The changes have been met with the usual howls of anguish, but I wonder whether people of my age are doing any of the howling. The "new" translation actually brings the mass more into line with what it was before the changes of the 1960s. For example, we no longer say "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you" but "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof". This is what we said 50 years ago, except that we said it in Latin, not in English! I'm not sure that there was a great hunger for change among the boys at my school (or for the status quo for the matter!), while most of the priests wanted to retain the mass in Latin because of its universality: you could be sure of going into any Catholic church in any part of the world and not understanding a word of what was being said!
I now listen to mass in French, showing the same amount of interest as I did when a boy at Beaumont.
I now listen to mass in French, showing the same amount of interest as I did when a boy at Beaumont.
I can't agree with this. Didn't we have the English translation on the opposite page in our Missals? So, as far as I understood anything at all in my schooldays I did understand our Church Latin.
ReplyDeleteCertainly when I was at school the Mass just seemed too *long* when one was starved for breakfast, but I did appreciate the universality of the Latin version. And this new, English version does appear to be an improvement on what went before.
Yes, I'd forgotten that!
ReplyDelete