The long-awaited introduction of the new translation of the Roman Missal on Nov. 27, the first Sunday of Advent, offers the Church in the Anglosphere an opportunity to reflect on the riches of the liturgy, its biblical vocabulary, and its virtually inexhaustible storehouse of images. Much of that vocabulary, and a great many of those images, were lost under the “dynamic equivalence” theory of translation; they have now been restored under the “formal equivalence” method of translating. Over the next years and decades, the Catholic Church will be reminded of just what a treasure-house of wonders the liturgy is.
At the same time, the “changes in the words” offer the Church a golden opportunity to confront, and then break, some bad liturgical habits that have accumulated, like unlovely barnacles on the barque of Peter, over the past several decades.
For example:
1. Holy Mass should never begin with a greeting or an injunction that is not in the Roman Missal. The first words the congregation hears from the celebrant should be the liturgical words of greeting prescribed in the Sacramentary. At Masses where there is no sung entrance hymn, the admonition “please stand” should never be heard; if the priest-celebrant (or lector) recites the Entrance Antiphon in an audible voice before processing to the altar, everyone will get the message that Mass has begun, and will stand without being told to do so.
2. Far too many lectors, including many of the best, begin the responsorial psalm inappropriately, saying, “The responsorial psalm is . . . ””and then reciting the antiphon to the psalm, which is not “the responsorial psalm” but its antiphon. The phrase “The responsorial psalm is . . . ” should thus be put under the ban. Forty-plus years into the liturgical renewal, there is no need to do anything except intone or recite the antiphon that begins the responsorial psalm: By now, the congregation surely knows that their next task is to repeat the antiphon, either in song or by recitation.
3. Fully aware that I shall be accused by some of crankiness bordering on misanthropy, let me repeat a point made in this space before: the exchange of peace is not meant to be the occasion for a chat with the neighbors, but for the greetings of those closest to us in church with a simple, evangelical salutation: “the peace of the Lord be with you”; “peace be with you”; “the peace of Christ.” The longer conversations can be saved for the narthex or vestibule (not “gathering space”).
4. The Communion antiphon, typically linked to the Gospel of the day, is just as typically AWOL at Mass. If it is not sung by the choir, it should be recited prior to the distribution of holy Communion, not afterwards, as if it were some sort of afterthought.
5. Then there is silence. The rubrics prescribe various periods of silent reflection at Mass, particularly after the reception of holy Communion, so that the “still, small voice” of 1 Kings 19.12 (butchered by the New American Bible into “tiny whispering sound”) might be heard. This is not a matter of doing something differently just to do something differently; it is a recognition that, in the liturgy, God speaks to us through silence as well as through vocal prayer and Scripture. Reintroducing periods of silence into the liturgy will require explanation from the pulpit; but while priests and deacons are explaining the “new words,” why not explain why the Church chooses silence over words at some points in its worship?
The re-sacralization of the English used in the liturgy affords all of us an opportunity to ponder just what it is we are doing at Holy Mass: we are participating, here and now, in the liturgy of angels and saints that goes on constantly around the Throne of Grace where the Holy Trinity lives in a communion of radical self-gift and receptivity. This is, in short, serious business, even as it is joyful business. We should do it well, as the grace of God has empowered us to do it well.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
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