A 72-year-old priest of the Diocese of Belleville has resigned rather than accede to his bishops instruction that he cease from improvising prayers at Mass. It sounds as if this was an ongoing issue stretching back a number of years, but the stakes seem to have been raised with the new translation.

I suspect, however, that other issues were involved. Also, the article is not entirely clear, but it seems as if it is the priest himself who initiated the idea of his resigning, not the bishop.

I’m wondering: have people experienced less improvisation on the part of celebrants since the introduction of the new translation? This has certainly been my experience.

[Addendum: The is an article at BND.com that gives some more of the story. It is still unclear to me whether or not the bishop asked for the resignation.]

A few days ago I participated in a Lessons and Carols service in the greater Washington area. While sponsored by a Roman Catholic institution, the service itself was not promoted as Roman Catholic per se, and attracted participants from multiple Christian traditions.

The service was beautiful and spiritually moving; however, something occurred at its beginning that gave me significant pause and raised a question about how far the new Missal translation should reach outside the celebration of the Eucharist.

The presider, a Carmelite priest, began the service by proclaiming, “The Lord be with you.” The congregation responded, “And also with you.” There was a moment of silence, followed by a wave of laughter that swept across the entire worship space for almost thirty full seconds.

Then, the presider said, “Let’s try that again. The Lord be with you.” The laughter immediately died down and the congregation responded, “And with your spirit.”

The presider’s insistence to “try that again” surprised me. First, the greeting itself was not in the program, so presumably the presider took the liberty of offering one, which I find appropriate. However, was his insistence on a greeting that drew upon the new Missal translation appropriate?

The service was not a celebration of the Eucharist or any of the sacraments. The priest fulfilled the role of a prayer service presider – a role for which he qualified by reason of his baptism, not his ordination. Under this scenario, I find it highly questionable for any presider (clergy or lay) to insist upon a particular response recently enshrined in the new Missal translation. It’s neither required nor needed in this context. The presider greeted the congregation, and the congregation responded in kind. Move on.

What happened at the service was relatively small potatoes; yet, it makes me wonder how far the new Missal translation might venture out beyond the celebration of the Eucharist and affect the language of other prayer services and paraliturgies. By and large, these celebrations have enjoyed a level of linguistic freedom in which the unique cultural and spiritual needs of a praying assembly can be captured or expressed through the rich use of metaphors and other poetic devices. I hope this freedom endures for generations to come.

Jeffrey P. Regan received a M.A. in Theology from the Saint John’s School of Theology·Seminary in 2010. He currently serves as a healthcare advocate at a major medical specialty association in greater Washington, D.C. Jeff and his wife, Natalie, reside in Alexandria, Virginia.

The entire missal, including all the priests’ proper prayers, is now in use for Catholic English-speakers everywhere (except New Zealand, that is).

Comments on how it went, second time around?

I’m especially interested in the declamation of the celebrant’s proper prayers. At first I thought these would have to be proclaimed slowly and carefully, with pauses at the punctuation to help make clear(er) the convoluted syntax. But now I wonder if that doesn’t just call more attention to the syntax, which is the hardest part in this whole project. Is it better to keep it moving and not break it up? Will worshipers gradually learn to listen in a new way, grasping various words and phrases but not necessarily catching the whole argument? I was put onto this line of thinking by a fellow monk’s comment that it sounds better not to pause at the comma they put after “that.” Here’s an example, from today’s Prayer after Communion – see the third line.

Replenished by the food of spiritual nourishment,
we humbly beseech you, O Lord,
that, through our partaking in this mystery,
you may teach us to judge wisely the things of earth
and hold firm to the things of heaven.
Through Christ our Lord.

How did this and such prayers go?

I’m also interested (for various reasons) in the missal chants. Were they used where you worshiped? How did they work? I’m really interested in the new Preface tone. I think it’s one of the gems of the missal – and I speak as an objective, neutral observer. I’m very fond of the lilt of it. I dearly hope priests don’t find it too difficult or complicated or Baroque (or whatever unfortunate label could stick). If the Preface was sung, tell us how it went.

Be nice, everyone. But do be honest.

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Fr. Lawrence wrote, in part:

…it may be well to remind ourselves that the beauty of art and material things in the sacred liturgy is meant to lead us to contemplate God who is beauty…As such, as we reflect on the holiness of beauty in the liturgy, let us pray that it leads to the beauty of holiness in our lives. Let us recall too the warning of St John Chysostom that if we adorn our liturgies with precious items and artworks, we should be all the more mindful to also cloth the naked, feed the hungry, and extend mercy to those in need.

I am among those who criticize celebrants who feel compelled to adopt a folksy/chatty demeanor, complete with jokes and instructional monologues that offer penetrating glances into the blindingly obvious. But this weekend, particularly as I sought to guide the assembly through the rich and rather complex symbolic vocabulary of the rite of baptism, I found myself tempted to blather on at length so that they would have some idea of why we began at the church door, moved to the nave for the liturgy of the word, then to the font, and finally to the altar; or why we use two sorts of oil, what the role of godparents is, and how water symbolizes both purification and dying and rising with Christ. I grouped a lot of this commentary into the homily, but some of it did bleed into other parts of the liturgy, since I didn’t want to over-burden the homily.

I might have been able to presume that the parents had been previously instructed in all this, but clearly this was not the case with everyone present, so it seemed incumbent upon me to offer some commentary if they were to be a worshiping assembly and not simply baffled spectators. And, at least as I read the documents of Vatican II, one of the goals of the reform was precisely to effect that shift from spectators to assembly (which is simply the English translation of ekklesia).

The wedding was a bit easier, in part because the rite of marriage is very simple (even if weddings are not). But even here I felt a temptation to deviate from the authorized text when addressing the couple, since they were former students whom I knew fairly well and it seemed strange to read a script to them rather than speak to them as I normally would. For the most part I resisted this — keeping my more personal remarks for the homily — but I felt the temptation. Should I adopt a tone of voice that was “natural” or one that conveys the supernatural significance of the occasion? There is a lot of spontaneous natural joy at a wedding. How can I best channel this into the supernatural joy that should also accompany the sacrament?

Sometimes I hear the liturgical reforms described as “simplifying” our rites. In a sense, of course, this is true. In addition to the simplification of the rites themselves, it will always be easier to pray in one’s native tongue. But in another sense the reforms have made the role of presiders more complicated, more demanding. The very fact of the use of the vernacular seems to presume that those who preside at liturgies will engage the congregation in a way that one could not be expected to do in Latin. Indeed, the simplification of the rites implies that the various ritual elements should stand out with a certain clarity and not simply appear as an undifferentiated mass of “sacrality.” They seem to be there in order to signify clearly. But in a culture that has grown symbolically tone deaf, particularly to Christian symbols, how much help do we need to give them?

The difficult challenge is to pursue this engagement and to make the rite comprehensible without losing a sense of transcendence and mystery. It struck me this weekend that this is a lot to ask. So it is not surprising that some chose either the path of complete disengagement — celebrating the rites as if they had never been reformed — or the path of an über-folksy style that engages people, but at the cost of turning the liturgy into (to quote Aidan Kavanagh) a Kiwanas Club meeting with hymns.

So while I am not ready to concede that Father Talk-Show-Host has the right solution, I will say that he has the right problem. That is, given the nature of the liturgical reforms, we are called to do justice to both the natural and the supernatural, nature and grace, the ordinary and the extraordinary.The task then is to meet people on the level of the natural and draw them into the mystery of God’s grace. This is a lot to ask, and it is inevitable that we will all fail to some degree. At that point I take comfort in knowing that I am merely an instrumental cause of grace, firmly grasped in the steady hand of God.

On holiday in Germany a few weeks ago, I found myself summoned by the bells of the parish church just at the time when the tour schedule allowed us some free time. I wandered across the square to see what was going on. As I had hoped, it was an evening mass, and although a weekday there was a good number of people present for a small village, about 15-20.

The pastor was of early middle age, engaged with the assembly and at ease with his priestly task, and it was clear that both presiding and preaching were a joy to him. There was lots of singing (unaccompanied) and a sense of participation even though no voice was heard except that of the priest. The church building was in exceptionally good order, with an elegant square modern altar at the mouth of the apse, and graced with good liturgical art.

The surprise came at the communion  when, having communicated himself, the priest went immediately to the tabernacle at the apse to bring the Reserved Sacrament to the altar for the communion of the faithful.

I was left bemused at this stepping back from a sense of the assembly’s full participation in the Eucharistic action together. At this crucial moment in the Mass, a clear dividing line was drawn in the sand between priest and people, and for no apparent reason. It seemed so at odds with everything else that had been said and done, and with the architectural setting which evidently had been re-designed to facilitate ‘full, conscious and active participation’ by the whole assembly.

Perhaps the priest needed to consume a great many hosts left over from a previous Mass? Perhaps math wasn’t his strong point (but there was less than 20 of us)? Perhaps it was simply a case of old habits dying hard.

Could it even have been a residual desire to proclaim that the Blessed Sacrament, as objective reality, is always in itself more significant than the liturgical event which gives it birth, and in which that group of people had been called to participate that evening?

It seemed as if the assembly that night were like a group of people invited to a friend’s house for a meal, only to find that their host, after treating himself to the newly prepared food, went to the cupboard to find some leftovers for his guests.

Of course analogies will take us only so far, and yet I came away from that church feeling something was not quite right, that in this small but significant act the spirit of the reforms flowing from Vatican II had somehow been lost. When it came to the moment of sharing the great gift of God, priest and people had withdrawn to their respective domains, and were both impoverished thereby.

Most striking to me, as trivial as it might seem at first, was how the Eucharistic species were handled in the liturgy. On the positive side, communion under both species was offered. But the two chalices for the communion of the assembly were placed at one end of the altar and, once they were filled, seemed to be ignored by the celebrant. I trust he had the intention of consecrating them, but there was nothing in his ritual activity that would give any indication of this; the only chalice that seemed to receive any attention, ritually speaking, was the chalice at the center of the altar, which was clearly the “priest’s chalice,” since he alone received from it. Likewise, the priest consecrated only the priest’s host; the laity received from ciboria taken from the tabernacle during the Agnus Dei.

The net effect was that we had a priest’s host and a priest’s chalice that were the ritual focus of the celebration, and then, ritually an afterthought, the chalices and hosts that the laity received.

I don’t mean to be a back-pew celebrant. But I could not help but be struck by the fact that what was being communicated ritually was that this was the priest’s Mass and the communion of the laity was an addition to that Mass and not an integral part of it. This, of course, was in fact the case before the liturgical reforms following Vatican II. The communion of the laity was a distinct rite that was on occasion incorporated into the Mass (thus the additional Confetior and Domine, non sum dignus), and not an actual part of the rite of Mass itself. The reforms following the Council were quite deliberate in changing this, and for excellent theological reasons. It is our sharing in the one sacrifice of Christ by receiving the gifts that have been offered that is the sign and cause of the unity of the mystical body of Christ. This is, I would say, better signified by ritual acts that underscore the unity of the assembly and the priest — such as all receiving from elements consecrated at that Mass and no artificial distinction being made between what the priest receives and what the assembly receives.

If we are going to put thought into the liturgy (and I think we should) and if we desire a liturgy that is a vehicle that conveys the Church’s tradition (and I think we should), then shouldn’t we be thinking about fundamentals before we turn our thoughts to styles of vestments or altar decorations or other secondary elements? If we want to be traditional, then should we simply content ourselves with trying to look like Fulton Sheen in the book This is the Mass? If we want to be traditional, shouldn’t we rather begin our efforts by attending to that which is at the roots of our tradition, such a Paul’s words, “For we, being many, are one bread, one body, all that partake of one bread”?

I agree with what Fr. Philip Endean SJ (“Sense and sensitivities,” February 19) has written concerning the kind of episcopal leadership called for in respect of the new translation of the Missal, the need for transparency (at all levels) and for something better than mere conformism.

But I also think the long-standing debate has focused too narrowly on the work of translating. One thing is the role of translators (who by now have carefully and conscientiously done their job), and another is the role of the presiding and other ministers.

Faithful translations bring out the meaning of the texts, and make them available on the pages of the liturgical books. Those translations then have to be lifted off the pages and given voice. The role of the translators does not dispense with the roles of the priest and other ministers, whose responsibility is to help the congregation make the prayer of the Church their own. Ministers would be shirking their responsibility if they merely parroted the written text regardless of the different circumstances and different levels of understanding of the congregation present.

When asked about the need for uniformity, the Consilium for the Implementation of the Constitution on the Liturgy spoke of the liberty allowed by the liturgical books themselves. The need for such liberty was so that the celebration may be adapted in an intelligent manner to the church building, or to the group of faithful present, or to particular pastoral circumstances, in such a way that the universal sacred rite is truly accommodated to human understanding (Notitiae, 1965, p. 254).

We need good translations; but we also need the kind of formation that enables priests and other ministers to responsibly make the kind of small adaptations that enable all present to feel included and able to participate. The nature of the liturgy requires this. It is not a matter of changing what is given in the Church’s liturgy, but of enabling people to enter into what is given, so that they can make the Church’s prayer their own.

Some of these small accommodations are a matter of courtesy and common sense, but by the nature of things cannot be made by the translators! The debate about translation needs to be relativized by taking into account the roles of the ministers.

(Rt Rev.) P.J. Cullinane
Bishop of Palmerston North, New Zealand
Member of the ICEL Episcopal Board, 1983-2003

From an e-mail I received earlier this week, from a Roman Catholic priest whom I’ve known for some time:

At our pre-Lent Priest’s Conference the hot topic was the implementation of the missal. I thought you might get a kick out of these words from our bishop:

“Make the most of it. Study it. Practice it — I can’t stress that enough. Some of the phrases are, as many of you have pointed out, difficult to read on paper and even more difficult to proclaim out loud. And when you find something that’s just, well, miserable; something that just can’t be made sense of aloud, do what you’ve always done, what priests have always done from the beginning: Change it. Just, please, be judicious about that — and don’t tell me about it!”