Annual Dinner with Clergy of the Diocese 2012
On the Occasion of our Annual Vespers & Benediction
My Brother Priests
I want to try to put fresh heart into you as we, priests, continue to adjust to the still fairly unfamiliar new Translation of the Mass.
The Pope, in his Ad Limina Address to us last October, said the new translation of the Missal is intended to enrich and deepen the sacrifice of Christ offered to God by his people. He told us to help our clergy to welcome and appreciate what has been achieved with the Missal, so that we, clergy, in turn may assist our people as everyone adjusts to the new translation.
So, I have been asking priests and people how they are finding the new translation of the Mass. One woman said to me, “It’s not our language, is it?” A man I know from Sydney said, “I have to pray extra hard at Mass these days as I find the new translation uncomfortable.” Priests tell me how particularly hard they find the First Eucharistic Prayer. Many have commented on “prevenient grace” found in the Prayer over the Gifts on December 8 and on the subordinate clauses in the Collects that can obscure the message of the prayer.
I don’t mind telling you I, too, have trouble adjusting. I puzzle over why a more remote unfamiliar word has been chosen over a simpler more direct word – oblation (offering), nativity (birth), compunction (remorse) and propitious (gracious, well-disposed.)
I compliment our Diocesan Liturgy Commission on the production of the seven explanatory leaflets “The Church at Prayer” plus the sessions for lay people held in 2011 in the north and south and middle of the Diocese to help our people reflect on what the changes are and what they mean. You are also aware that we had input by Archbishop Mark Coleridge and Fr Peter Williams at two separate Clergy Conferences to help us, in our job, to understand the reasons for the change and to accommodate the new translation into our liturgical practice and to assist our people. It is our job, as pastors, to explain the new translation well.
What we can be sure of is that this 3rd Edition will not be the last General Instruction on the Roman Missal, nor will this new translation be the final word on Catholic worship in our English-speaking world. However, they are the texts which the Church is offering us now in our own day, in order to enrich our prayer and the spiritual life of the Church.
So while I know, as you do, some parts of these texts have become a point of contention, there are also as many inspiring renderings of our liturgical prayers in the same Missal. Being human, we may think we could have done a better translation ourselves here and there.
Aware of the newness of the words we now have to use in this translation, you and I need to concentrate and practise praying them before we get to the altar so that we can comprehend their meaning, their structure and their drift when we pray them, so they may be clearly understood by our congregations, because we know what we are praying. So I ask you, as I ask myself, to adopt a fresh approach in contrast to our long-formed habits and familiarity. We then know it is not professional to inflict any personal issues we may have with this new translation onto our people. Our personal disposition and our sense of loyal obedience to the Church’s wishes can shape our hearts.
We mustn’t lose the conviction that it is the Mass that matters, and that the Mass is not ultimately about peripheral things which can be like the glass and the face of the compass. Christ is the compass needle pointing us to the Father, helping us to find our way. The Mass is always bigger than the word changes and the personalities associated with them. Never are we so much a priest as when we offer the sacrifice of the Mass. Nor can our priesthood survive without the Mass. Yet obviously, the better the preaching, the music, and the welcome, the more inspiring our celebrations will be.
I offer you four ideas as practical assistance in this period of change:
May you and I be ardent but gentle servants of the Gospel serving the Lord and available to our people, because the fruits of the Holy Spirit “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, truthfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22) are in our hearts.
Despite the adjustment needed for the new translation, I want all of us to accept with an open heart, the search for renewal in our understanding and celebration of the Mass, guided by the Church we love, so that our own faith and prayer may be enhanced by what is asked of us.
With my warm good wishes and blessings
Bishop Peter Ingham
I want to try to put fresh heart into you as we, priests, continue to adjust to the still fairly unfamiliar new Translation of the Mass.
The Pope, in his Ad Limina Address to us last October, said the new translation of the Missal is intended to enrich and deepen the sacrifice of Christ offered to God by his people. He told us to help our clergy to welcome and appreciate what has been achieved with the Missal, so that we, clergy, in turn may assist our people as everyone adjusts to the new translation.
So, I have been asking priests and people how they are finding the new translation of the Mass. One woman said to me, “It’s not our language, is it?” A man I know from Sydney said, “I have to pray extra hard at Mass these days as I find the new translation uncomfortable.” Priests tell me how particularly hard they find the First Eucharistic Prayer. Many have commented on “prevenient grace” found in the Prayer over the Gifts on December 8 and on the subordinate clauses in the Collects that can obscure the message of the prayer.
I don’t mind telling you I, too, have trouble adjusting. I puzzle over why a more remote unfamiliar word has been chosen over a simpler more direct word – oblation (offering), nativity (birth), compunction (remorse) and propitious (gracious, well-disposed.)
I compliment our Diocesan Liturgy Commission on the production of the seven explanatory leaflets “The Church at Prayer” plus the sessions for lay people held in 2011 in the north and south and middle of the Diocese to help our people reflect on what the changes are and what they mean. You are also aware that we had input by Archbishop Mark Coleridge and Fr Peter Williams at two separate Clergy Conferences to help us, in our job, to understand the reasons for the change and to accommodate the new translation into our liturgical practice and to assist our people. It is our job, as pastors, to explain the new translation well.
What we can be sure of is that this 3rd Edition will not be the last General Instruction on the Roman Missal, nor will this new translation be the final word on Catholic worship in our English-speaking world. However, they are the texts which the Church is offering us now in our own day, in order to enrich our prayer and the spiritual life of the Church.
So while I know, as you do, some parts of these texts have become a point of contention, there are also as many inspiring renderings of our liturgical prayers in the same Missal. Being human, we may think we could have done a better translation ourselves here and there.
Aware of the newness of the words we now have to use in this translation, you and I need to concentrate and practise praying them before we get to the altar so that we can comprehend their meaning, their structure and their drift when we pray them, so they may be clearly understood by our congregations, because we know what we are praying. So I ask you, as I ask myself, to adopt a fresh approach in contrast to our long-formed habits and familiarity. We then know it is not professional to inflict any personal issues we may have with this new translation onto our people. Our personal disposition and our sense of loyal obedience to the Church’s wishes can shape our hearts.
We mustn’t lose the conviction that it is the Mass that matters, and that the Mass is not ultimately about peripheral things which can be like the glass and the face of the compass. Christ is the compass needle pointing us to the Father, helping us to find our way. The Mass is always bigger than the word changes and the personalities associated with them. Never are we so much a priest as when we offer the sacrifice of the Mass. Nor can our priesthood survive without the Mass. Yet obviously, the better the preaching, the music, and the welcome, the more inspiring our celebrations will be.
I offer you four ideas as practical assistance in this period of change:
- It is the Church’s Liturgy that You and I are privileged to celebrate
It is not my Mass – it is the Church’s Mass at which you and I, as priests, are honoured and privileged to be able to preside. So our own personal tastes, our own preferences and personality, our own sense of Church, are really quite marginal to our work as the Church’s Ministers of Word and Sacrament. The very vestments we wear at Mass in effect cover and minimise our personal preferences rather than emphasise them.
The Liturgy of the Mass is the action of the Church. It is not a platform for you and me to express ourselves. Our task as a celebrant is to be faithful to the Church who gives you and me, through ordination and diocesan faculties, both the right and the privilege to celebrate the Liturgy. So, for example when we priests move from one parish to another, there should be clear continuity in the manner in which the Mass is celebrated according to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
- Liturgy Forms Us as One Body
The words of the Mass and the Sacraments that the Church gives us in the liturgical books form our faith and form our prayer better than our spontaneous creativity can. The Eucharist is about our unity in the Body of Christ. We pray what we believe.
At Mass, you and I are the Lord’s instrument.
Ordained into the person of Christ, the Head of his Body, the Church, you and I are Christ’s instruments who bring about his great Mystery of Faith. It is very important to understand that we act in the person of Christ.
Furthermore, our celebration of Mass can help us shape our hearts for the day ahead because we hope also to be the Lord’s instrument throughout the day, just as we are at Mass. So in all the events of the day, in the decisions we make, the words we speak, the help we provide, the Sacraments we celebrate, our greatest and safest hope is that the Lord will use us and that we will not get in God’s way. We are “stewards of God’s mysteries” (1 Cor 4:1) through which God opens his saving life to us and to our people. St Peter says, “Each one of you has received a special grace so, like good stewards responsible for all these different graces of God, put yourselves at the service of others.” (1 Pet 4:10)
- The Mass we Celebrate is also a Service to our People
Our people have a right to receive the official Rites of the Church whenever they are at Mass, at a Baptism, a Marriage, Confirmation, or Funeral, etc. We and our people meet the Lord in the Church’s Liturgy. The Mass is sacred space and sacred time to allow the movement of our hearts towards the Lord and to allow the Lord to move towards us. So we try to respect the spaces and times of silence in the Liturgy – at the end of each reading, at the end of the homily, after Holy Communion, also respecting spaces and time for the quiet recollection for the people before, during and after Mass. The beauty of the celebrated Liturgy, the tasteful decorum of the liturgical space, plus a sense of reverence, respects the congregation and is sensitive to their spiritual needs. Cardinal Hume once said, “Our Churches are not simply buildings in which we worship the Lord, but buildings with which we worship him.” A well-cared-for Church, as an arena of beauty for the Lord, lifts our hearts and minds to God when we enter it. Our people are entitled to receive the official Rites of the Church. - When the Celebration of Mass enters our hearts and souls it results in a vibrant sense of Mission
When we meet the Lord who loves us more than we could ever imagine, then we are ready to respond with a Christ-like heart to the people with whom we live, and with an empathy to people in need. A faith-filled celebration of the Mass naturally leads us to have a compassionate heart and a willingness to serve others. “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.”
All that we receive in the Mass is the gift of “the Father of all good gifts.” (James 1:17)
We want our people to meet “the one true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent.” (John 17:3)
We know that, filled with the Spirit of Christ, we are to serve our fellow human beings in Christ’s name until he comes again. “Go in peace glorifying the Lord by your life.”
May you and I be ardent but gentle servants of the Gospel serving the Lord and available to our people, because the fruits of the Holy Spirit “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, truthfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22) are in our hearts.
Despite the adjustment needed for the new translation, I want all of us to accept with an open heart, the search for renewal in our understanding and celebration of the Mass, guided by the Church we love, so that our own faith and prayer may be enhanced by what is asked of us.
With my warm good wishes and blessings
Bishop Peter Ingham