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Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
15 August 2010
Dear Friends in Christ,
Sometime next year the texts we use for the celebration of Mass in English will be changing dramatically, and nearly every word we now speak or sing together will be touched by these changes. The reason for this new translation of the Roman Missal is simple: the text we now use is not so much a translation as it is a paraphrase of the Latin texts which remain the official prayer of the Church, and several years ago the Holy Father asked that all vernacular translations of the sacred liturgy be updated to more faithfully reflect the beauty and dignity of the Latin prayers of the Mass. That project is now almost complete for the English language, and the bishops of the many nations in which English is spoken are working on the final stages of preparing the implementation of the new translations.
The actual work of translating the Missale Romanum into the Roman Missal was guided by a group called the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (or ICEL), and the Director of ICEL during the years of this project was Monsignor Bruce Harbert, a priest of the Archdiocese of Birmingham in England and a scholar with deep knowledge of both linguistics and liturgy. Later this month, Monsignor Harbert is giving two days of lectures to the bishops and priests of the Province of Atlanta at our annual assembly, and he has graciously agreed to give a presentation on the new translation of the Mass here at St. Mary’s.
Next Sunday, 22 August 2010, Monsignor Harbert will speak at 4 pm in Gallivan Hall, and everyone is invited to join us to hear the man who guided the new translation of the Mass explain the extraordinary work that will shape the way English-speaking Catholics pray for decades or centuries to come. The lecture will be followed by questions from the audience as long as time permits, and then at 5.15 pm in the church we will sing Solemn Vespers for Sunday. I encourage everyone to attend and to bring along a friend for this rare opportunity to learn first hand about the new translation of the Mass.
In preparation for Monsignor Harbert’s lecture, you can learn more about the new translation at www.usccb.org/romanmissal This website is sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and contains a wealth of information about the Roman Missal that we will begin using sometime next year. The translation we now use at Mass has been with us for forty years, and if for no other reason, the transition to the new texts will require a great deal of effort on our part, so the sooner we begin to familiarize ourselves with the new texts, the easier the changes will be.
Please join us next Sunday at 4 pm in Gallivan Hall to learn from Monsignor Bruce Harbert about the new Roman Missal.
Father Newman