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Fourteenth Sunday of the Year
9 July 2006
Praised be Jesus Christ! Now and forever!
Dear Friends in Christ,
A couple of things for your attention:
- In March 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (I love that name!) promulgated a document called "Liturgiam Authenticam" which presented new, clear, and firm principles to guide the translation of liturgical texts from Latin into the various modern languages. Five years later, that is still a work in progress for the English-speaking world, but changes are finally in sight. Last month at their meeting in California, the Catholic bishops of the United States approved a new translation of the Order of Mass, and now they will turn their attention to the remaining texts of the Roman Missal. This is a very cumbersome process involving bishops from many nations and the officials of the Roman Curia who must review these changes on the Pope’s behalf, so it will be many months before the words we sing or say at Mass actually change, but I do want you to be aware that changes are coming which will greatly enhance the beauty of our prayers at Mass while also making them much more faithful to the original Latin texts. For example, instead of answering "The Lord be with you" by saying "And also with you", the congregation will say "And with your spirit", thus rendering the Latin words "Et cum spiritu tuo" more faithfully into English and preserving the echo of the Scriptural texts from which this greeting is taken. As the new texts become available for study, I will let you know.
- This Tuesday is the Feast of St. Benedict, author of the famous Rule for monks, father of Western monasticism, and patron of Europe. Upon his election to the See of St. Peter, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger took the name of Benedict in part as an emblem of the work the two men share across 1500 years: preserving the light of the Gospel and the work of Christian civilization from the encroaching darkness of a neo-pagan rejection of Christ. To keep the Feast of St. Benedict, I suggest that you do three things: a. Pray for Pope Benedict XVI and the success of his work, b. Do some research about the original Benedict (born in 480 in Norcia, Italy and died in 547 at his famous abbey of Monte Cassino), and c. Begin to pray the Liturgy of the Hours each day. There are many ways to pray the Hours of the Divine Office, and a little time online or a visit to the local Catholic bookstore will help you learn about those methods. St. Benedict, pray for us!
Father Newman