Saturday, August 22, 2009

The new `New Mass`

Quite a number of sites have posted a link to the bishops of the USA`s site which gives the new texts we will be using before long at the Ordinary Form of Mass in English. They look like a huge improvement to me.
Also of interest is today`s news from Rorate Caeli regarding the propositions from the Congregation for Divine Worship for the OF Mass. It makes interesting reading. Here`s a quote.

ROME The document was delivered to the hands of Benedict XVI in the morning of last April 4 by Spanish Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship. It is the result of a reserved vote, which took place on March 12, in the course of a "plenary" session of the dicastery responsible for the liturgy, and it represents the first concrete step towards that "reform of the reform" often desired by Pope Ratzinger.
The Cardinals and Bishops members of the Congregation voted almost unanimously in favor of a greater sacrality of the rite, of the recovery of the sense of eucharistic worship, of the recovery of the Latin language in the celebration, and of the remaking of the introductory parts of the Missal in order to put a stop to abuses, wild experimentations, and inappropriate creativity. They have also declared themselves favorable to reaffirm that the usual way of receiving Communion according to the norms is not on the hand, but in the mouth. There is, it is true, and indult which, on request of the [local] episcopates, allows for the distribution of the host [sic] also on the palm of the hand, but this must remain an extraordinary fact.
The "Liturgy Minister" of Pope Ratzinger, Cañizares, is also having studies made on the possibility to recover the orientation towards the Orient of the celebrant, at least at the moment of the eucharistic consecration, as it happened in practice before the reform, when both the faithful and the priest faced towards the Cross and the priest therefore turned his back to the assembly.

It`s all looking good, if it comes to fruition. I can`t ever remember feeling as positive about things as I do these days.

UPDATE. This story has now been denied and then the denials have been denied. Time alone will tell what is going on. It is all very much like the chaos before the announcement of the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum.


3 comments:

Em said...

Wow! The new texts are brilliant. When I first came to Austria I noticed many differences between the German and English texts and much preferred the German version. The new texts are now almost identical to the German we have been using all along.
I wonder how the new translation will go down in some English parishes....

English Pastor said...

The texts are a great improvement but unless the celebrants and their ministers also recover the sense of the sacred, there will be a disjunction between what is said and what is done. We can only hope that the proposals delivered by H.E. Cardinal Canizares will be implemented, specifically the recovery of Latin (for the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus, Pater Noster I would hope) as well as reception on the tongue being given its correct prominence. I would however, liked to have seen the Canon being proposed for silent recitation to heighten the sense of the sacred since, as scripture says (Habakkuk): “Let all the earth keep silence; God is in His temple”), with the return of genuflections before the elevations and Per Ipsum. Maybe we can’t have it all...

Anonymous said...

http://secretummeummihi.blogspot.com/2009/08/oficina-de-prensa-del-vaticano-niega.html