Don't Knock It 'til You Try It

So here we are: Advent 2011. The dreaded new translation of the mass is upon us in full force, with all of its (con)substantial changes and roof homecomings.

We who have gone seeking have heard so much from many angles, decrying the archaicness of the text, the misguided efforts of the Church dedicating attention to something that isn't that important, and how we don't even know what these new words mean. There's plenty of truth to a lot of these opinions.

Some of the wordings aren't as smooth as we might like; restoring the balance of Latin and Hebrew poetic structure and faithfully translating a no-longer-spoken-conversationally language is not going to sound conversational. The Church does have bigger problems, from the lingering shadows of the abuse scandals to the tensions between clerical and lay ministry/leadership. Some of these wordings are confusing- consubstantial? God of Hosts? under my roof?

My question is, "so what?" At the end of the day, it's all part of an effort to be more faithful to the liturgical tradition of our Church, which stands on the two legs of Scripture and Tradition. It's a way for English speakers to say words that more closely follow the Latin that is the basis for every language's translation of the mass, so that from east to west - er, I mean, from the setting of the sun to its rising - we all have as similar a mass as our universal church can have across borders and language barriers. One of my favorite practical effects of our transition: smaller language groups that lack the resources in terms of Latin scholars and studies translate their mass from English to their own language rather than directly from Latin. So by giving them a more faithful English translation as a starting point, we are coming closer to their celebrations of the mass as well.

Something to not lose in all this: the priests, part of the hierarchy so often criticized and derided, the hierarchy that approved this change, have even more than us to learn and review. Their parts have changed more than ours, and new things have been added to the giant Roman Missal that guides them through their celebrations of our masses. Don't overlook the beauty of some of their new words.

My two favorites:

1. As the priest lays his hands over the gifts to call the Spirit over them, he prays, "Make holy, therefore, these gifts, we pray, by sending down your Spirit upon them like the dewfall." What a beautiful image to use! It is a mystery of our faith that Jesus becomes present in the bread and wine as His Body and Blood through the Eucharist, and part of the prayers that effect this is this calling of the Spirit. How can we explain this loving action of our God? What if we just invoke the image of dew in the morning? When we awake, the grass and lawns of our neighborhoods are damp with the gentle, benign moisture of the morning, water that hasn't come from rain or storms that we can see and hear or from hoses or watering cans when we tend to our lawns; it is water that appears through a fairly easily explained process but nonetheless invokes some childlike awe and wonder for the simple splendor of it. So give this new imagery a shot - the Holy Spirit coming over the gifts to prepare them for Christ like the morning dewfall!?

2. After the gifts have been presented and the altar has been prepared, the priest invites us to begin the prayers over the Eucharist with him. This change to the invitation is so subtle that you might miss it, but when you catch, it will change your 'tude. "Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable..." That's right. No longer is our participation in the sacrifice of the Eucharist only implied or understood; it is explicitly invoked in prayer. Our sacrifice - our self-offering of our sins, our penitence, our prayers, our gratitude - is invited specifically to the altar. The reality that we are united in our baptism in Christ as we gather as His Body to celebrate the Eucharist invites us to share all of those things of our self with each other in the Eucharist. Then, we, like the bread that is His Body, Jesus and His people, are broken, shared, and sent forth. It begins with this invitation from the priest. So listen and let your heart be drawn in anew as you're specifically invited to the reality of the Eucharist that has been there all along but not spoken so specifically to us until now.

I could go on and on about pros and cons of the new words. The major point is that no one should really be too opinionated either way. People should talk with one another to share their feelings in community, but the point is for us to continue to deepen our spiritual commitments and live our faith. The mass - the Word and the Eucharist - is the basis and rhythm for doing this. So let's engage it prayerfully, but remember the end we all are working toward is relationship with ourselves, with others, and with God. And hey - give it a shot and spend a few Sundays and daily masses with it before you get to fired up either way. Don't knock it 'til you try it.