there’s hope!
I’m fwding this email from a priest friend of mine who is on retreat at St. Mary’s in Baltimore. His excitement and sincerity for the Mass is beautiful and I thought you would all enjoy reading this too.
God bless,
Shannon
Msgr. Moroney who is head the Bishop’s Committee on Liturgy and a member of Vox Clara the advisory board to the Congregation for the Discipline of Sacraments came up from DC to give us an all day presentation on the new order of Mass coming out (they hope) in Advent 2006.
O my goodness, wait until you see it! You will love it, It’s absolutely beautiful! The only thing that they didn’t rewrite is the Sign of the Cross and the Our Father…all else is a virtual direct translation from the Latin. The present translation he called an awful transliteration and he said the “our present ecumenical Mass is dead” i.e., many Catholic, Lutheran, and Episcopal prayers are the same [done at the expense of Catholic theology] but not once this comes out. The biggest changes are to the Confietor, Gloria, Creed, Sanctus, and the eucharistic prayers (especially the Roman Canon) which are almost entirely rewritten. They restored all the “holy language” that was stripped from the 1970 and 1975 missals as well as the words, sentances, and paragraphs that are missing. They are also restoring some devotional Masses from the 1962 missal that were dropped. He said there was a clear agenda when the '70 missal was done to squash all references to sacrifice, priesthood, vice and virtue, etc., which is back in this new missal. He said he often wonders if those folks believed in anything as terrible as the present missal is.
So get ready for “The Lord be with you. And with your Spirit” in 2006. As well as “I believe in one God…consubstantial with the Father” or “Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world, blessed are those who are called to the banquet of the Lord - O Lord I am not worthy for you to come under my roof but only say the word and my soul shall be healed” or “I confess to you God the Father Almighty, to Blessed Mary ever virgin, to all the saints and angels in heaven and to you my brothers and sisters that I have sinned through my fault, through my fault, through my most grevious fault…”
And this is just the tip of the iceberg, the Canon of the Mass brought me to tears and all the guys here were in awe of it…redone in sacred language from top to bottom. Check out the first words: “To you most merciful Father we therefore humbly pray and implore you through Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord to accept and bless + these gifts, these offerings, these holy and undefiled sacrifices which we offer you in the first place for your holy catholic Church be pleased to grant her peace, to guard, to unite, and to govern her throughout the whole world, one with your servant Benedict our Pope, ____ our bishop and all bishops, who, holding to the truth, hand on the catholic and apostolic faith.”
Mass will end with Ite missa est…“Go, it is ended”
