Liturgy of the word in two languages

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Hello everyone,

This is my first post 🙂 I did search for this topic but did not find the answer… hopefully I didn’t overlook it.

I attend a Korean parish where one of our masses has all the readings (1st, 2nd, and Gospel) in both English and Korean every Sunday. This has caused some problems especially when readings are lengthy.

We have 5 masses on Sunday - 3 in Korean, 1 all in English and this one which is all in English except for the bilingual readings.

I have read that if a mass is bilingual, 1st reading can be in one language and 2nd reading in another but I haven’t heard any commentary or rule in GIRM about all readings being in two languages.

I personally would like all the readings to be in English but don’t know what the official rule is.

Can anyone answer this for me? Thank you!
 
I’ve attended many a bilingual celebration and never did I experience the readings repeated in the other language. It’s always been one reading in one language, one in the other and the Gospel either in the language the priest is most comfortable speaking or if he’s perfectly bilingual then language for the Gospel would alternate each week.
 
I don’t have a reference, but recall this came up in meeting on one of our parish celebrations. Someone in authority declared that it is forbidden to repeat the readings.

This of course clashes with the custom of repeating the reading in the vernacular after reading it in Latin in the Extraordinary form of the mass.
 
In my parish, we project the 1st and 2nd readings onto large screen while they are being read. We don’t project the gospel (Faith comes through hearing the Word). When we have a bilingual Mass, the words are projected in one language, while being proclaimed in the other. The Gospel is read in both languages.
 
thank you all~ this has been very helpful.

can anyone direct me to the document/rule stating that repeating readings is forbidden?

our parish actually does provide bilingual missals so I don’t think much would be lost in making it all english… but it’s somewhat of a heated debate right now.

i just want to make sure we do not partake in a liturgical abuse so all attempts will be made to do whatever’s liturgically correct.
 
Joe_Kelley said:
I don’t have a reference, but recall this came up in meeting on one of our parish celebrations. Someone in authority declared that it is forbidden to repeat the readings.

This of course clashes with the custom of repeating the reading in the vernacular after reading it in Latin in the Extraordinary form of the mass.
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That’s the first thing I thought of too. It’s a bit silly to say you can’t have the readings twice in two vernacular languages if you can have them in Latin and a vernacular language. 🤷
 
To the best of my knowledge there is nothing that says readings cannot be done in different languages or that readings may not be repeated in different languages. In my Arabic parish we have the Epistle read in either English or Arabic and printed in the other language in the bulletin. The Gospel is always read in both English and Arabic. During this Year of St. Paul, however, there will be a slight shift as the Epistle will be read in both Arabic and English and, unless the Gospel is short, it will be read in English only.

Unfortunately, bilingual liturgies are something that the Church doesn’t have formal rules for and, as a consequence, is still trying to find the correct balance.

Deacon Ed
 
my parish occassionally has the Liturgy of the Word done in both English and Polish. The rest of the Mass is celebrated all in English. If I can recall correctly, the first reading is usually done in English, the second in Polish and the Gospel is read in the two languages and a homily said in both as well.
 
Why has this caused “problems?” What “problems” could this possibly cause?
 
At the Melkite parish I attend, the Epistle and Gospel are read in both English and Arabic.

The Trisagion is sung in English, Arabic, and Greek, and the Cherubic hymn in English and Arabic.
 
Thanks everyone for your (name removed by moderator)ut!
1ke said:
Why has this caused “problems?” What “problems” could this possibly cause?
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Well, this mass that I’m talking about is a teen mass for our junior high and senior high CCD students and the majority of our teens are english speaking. Our CCD program is all taught in english as well.

Our teens usually tune out when the readings are repeated in Korean so I wondered if it was bad to have a length of time where they didn’t understand what was being read. I also understand that there is a “flow” (for lack of a better word) to mass and I wonder if repeating readings in a different language breaks the flow for the students.

The other problem is that lectors are trained students and there are very few of them that can read Korean so it’s a bit of a struggle as the liturgy coordinator to schedule in the korean-speaking lectors.

And the other issue is the length of the readings. During Lent, I believe, the readings were very long and it was somewhat silly to have readings repeated when they were so long.

We have been having a bit of trouble with this teen mass. We have consistently seen less and less students and more and more adults. We’re sandwiched in between two extremely crowded adult korean masses and we believe the “overflow” attends our teen mass. 😉

So, a few of us involved in the teen mass were considering changes that we could make to get the students to come to mass and love being Catholic. First off, we’re hoping to change anything that’s not liturgically correct. (for instance, we always used to read the responsorial psalms but now we’re hoping to sing it). We think that maybe if the repeated korean readings are a hindrance for the students then it’s best to take them out.

I guess the heated debate is a result of people who feel that taking away the Korean readings would cause the students to lose their Korean culture. Plus, we’ve been doing it for so long. I personally don’t think mass is a time to educate kids in a language or about their culture but it’s a time for them to grow closer to God.

Sorry this is such a long response to your question! The issues are a bit complicated… 🤷
 
Personally, I don’t find the reasons convincing.

Of course I am personally against special “teen” masses. The teens should be taught appreciation for the Mass as it is, not given some special alternative sparkly-mass to “hold their attention”.

Moreover the adult “overflow” people should not be made to feel they are intruders into the “teen” mass. The mass is for EVERYONE. It’s not “your” teen mass.

Clearly another mass is needed to accomodate everyone. Perhaps you should get some adult Korean speaking lectors at this mass if not enought teens know Korean.
 
I understand your opinion on teen masses but actually our parish has set it up so that this mass is specifically intended for our junior and senior high CCD students. The other english mass that we have is intended for our elementary CCD students. Our parish is huge and we have 300+ students.

Our goal, rather than trying to exclude the adults, is to bring more of our students in to mass. There is a way to make kids love mass and being Catholic without taking away the truths of Catholicism. We’re a very conservative church and we would never think to partake in liturgical abuses. So hence, my original question. Something like not repeating readings is not particularly “sparkly.” 😉
 
I encountered this particular situation last year during the Paschal Triduum. My pastor picked up a very bad idea when he was at the Religious Education Congress in Los Angeles. For Holy Thursdy, he had someone proclaim the first reading in English, then, 3/4 of the way, that person lowered her voice and a second person began to proclaim the same reading in Spanish. The opposite occured for the second reading.

This is what the GIRM says:
  1. If there are several persons present who are able to exercise the same ministry, nothing forbids their distributing among themselves and performing different parts of the same ministry or duty. For example, one deacon may be assigned to take the sung parts, another to serve at the altar; if there are several readings, it is well to distribute them among a number of lectors. The same applies for the other ministries. But it is not at all appropriate that several persons divide a single element of the celebration among themselves, e.g., that the same reading be proclaimed by two lectors, one after the other, except as far as the Passion of the Lord is concerned.
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Now, I don’t know if the same person is reading the same reading in both languages, but, even in Papal Masses, which are about as multi-lingual as you can get, there is no double proclamation of the reading, unless it’s the Gospel and it is being proclaimed in both Latin and in Greek, and this happens on very, very special and rare occasions.
 
Wow that’s such a strange way to do bilingual readings! Two lectors reading above each other - wouldn’t that be a disservice to groups of both nationalities?

And thank you for that GIRM reference. We actually have it this way currently:

First Reading in Korean (lector 1)
First Reading in English (lector 2)
Responsorial Psalm in English (lector 2)
Second Reading in English (lector 2)
Second Reading in Korean (lector 1)

I know this is a pretty bad order hence another reason for wanting to change it. Previously, we used to have the mass commentator read the responsorial psalm from the commentator’s podium but realizing that that was liturgically incorrect, we got the lectors to read it from the ambo. Because of the two languages, there was no other way we could do this than the order above.

Now that I see the GIRM reference, I think it is incorrect to have the same reading done by different lectors in two languages. Maybe with this reference, we can make the change towards all english. 🙂
 
Are these Korean students learning Korean or is English their first language?

Even if you can speak the second language well, hearing the readings, particularly the Gospel, in your own language will usually bring out something in them that you didn’t pick up in your second language.

You can’t base the decision on the GIRM example given since that refers to the Gospel being broken into parts to be read by different people in the way the Passion is done. While I’ve not experienced bilingual Masses that way there is NOTHING that prohibits having the readings repeated in a second language. It makes sense if some of the people at the bilingual Mass are not fluent in English.

I think it’s a small price to pay to have the English kids zone out for a few minutes if it means the Korean kids hear and learn more from the Gospel by having it read in their own language.
 
English is the first language for the majority of the students and if not, I’d say about 97% speak English fluently. Our CCD program is all in english as well. Rather than the zoning out factor my question is, if repeating readings in a different language is so helpful, why does it seem that very few bilingual parishes do this? For us, I don’t think it would be good to read one reading in English and the other in Korean but since our missals are always in both languages, people generally read along if they don’t understand the language they’re hearing.

I guess another thing, which I didn’t mention, is that while there is debate about this issue among the catechists (only about 3 out of the 20 catechists are opposed), our pastor’s desire is to make this liturgy all English. I’m inclined to think the pastor has specific reasons for wanting to make it all in English. Would it not be best to follow his directive?
 
Once on a holiday in Bali my family and I attended the longest Mass we had been to as the Mass was in Bahasa and English. When the priest said a prayer in Bahasa he would then say it in English and so on. The Mass lasted nearly two and a half hours.
I couldn’t understand why there could not simply have been 2 Masses. One on Bahasa and then one in English.
 
Actually, I checked with the diocesan director of worship when I relayed to him what was happening in our parish. He said that the section from the GIRM was not restricted to the Gospel, but to all of the readings.

As a secondary confirmation, I also contacted the USCCB Divine Worship office and got the same response. Therefore, when I gave this to my pastor, we went back to normal (first reading in English and second reading in Spanish). He told me that he thought that what we did last year was okay since it was done at a Mass celebrated by the Los Angeles Metropolitan. But, I told him that this wasn’t the case.
 
benedictgal said:
Actually, I checked with the diocesan director of worship when I relayed to him what was happening in our parish. He said that the section from the GIRM was not restricted to the Gospel, but to all of the readings.

As a secondary confirmation, I also contacted the USCCB Divine Worship office and got the same response. Therefore, when I gave this to my pastor, we went back to normal (first reading in English and second reading in Spanish). He told me that he thought that what we did last year was okay since it was done at a Mass celebrated by the Los Angeles Metropolitan. But, I told him that this wasn’t the case.
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But that section of the GIRM says the readings can’t be broken up the way the Passion is, it doesn’t say the readings can’t be repeated in another language. While it wouldn’t be my favorite way of doing it (alternating language between readings would be my preference) I see nothing in the GIRM that forbids it. I just sit here in awe thinking how long the Easter Vigil would last if the readings were each done twice.
 
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