As a revision, the Roman Missal 3.0 has, as its obvious intention, to be an improvement upon that which came before … the highlights that follow will serve as fledgling insights into the treasures we have received.
The last time I put a pencil to music manuscript paper was 2008. That was the year I finally gave in and took advantage of my student discount to purchase one of the mainstream software programs for musical composition. I was absolutely delighted when it arrived, and I loaded it onto my laptop immediately. It was a moment of true emancipation for me as a freelance composer.
It was also the moment in which I became enslaved to unremitting advertisements for the 2009 version of the program. Six months later, the promotions began for the 2010 version. The commercials still come, both by regular mail and by electronic mail, though fortunately not over the phone. Software updates are standard procedure for those who choose to live in the digital age; nevertheless, I find myself easily exasperated with the arrival of each new promotion.
Almost a year has passed since the English-speaking world received “Roman Missal 3.0,” the new translation of the Missale Romanum Editio Typica Tertia. Before its implementation in late November 2011, I encountered many priests and laymen whose reaction to the announcement of a new missal was as unenthusiastic as is my reaction to the promotional spam I receive for my music software. And, just as I typically spend little time investigating what improvements are being offered in the software update, many (though not all) of these members of our Church had given little time to the task of exploring what the new missal would offer. As a revision, its obvious intention is to be an improvement upon that which came before. But how, and in what ways?
This is too broad a question to be answered in fullness here, so I will limit myself to present only five “updates” offered by the new missal. These observations are not intended to constitute a comprehensive analysis of the missal, nor do they necessarily represent the largest or most significant improvements. Clergy and churchgoers, at this point, will be familiar with the large-scale changes that have occurred, but many perhaps have not plumbed the more minute aspects of the revision. My hope is that the highlights that follow will serve at least as fledgling insights into the treasures we have received.
Update 1: The Church as “She”
Our first “update” concerns reference to the Church as “she.” This language appears at several places in the revised prayers. The beautiful new rendering of the Roman Canon, for example, includes these words:
Accept and bless these gifts, these offerings, these holy and unblemished sacrifices, which we offer you firstly for your holy Catholic Church. Be pleased to grant her peace, to guard, unite, and govern her throughout the whole world…
In the prayer that follows the Embolism, and leads into the Sign of Peace, we now pray:
Look not on our sins, but on the faith of your Church, and graciously grant her peace and unity in accordance with your will…
And, in the Preface of Holy Pastors, the priest prays:
For, as on the festival of St. N., you bid your Church rejoice, so, too, you strengthen her by the example of his holy life, teach her by his words of preaching, and keep her safe in answer to his prayers…
The use of the feminine singular pronoun may strike our ears strangely, since we have been referring to Holy Mother Church as “it” for nearly the last half-century. The feminine pronoun is, however, a very fitting usage (and one we should endeavor always to employ in our own speech concerning the Church). Why?
Because the Church is the Bride of Christ, and She is our Mother.
The Bible uses lots of imagery, and one of the most pervasive, overriding images of Scripture is the marriage of Christ with the Church. The image begins in Genesis, and extends throughout all the prophets; it is mentioned in the Gospels, and it takes center stage as the wedding feast of the Lamb in the Book of Revelation. Cover-to-cover, the Bible is the story of the marriage between Christ and his Church. Just as in earthly marriage, this heavenly marriage necessitates the union of a man with a woman in an inseparable bond that is faithful, fruitful, and utterly free. For this reason, the Church has always been regarded as a feminine entity. Now, our English liturgical prayers reflect that great truth.
In the second century, St. Irenaeus (c. 120-200) made reference to “the ancient organism of the Church.” 1 In one of his classic theological texts, Henri de Lubac (1896-1991) took up the same theme, explaining that “the Church, composed of men, was not made by the hands of men. She is not an organization. She is a living organism.” 2 Blessed Isaac of Stella (c. 1100) makes a comparison between Mary and the Church, pointing out that both are Mothers. 3 Both, moreover and mysteriously, are virgins: women blessed with generativity, though not with sexual union. The Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) makes these same comparisons, describing Mary as a type of the Church. As such, the Council teaches, one of the chief actions of the Church is “imitating the mother of her Lord.” 4 Thus, we see the ancient understanding of the Church as a feminine entity present all throughout her history, still pertinent and vibrant even in modern times.
During the entire course of her life, Mary is always a model of the Church in nucleo: at Bethlehem, at Nazareth, at Golgotha, at Pentecost, and at the Assumption. Like Mary, the Church is, indeed, our Mother, so we should always honor her as such.
Update 2: The Beauty of Repetition
The second highlight we shall offer concerns the beauty of repetition. We encounter repetitive phraseology at several points in the ordinary of the new translation. For example, in the Roman Canon, the priest now prays:
This pure victim, this holy victim, this spotless victim…
In the Confiteor, all pray:
Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault…
And, in the Gloria, we sing:
We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory…
The most obvious and basic reason for adopting these new texts is that they reflect more accurately what is contained in the normative Latin liturgical text. There are better reasons given for this, even more than that, though. Looking specifically at the Gloria text, each of these phrases conveys, in a general sense, the same notion of worshipping God. But, upon closer inspection, these five descriptions of worship actually do present subtle distinctions. To “adore” does not mean exactly the same thing as to “glorify” or to “bless,” or else this multiplicity of words would not exist. Together, these near-synonyms combine almost synergistically to express the extraordinary extent to which we, as Christians, are bound to glorify God.
Liturgical prayer, moreover, is enhanced when it is graced with poetic repetition. This kind of repetition is not dry or banal or purposeless. Instead, it is beautiful, artistic, and poetic. Liturgy is supposed to be beautiful, and God certainly deserves the gift of our artistry and poetry. Just as the sacred liturgy has inspired a multiplicity and abundance of beauty in the various arts (music, painting, architecture, etc.), so it has inspired a wealth and diversity in our phraseology of prayer.
It is, perhaps, germane to observe that prayerful repetition is well utilized in the “Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite,” as well as in other rites of the Catholic Church. One unfamiliar with the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom, for example, could easily be astonished by the number of times, “Lord, have mercy,” is uttered. Another major component of that Liturgy is the Trisagion, an ancient hymn that is always sung three times, in honor of the thrice-holy God. 5 It would be difficult to refute the value of these prayers as they contribute to the holiness, and cohesive beauty, of the Byzantine liturgy. The new English version of the Roman Missal now permits the anglophone world to share in some of these same riches.
As the Psalmist declares: “All your creatures shall thank you, O Lord, and your friends shall repeat their blessing.” 6
We turn now to the third update included in the implementation of the new Roman Missal: the orientation of the canon.
The Roman Canon, sometimes also called Eucharistic Prayer I, is one of several different canons the priest may choose to pray during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. There are four main options, plus several others, but the Roman Canon is the canon with the longest history in the Roman Rite. In fact, it has been prayed almost unchanged for roughly 1500 years.
By comparing the first words of Eucharistic Prayer I in the new and old English translations with the Latin original, one discovers a remarkable shift. First, this is the official beginning of the Canon in Latin, employed from time immemorial:
Te igitur, clementissime Pater…
This line, in the English translation of the former Sacramentary, was rendered:
We come to you, Father…
Now, with the newly translated Roman Missal, the following begins the Canon:
To you, therefore, most merciful Father, we…
In Latin, the words of a sentence can be placed almost anywhere, and still maintain sensibility. Thus, the placement of words is empowered as a manner of conveying meaning. It is not by mistake, then, that the very first word of the Roman Canon is Te (“To You”), referring to God. That the prayer begins with Te tells us the orientation of the whole prayer: toward the Father.
Word placement commands power in English, too, although there is less freedom in its regard than there is in Latin. What we have been praying since 1973, noticeably, changes the initial focus from Te (God) to we (us). This translation fails to capture the fundamental orientation that is so clear in the Latin, instead placing undue emphasis upon the worshipping community.
The new English translation has masterfully restored the essential orientation of this prayer. In addition to reinstating the loving description of our Father as “most merciful,” the placement of the word “you” at the outset of this prayer faithfully accomplishes the same nuance realized by the Latin.
Guided by the tremendous fidelity of our new translation, we can see, with newfound clarity, the orientation of our earthly pilgrimage toward the Father.
Update 4: Fidelity Reveals Theology
The fourth update of the new Roman Missal we shall consider regards the manner of translation itself. In composing the new missal, the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) embraced the school of translation known as “formal correspondence” over the “dynamic equivalence” school, which had been employed in crafting the 1973 Sacramentary. The result is that the thoughts, words, and sentiments of the original Latin are captured and conveyed with tremendous fidelity in the new English texts. This fidelity has revealed a wealth of theology and traditional piety in many of the new prayers that was either less clear, or missing altogether, in the former translation.
Presented here are only two of the abundant examples—one from the Proper of the Mass, and one from the Ordinary of the Mass. The Proper prayers are those that change so as to pertain to the particular feast being celebrated. In the following table, compare the Latin original of the proper orations for the memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus with the two different English translations:
Proper Orations: Memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus |
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|
Missale Romanum (2003) |
Sacramentary Supplement (2004) |
Roman Missal (2011) |
| Collect: Deus, qui salútem humáni géneris in Verbi fundásti,da tui incarnatióne pópulis tuis misericórdiam quam depóscunt,ut sciant omnes non esse, quam Unigéniti tui, nomen áliud invocándum. |
Collect: Lord, may we who honor the holy name of Jesus enjoy his friendship in this life and be filled with eternal joy in his kingdom.
|
Collect:
O God, who founded the salvation of the human race on the Incarnation of your Word, give your peoples the mercy they implore, so that all may know there is no other name to be invoked but the
|
| Prayer over the Offerings: Largitátis tuae múnera deferéntes, quaésumus, Dómine, ut sicut Christo usque ad mortem oboediénti salutíferum nomen dedísti, ita nobis eius virtúte muníri concede. |
Prayer over the Offerings: All-powerful Father, |
Prayer over the Offerings: Bringing you these offerings from what your bounty bestows on us, we pray, O Lord, that, just as you have given to Christ, obedient even until death, the Name that saves, so you may grant us protection by its power. |
|
Hóstia sumpta, Dómine, quam Christi nomen honorántestuae obtúlimus maiestáti, grátiam tuam, quaésumus, nobis infúndat ubérrime, ut et nostra in caelis esse scripta nómina gaudeámus. |
Prayer After Communion: God of mercy, may we honor our Lord Jesus Christ by these holy mysteries, |
Prayer After Communion: May the sacrificial gifts offered to your majesty, O Lord, to honor Christ’s Name and which we have now received, fill us, we pray, with your abundant grace,so that we may come to rejoice that our names, too, are written in heaven.
|
Et cum spiritu tuo.
In the former Sacramentary, the phrase had been translated:
And also with you.
Now, in the newly translated English missal, the response is given:
And with your spirit.
Herein, one can see a clear illustration of the difference between “dynamic equivalence” and “formal correspondence.” As small as this change in English may seem, it is a very important change.
By greeting the people with the words: “The Lord be with you,” the priest makes a profound statement. He formalizes and ritualizes his interior desire for the dynamic activity of the Holy Spirit to be poured out upon the people of God. This gift of the Spirit empowers the members of the Body to become the transformational leaven of the world, which is a task where God has entrusted God to all His children through Baptism.
The response of the people: “And with your spirit,” is equally profound. It refers specifically to the unique gift of the Spirit given to a bishop, priest, or deacon at ordination. This, then, is a prayer of the people for the celebrant. It asks that the priest might have the grace to use the charismatic gifts he received at ordination in such a way that he fulfills his ecclesial, prophetic role. Notably, therefore, this exchange is addressed only to an ordained minister. Whereas it may have seemed appropriate to respond: “And also with you,” to a lay person, the fidelity of the new translation helps to clarify that this call and response has always been, and continues to be, reserved for situations between an ordained minister and a congregation.
The orations for the memorial of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, and the response: “And with your spirit,” are fine examples of translation by “formal correspondence.” This method of translation, we have endeavored to show, carries the benefit of preserving the wealth of theology, and traditional piety, inherent in the prayers of the Roman Rite. In these and similar instances, it is remarkably true that fidelity of translation reveals subtlety of theology.
Update 5: The Musical Missal
The fifth and final update we shall present here seems almost superfluous. It concerns something patently obvious to anyone who even glances at the pages of the new missal. There is, in fact, nothing subtle or insightful at all about this observation, since it is so plain to see. We share this highlight nevertheless, though, since not everyone has the frequent, even daily, occasion to cast his or her eyes inside the missal.
The fifth update is this: the third typical edition of the Roman Missal is the most musical missal in history.
This missal earns that distinction easily. It contains far more chants than any of its predecessors. Without a doubt, the transition we have recently experienced as the Church in the anglophone world is a prodigious, breakthrough moment for lovers of chant, and of the sacred liturgy. There is not a single prayer intended for audible proclamation for which music is not provided in this missal. Only the private prayers of the priest (including the offertory prayers), which are to be said inaudibly, are left without melody.
It is especially noteworthy that, throughout the entire ordinary of the Mass, nearly every prayer is rendered first with musical accompaniment. Only subsequently does the plain text follow. This ordering, in itself, is undeniably meant to tell us something. It is meant to tell us to sing and to chant.
There is a growing distinction being made among folks who labor in sacred music. It is the question of whether to sing at Mass or to sing the Mass. As the very structure of our new English missal reveals, what matters really is not the singing of hymns or motets. What matters is singing the proper and ordinary prayers of the liturgy, themselves.
Why? The Roman liturgy is a sung liturgy. To be sure, this has not been our experience in the typical American parish since the 1960s. Nor, to be fair, was it the typical experience in the 1940s or 1950s, either. This is most certainly, however, the vision of Sacrosanctum Concilium and the Second Vatican Council. It is not merely a matter of the priest’s personal preference.
In this astounding gift from Holy Mother Church, the music has been provided for us. The preference for chanted versus spoken prayer has been made clear. It remains only for the faithful—and especially for priest celebrants—to embrace the vision set before us. What we are experiencing, of course, is not so much a paradigm shift on the part of the Church’s vision; for liturgical praxis on the average parish level, however, a paradigm shift is exactly what is needed.
As St. Augustine observes: “Cantare amantis est.” 9 If we believe that the liturgy is fundamentally a movement of love, and an expression of our love for God, who, himself, is love, then our liturgy should be sung!
Conclusion
I still happily use my 2008 software. When I bought it originally, I hoped and expected to use it for several years before needing to replace it. The main reason I hesitate to purchase the updated version of the program is that I fear having to relearn how to use it: where the tools are, how the menus are arranged, how to manipulate the document layout, etc.
Not surprisingly, I have been asked numerous times by parishioners how long I think this missal will last. Like many priests, they were hesitant, at first, to undergo this whole process of change. Quite understandably, they now want to be sure that their investment in learning and comprehending the new liturgical texts will be worth the effort.
I have no authority by which to answer their questions, but it is an ardent hope of mine that this new translation of the Third Typical Edition of the Roman Missal will be a lasting source of nourishment for the Church, in English-speaking territories. The five “updates” we have considered, together with many others, have the potential to enrich our vernacular celebration of the Eucharist greatly.
Hopefully, these updates have been installed successfully.
- St. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, 1, 4, c. 33, n. 8. ↩
- Henri de Lubac, The Motherhood of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1982), 15. ↩
- Blessed Isaac of Stella, Sermon 51 (PL 194, 1862-1865). ↩
- Lumen Gentium, #64. ↩
- The Trisagion may be chanted in the Roman Rite, also, particularly during the Adoration of the Cross on Good Friday. ↩
- Psalm 145:10. ↩
- Cf., Acts 4:12; Phil 2:9-11. ↩
- St. Hippolytus of Rome, Traditio Apostolica, 4, 3. ↩
- St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 336, 1 (PL 38, 1472). A possible translation of this Latin phrase is: “Only the lover sings.” ↩
About Fr. David M. Friel
Terrific article padre! Thank you for highlighting the magnificent changes, even though they appear and sound subtle to most eyes and ear.
Perhaps ad orientum will soon return to the Western churches? :-)
God bless you.
Fr. Friel. I was wondering if the new translation of the Roman Missal will still include “inclusive languagel” i.e., instead of understanding “man” and “mankind” to mean all humans as in all prior wriings of the Church and the Bible (as well as the current Catechism of the Catholic Church), will it persist in changing it to gender neutral words like “people” or “one,”etc.? Even “bretheren” is an old term that is understood to include men and women in liu of “brothers and sisters”?
God Bless
Gino,
I haven’t done a thorough, scientific analysis to compare the new Missal to the former Sacramentary on the issue of inclusive language. That being said, I would say that many of the orations (Collects, Prayers over the Gifts, Prefaces, and Prayers after Communion) do not shy away from using “man” and “mankind” in the collective sense. I have not noticed, during the past year of using the Missal, any glaring instances of so-called “inclusive language.”
The word “brethren” is still included in the Missal, as it was in the Sacramentary. One example is the priest’s prayer that begins, “Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice…” The phrase “brothers and sisters” is provided parenthetically as an option, but “brethren” is the first text given.
Hopefully that helps!
Thank you Fr. Friel for your response and comments. I should have stated that it is in the 1st and 2nd Readings, and the Gospel, where they usually occur and that, I presume, are from the New American Bible which contain such language. I believe the Mass from the Vatican uses the Revised Standard Version-Catholic Edition that uses the conventional “man/mankind/fathers” to describe the understood man/women and brothers/sisters. In any case, it seems the New Lectionary will continue to use the NAB for those readings.
Sorry for not being so clear the first time.
Thanks for clarifying, because I was not thinking of the Lectionary. What you say is correct. The NAB does, in many places, make use of so-called “inclusive” language, although different books were translated by different scholars, so it sometimes breaks free. Such language is very prevalent, however, in the Psalms.
The power and beauty of the Third Edition (of the new Roman Missal) makes every Mass the most holy and transcendental experience ever. Deo Gratias!
Dear Father David M. Friel,
My maternal grandfather was James Francis (Frank) Friel. Born in 1870 in a sod house, 5 miles west of York, Nebraska. His father Bernard Friel was brought over from Donegal, Ireland, when he
was just a boy, having been born in Ireland about 1840. His father was James Friel from Donegal
as well. My grandfather Frank Friel was the oldest of 8 children. His father died in 1915 and is buried in the Catholic cemetary in York, NB. which he helped establish. My grandfather married a young woman named Bridget Donohue in Adair, Iowa in 1898. And they had 8 children including my mother Irene Friel Crevoiserat. I read your article above from HPR and compliment you on its content and enthusiasm. Love and Prayers, Don “Kelly” Crevoiserat ( Erin go brah )
Hi Don,
My great-grandfather was Hubert Friel from somewhere in County Donegal. His son, also Hubert Friel, was born in Philadelphia. My grandmother was born Beatrice Doohan in Charlestown, County Mayo, and she married Hubert Friel, Jr. after immigrating to America.
Glad you enjoyed the article. I think the Church has given us a gift in this new Missal about which we ought to be very enthusiastic!
understandably you avoided commenting on that outdated word CONSUBSTANTIAL .The mass supposed to be in the vernacular not a translation from the old latin Mass.
Hi Brian,
As I said in my introduction, the new Roman Missal is a broad topic, and this article is not intended to be a comprehensive analysis. My selectivity shouldn’t be interpreted as an avoidance of anything, but rather a choice to highlight just five things.
As for the wonderful word, “consubstantial,” I believe there are good reasons for using it in the new translation of the Creed. It is a technical theological term, to be sure, and it denotes a very specific meaning. There are some theological concepts that can’t be expressed well in loose language. “Trinity,” for instance, is a technical theological term; it would seem better to me, however, to use the term “Trinity” than to say “united Godhead of three Persons, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit.” For the same reason, I prefer the use of “consubstantial” to the former translation, “one in being,” which is equally true but less concise.
There’s also something that stirs me when I consider that a number of our greatest saints spent their lives hammering out the meanings of theological terms like “consubstantial” and “transubstantiation.” These saints actually invented these terms to apply them to the theological concept. So I think using a more Latinate translation of these terms helps to connect us more evidently with that tradition. I consider the terms more timeless than outdated.
Finally, we have to recognize that the liturgical texts of the Roman Rite exist first in Latin. When Holy Mother Church permitted the use of the vernacular, it became necessary to translate the texts faithfully into other languages. Different people can legitimately espouse disparate schools of translation, but the Church, through “Liturgiam Authenticam,” has established her clear preference for formal correspondence over dynamic equivalence. This new Missal, which is most certainly supposed to be a translation from the Latin and not a creation unto its own, has been translated in accord with the principals set forth in “Liturgiam Authenticam.”
I genuinely hope that the new texts will help, not hinder, you in your prayer. God’s blessings to you!
Brian, we speak English, not Anglo-Saxon. You can’t be phobic towards Latin without being phobic to vernacular English as it’s commonly spoken and understood by literate people today. To anyone who truly knows English and speaks it with full command, Latin can never be truly a “foreign” language. “Consubstantial” expresses a vital concept and does so while preserving a link to the ancient texts of the Creed.
Fr. Friel also avoided commenting on the words that weren’t retranslated, such as Hosanna,
Amen, and Alleluia. Not one of the three are English, nor are they Latin or Greek. And people utter them without any idea what they mean, either.
I am not sure it’s appropriate to say Fr. Friel “avoided” commenting on the three Hebrew words you mentioned; after all, the point of his article was to illuminate some of the differences between the former and the now current English translations of the Roman Missal, and, as it happens, those particular words (all of which appear in exactly that form in Sacred Scripture: e.g. Mt.21:9 and Rev.19:4) were left untranslated in both English versions.
Perhaps it is true that broadly speaking even people who attend Mass regularly do not know that “amen” means “so be it”, or that “hosanna” means “save, we pray”, or that “alleluia” means “praise YHWH”; but, all the same, they know how to use them correctly in a liturgical setting. Nor, probably could they expound the derivation of the word “Mass” – but they know what it signifies
Possibly those very people would not be able to tell you the “meaning” of “Jesus” (cf. Mt.1:21) or “Christ/Messiah” either. Is it necessary that they should be able to?
Beautifully written. This is a must read!
I’m not familiar with the new missal, since I celebrate the Extraordinary Form exclusively. Clearly, a better translation was in order. I am particularly happy that the Church recognized the importance of repetition with regard to certain phrases that Fr. Friel has pointed out. With that in mind, the Ordinary Form would truly be enriched if the Church introduced into it the triple Domine non sum dignus. Also, perhaps the newfound appreciation of repetition will induce the powers that be to appreciate the importance of repeated gestures; i.e., making the sign of the cross over the oblata. Sacrosanctum Concilium called these “useless repetitions” and called for their removal. Clearly, the growing appreciation for repetition shows that we have begun to shed the hyper-rationalistic (and, consequently, minimalistic) era of the ’60s and recover a taste for the richer fare of complex yet beautiful liturgy. However, the more that things from the Extraordinary Form are introduced into the Ordinary Form, the more will people question the wisdom of those responsible for the creation of the Ordinary Form in the first place.
Father,
A truly beautiful article, written in the same “noble simplicity” inherent in the Roman Rite. Congratulations on a fine contribution toward helping us appreciate the distinct benefits of Roman Missal 3.0. And, BTW, I still prefer my “outdated” music software to the current version, three generations newer!
Father Friel Your article was quite beautiful as regards this new english translation. When we first celebrated it in my parish of St. Thmas Aquinas in Dallas and the rest of the diocese I found it from the original latin to be quite easy to pray. Although the celebrant had more changes,the reponses, the gloria and the Nicene creed were nicely given in english, I am a lector and EM at assigned Sunday masses in the above parish and the Scripture from the New American bible english is well done from the Jerome latin and original greek k.