vernacular. It happened in good will. But it could have been done better. Now with scholarship and prayer, we have the new edition of the Roman Missal.

"We rise to a new challenge,' he said. "The law of prayer is the law of belief and our highest prayer is the Mass. How we pray the Mass expresses our belief to its fullest. And in the law of life, what we pray is what we live out. We are making our salvation happen in the words we proclaim together, the music, the vestments, the environment. In participating in the Mass, we offer to God the best we can because he gives us his best.'

Read what else Father Wesley had to say.

The Diocese of Salt Lake City has also been preparing its priests and parishioners for the revisions. The Deseret News recently interviewed Msgr. Robert Servatius of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church of Sandy, Utah, the diocese's longest-tenured pastor, about the changes. His advice? "Go with the flow":

"It may seem a little awkward at first. But it won't be long before these changes will be comfortable and familiar for everyone. I believe they will ultimately enhance our ability to celebrate the glory and majesty of the Mass."

See what Father Servatius' goal is for the first Sunday of Advent.

Cardinal: A time to renew devotion to Mass

The latest issue of The Catholic Standard, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., has a column by Cardinal Donald Wuerl about the new English translation of the Roman Missal, and the opportunities the revisions will give Catholics to reflect on "the very heart of our life as members of the Church." Here is some of what the cardinal had to say:

While the translation will not affect the Scripture readings or the hymns, there are a number of translation precisions that have been introduced into the new edition of the missal to make it reflect more accurately and clearly the Latin missal which is normative for all translations.

The third edition of the Roman Missal in Latin was published in 2002. Our current translation goes back to 1973. The new translation reflects the effort of the Church to capture as best we can in the vernacular the rule of faith that is at the heart of the Church's public prayer.

For all of us, this moment of attention to some word changes in the Mass can provide us, as well, an occasion to reflect on the meaning of the Mass and why it is that the Mass is at the very heart of our life as members of the Church. It is right to say that "the Mass is what Catholics do." It is at the heart of Catholic life for individuals and for the entire community.

Read the rest of Cardinal Wuerl's column, and those in search of a more in-depth look at Cardinal Wuerl's thoughts on the revised Mass may want to check out his book, written with Mike Aquilina, "The Mass: The Glory, the Mystery, the Tradition."

Priest: 'New Missal should be allowed to stand on its own'

The British Catholic journal The Tablet has an article by Father Michael Ryan, pastor of St. James Cathedral in Seattle, who famously urged in an America magazine piece that the Church hold off implementing the new English translation of the Roman Missal until it could undergo some "market testing."

Though his America article inspired the creation of a website, www.whatifwejustsaidwait.org (and — as we told you about in an earlier post — an opposing website, www.whatifwejustsaidpray.org), Father Ryan writes in his Tablet column that he finds himself "posing quite a different question: What if we just said 'Yes'?"

The reason isn't so much a change of heart or a coming around to a greater acceptance of the Mass revisions. Rather, Father Ryan proposes that he and fellow priests who are critical of the new translation celebrate the revised Mass exactly as written without edits beginning Nov. 27, so that the people in the pews can make an honest assessment of the new translation.

Father Ryan writes:

This is another way of saying that the new Missal should be allowed to stand on its own and be judged for what it is, not for what we priests decide to make of it. I am of the opinion that the Missal will in time – I’m guessing not a long time – be judged deficient, but an informed judgement will never be made if we priests, even for the best of motives, give our people not the new Missal but our version of it. So we should do whatever is necessary to prepare our people for the new Missal but not take on the responsibility for making it work by doctoring or diluting it.

Maybe the new translation will receive a tepid response from the faithful. But maybe as they celebrate the revised Mass, Father Ryan and others who oppose the new translation will come to appreciate it, like those priests, music directors and parish ministers who have attended Father Bill Burke's workshops on the revisions, which he has conducted in 27 Canadian dioceses so far. Father Burke recently spoke with The Catholic Register, Canada's national Catholic newspaper, about the reactions to the new Mass:

During his workshops, Burke gives attendees copies of the collects for Advent and Christmas according to the new translation and asks them to follow the new turns of phrase while he reads aloud the current translation.
“The reaction was incredible,” he said. “People were saying ‘You’d almost say this wasn’t coming from the same source. The translation of 1975 left so much out!’ ”
In every case, not only are people saying “this is not so bad,” but are also realizing “there is a lot of good stuff here.”

Read here why Father Burke believes the new translation represents a deepening of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

New translation up and running in the UK

While Catholics in the United States and other English-speaking countries await the implementation of the Roman Missal, Third Edition on Nov. 27, Catholics in Great Britain have already begun the journey. Sept. 4 was the start date for UK Catholics to use the new translation of the Mass.

William Oddie of the Catholic Herald reports it was a great success (although he acknowledges he has a beef with one small part of the translation):

Well, the new translation of the Mass is now up and running, and, at least in my parish, its launch seems to have passed off without any awkwardness at all. “And with your spirit” was confidently and (as far as I could see) unanimously declared, as though the congregation had been saying it for years (phone conversations, however, have elicited a certain difficulty elsewhere in remembering to say it. Maybe the most important thing to remember is to keep your eyes on the card). There was a real sense of occasion, I thought. We began, slightly shakily, using James MacMillan’s very splendid setting (used at the beatification last year), and the process of getting people’s heads around it has begun. All in all, it was a great occasion.

In other Roman Missal news from Great Britain, the Catholic Truth Society's CTS Compass blog announced it is developing a new translation of the Roman Missal in Braille:

We hope that this will increase the participation of blind and partially-sighted people in the Mass and allow them to experience and understand the dignity and beauty of the new translation which began to be used this week.