Is there flexibility in the Mass prayers?

[ricmat]

Lately, at daily Mass our priest has been using different words for the preparation of the gifts. He used to say “which earth have given and human hands have made” for the bread. Now he says “fruit of the earth and work of human hands”, then goes on to say “fruit of the vine and work of human hands” for the wine.

Observations and suggestions are treated very negatively at our parish, and I’m afraid to mention this to our priest, or even to ask it as a question.

If the priest has the flexibility to change things, I guess it’s not an issue. And if he doesn’t have the flexibility to change things, and has decided to do it anyway, it’s an issue but one I’m not going to tackle. But if he just inadvertently drifting off onto “autopilot” I might want to slip him an anonymous note telling him I prefer the “previous” version.

Does anyone know the official position?

 

[John_Lilburne]

Lately, at daily Mass our priest has been using different words for the preparation of the gifts. He used to say “which earth have given and human hands have made” for the bread. Now he says “fruit of the earth and work of human hands”, then goes on to say “fruit of the vine and work of human hands” for the wine.

Observations and suggestions are treated very negatively at our parish, and I’m afraid to mention this to our priest, or even to ask it as a question.

If the priest has the flexibility to change things, I guess it’s not an issue. And if he doesn’t have the flexibility to change things, and has decided to do it anyway, it’s an issue but one I’m not going to tackle. But if he just inadvertently drifting off onto “autopilot” I might want to slip him an anonymous note telling him I prefer the “previous” version.

Does anyone know the official position?

The priest is not permitted to change the words to “fruit of the earth and work of human hands”.

He does have the option of saying the correct words inaudibly instead of out loud.

 

[masterjedi747]

Lately, at daily Mass our priest has been using different words for the preparation of the gifts. He used to say “which earth have given and human hands have made” for the bread. Now he says “fruit of the earth and work of human hands”, then goes on to say “fruit of the vine and work of human hands” for the wine.

I believe John Lilburne is correct.
Bread: “which earth have given and human hands have made”
Wine: “fruit of the vine and work of human hands”

But on a more general level, yes, the priest does have some flexibility in the Mass prayers, since there are four different Eucharistic Prayers available for him to choose from. This just isn’t one of those things. Not the worst that could happen, obviously, but you might politely bring it to his attention if it gets to be a problem.