Jumping the Gun on the New Roman Missal

[iloveangels]

why did your dad feel the need to make these inquiries? does his position give him some authority over Mass celebrated by this priest, or in this parish? If not he was way out of line and needlessly scrupulous, and if he caused you or others to refrain from communion, or to worry about whether the Mass was licit (sacraments have validity, Mass has licity) that is a very serious thing.

I don’t know that what this man thought is all that important or not. A person always has the option not to go up for Holy Communion, anyway.

This is a confusing time, even if it is a joyful one. Give us a couple of weeks and the confusion will start to resolve itself.

 

[GwenL]

Perhaps the deacon “jumped the gun” by assuming the worst, and instead should give the priest celebrant the benefit of the doubt.

In our diocese, starting on All Saints’ day, the bishop gave permission for the priests to celebrate daily Mass using the new Missal. This permission did not include changing the responses of the people; it is an opportunity for the priests to practice and smooth things out before the first Sunday in Advent. In accord with the USCCB guidelines, he also gave all parishes permission to use the new musical settings starting back in September.

Probably, the deacon should have assumed that the priest had permission from his ordinary.

By the way, our rector received the email memo from the bishop, giving permission to use the new Missal at daily Mass, at 5:30 in the afternoon on All Saints’ Day. He then heard confessions (our confirmation class) until about 6:45, and was the celebrant for All Saints’ Day Mass at 7:00 p.m., at which he used the new Missal. So it’s quite possible that nobody else around the parish knew about the memo from the bishop. Rather than assuming that he had jumped the gun, I told him after Mass how beautiful the new prayers were and he told me about the memo.