Hoping for too much from new missal?

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Many people are hoping that the new missal will usher in a new age of spirituality and reverence. Liturgical abuse will greatly decrease and people will return to God so to speak. However, since the rest of the.world has a correct translation, how come abuses still occurred and Catholicism is.on the decline. Is too much being expected of new missal?
 
If those were, indeed, expectations DIRECTLY relating to the new Missal, I would say yes, they were severely overblown.

But then again, I haven’t seen any kind of widespread expectation of this nature - though perhaps I haven’t been reading the forums closely enough.

It is not unreasonable, however, to think that an attitude which places a greater emphasis on tradition, accuracy, and academics might be more inclined to support traditionalist movements within the church.
 
I think that if people are expecting things to go back to the glory days come November 27, they’re sorely overestimating.

However, I do think the new translation of the missal will be a powerful and clear indicator of what the powers-that-be want, and I think that things will eventually get back on the right track. This is the first step.
 
DadDave said:
However, since the rest of the.world has a correct translation,
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This is not necessarily true. Each translation is a challenge and some are easier to translate from the Latin but it is important to note that no one translation or language is better than any others. From Veterum Sapientia,
Modern languages are liable to change, and no single one of them is superior to the others in authority. Thus if the truths of the Catholic Church were entrusted to an unspecified number of them, the meaning of these truths, varied as they are, would not be manifested to everyone with sufficient clarity and precision. There would, moreover, be no language which could serve as a common and constant norm by which to gauge the exact meaning of other renderings.
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But Latin is indeed such a language. It is set and unchanging.
etc.
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papalencyclicals.net/John23/j23veterum.htm
 
DadDave said:
Many people are hoping that the new missal will usher in a new age of spirituality and reverence. Liturgical abuse will greatly decrease and people will return to God so to speak. However, since the rest of the.world has a correct translation, how come abuses still occurred and Catholicism is.on the decline. Is too much being expected of new missal?
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Greetings DadDave,

I don’t think the new missal will lead to less liturgical abuse. I think only a Church council or a promulgation by the Pope can fix what is wrong in relation to the liturgical abuses that are present in the Church today.

God Bless.
Anathama Sit
 
DadDave said:
Many people are hoping that the new missal will usher in a new age of spirituality and reverence. Liturgical abuse will greatly decrease and people will return to God so to speak.
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I agree.
DadDave said:
Is too much being expected of new missal?
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Yes, too much is being expected. A lack of spirituality and reverence and a liberal approach to the liturgy is a mind set. That is not going to be simply over turned by the revised English language translation of the Missal. I sincerely hope I’m wrong.
 
Our pastor said his first words on the matter last weekend at the end of Mass. He called it “a bunch of hoopla”. He explained that it was a new translation, not a new Mass. That all our our postures and the order of the Mass would remain the same. It was only the words of some of the prayers that were changing, and most of the changes were to things said by the priest - especially the Eucharistic Prayers, which he called “stunningly beautiful”. He reassured the people that we would have pew cards to help us continue our active participation, and that one of the most noticeable changes would be our response to “Peace be with you.” (And with your spirit.)

And that was pretty much that!
 
DadDave said:
Many people are hoping that the new missal will usher in a new age of spirituality and reverence. Liturgical abuse will greatly decrease and people will return to God so to speak. ?
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since you don’t say what specific liturgical abuse you are addressing, and the only change is in translation, not rubrics, I don’t know why there would be such an expectation.
 
acadian said:
Our pastor said his first words on the matter last weekend at the end of Mass. He called it “a bunch of hoopla”. He explained that it was a new translation, not a new Mass. That all our our postures and the order of the Mass would remain the same. It was only the words of some of the prayers that were changing, and most of the changes were to things said by the priest - especially the Eucharistic Prayers, which he called “stunningly beautiful”. He reassured the people that we would have pew cards to help us continue our active participation, and that one of the most noticeable changes would be our response to “Peace be with you.” (And with your spirit.)

And that was pretty much that!
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Yup, from the perspective of good normal laypeople, it is pretty much that.

But as far as re-establishing authority in the Church, re-affirming continuity of the Church, and getting a handle on the dissent we’ve had to deal with for the last few decades, this translation is absolutely HUGE, even though it doesn’t look like that much of a change to us.

High profile, powerful liturgical dissenters are apoplectic and have been for about a year now.
 
The OP raises an interesting point. Europe has had the “proper” translation" for decades now and their Mass attendance percentages are pathetic. Here in the US we’ve had the “inferior” translation and our Mass attendance is triple some European countries.

Overall, I don’t think it will increase Mass attendance but the fact that there are changes will lead people to learn why the changes take place and that will give them a deeper appreciation of the theology of the Mass.
 
acadian said:
He reassured the people that we would have pew cards to help us continue our active participation, and that one of the most noticeable changes would be our response to “Peace be with you.” (And with your spirit.)
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Overall, I quite like the new translation - especially, “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof…”

I do find the Nicene Creed rather ‘clunky’ though and not a very fluent piece of English.
 
YoungTradCath said:
Does it matter as far as my post is concerned?
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I would say yes, it does matter, because most people are imagining a “glory days” in the American church that doesn’t exist. They imagine the church in the United States is smaller than it was, when in fact there are more catholics today inside the USofA than ever before. They imagine that mass attendence is in free fall, when looking at the young adults (under 30) they fall second only to retirees in terms of mass attendance. They imagine that there was a day that Catholicism was a political force, forgetting that there were times when the law persecuted Catholics specifically.

There were never any “glory days” for the church in America, there is only the Glory of Christ as the church grows ever more and more.
 
ProVobis said:
it is important to note that no one translation or language is better than any others.
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If no translation is better than any other, why change our current English translation? The fact is that some translations are better than others. The document you quoted is simply saying that we can’t claim that say the Tagalog translation has greater authority than the English.
 
Digitonomy said:
If no translation is better than any other, why change our current English translation? The fact is that some translations are better than others. The document you quoted is simply saying that we can’t claim that say the Tagalog translation has greater authority than the English.
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I think that’s what ProVobis was saying.
 
Matthew_Holford said:
Not in my bit of Europe.😃
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Same here!

boy o boy, isn’t it great fun at Mass these days! Our congregation has gotten over the worst of the stumbles and grumbles.
There are still a couple spots where you hear voices like a bunch of sleepy teens singing words they don’t know to a song, but making them up along the way! LOL
 
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