(CWNews.com) - He explained that since the reforms after Vatican II, "liturgical habits have taken hold, some of which have been beneficial, others detrimental to the celebration of the liturgy."
"Our worship generally has become very chatty, to the point where one of the challenges now is to allow silence to play its part in the liturgy," the archbishop said. He reported, too, that many of the faithful find "a loss of the sense of the sacred in the Mass-- a weakened sense of the presence of God and the deeper resonances of the liturgical words and actions that comes with silence."
Archbishop Coleridge said that special attention should be paid to translations of liturgical texts, noting that "the language of the liturgy was never everyday language." He added that the sense of reverence is undermined when celebrants use informal language and when they offer mundane greetings, such as beginning a liturgical ceremony by wishing the congregation a "Good morning."...
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THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: Once in a while, you run across a bishop who actually 'gets it' when it comes to the problem with the new liturgical form (Novus Ordo) of the mass. It's even more rare when you run across a bishop who not only 'gets it' but is willing to do something about it! 'The Catholic Knight' blog has always asserted that there is nothing wrong with the Novus Ordo liturgy as it was issued by Rome in the original Latin language. The problem comes in the way it's implemented in diocese all over the world.
The first half of the problem is with translation. In the years following the promulgation of the Missal of Pope Paul VI (1970), the translation of the Latin liturgy into the vernacular languages was done far too hastily, and as a result, not only was a sense of reverence lost in the vernacular translations, but some translators actually took unprecedented liberties that butchered the meaning of the text. In the English language, this became so painfully obvious that the Vatican no longer recognizes our English translation of the mass as fully valid. In fact, the word the Vatican chooses to describe our current English translation is "defective." (
read more here) Knowing that we English-speaking Catholics haven't celebrated an authentic Catholic liturgy in nearly forty years is particularly distressing, and the Vatican thinks so too, which is why the Vatican has withdrawn permission to keep celebrating it. Now English-speaking bishops are in a race against the clock to approve a new English translation of the mass that more accurately reflects the authentic Latin text. Once this is done, and the new English translation is widely used, half of the problem will be solved -- but that's just HALF of the problem.
The second half of the problem is with lax liturgical discipline in English-speaking diocese stemming from LAZY priests and bishops, who don't see the importance of sticking to the proper rubrics of the mass. Following the Second Vatican Council a general attitude of "change" swept across the English-speaking Catholic world. It had almost a "hippy" kind of atmosphere associated with it. Along with it came a relaxation in the general rules of liturgical celebration. Time-honored Catholic customs were dropped completely from the celebration of the mass. New customs, having nothing to do with Catholicism, were introduced in their place, and for the most part, priests and bishops did virtually nothing to stop it. Perhaps some of them thought these things were a passing fad, and they would disappear as quickly as they came in. Perhaps some thought they were harmless novelties, and sought to attend to more pressing matters elsewhere. Perhaps a few liked the new trend and even promoted it. Of the later, Pope Paul VI described their distorted celebration of the mass as the "Smoke of Satan" -- the result of a faulty interpretation of Vatican II (
read more here). Whatever the case, the damage to the English-speaking liturgy was catastrophic, to the point where most Catholics under the age of forty, have never participated in an authentic Catholic liturgy that was not significantly "defective" in form and practice.
This embarrassing reality was painfully displayed before Pope Benedict XVI when he celebrated mass at Nationals Stadium in Washington D.C. in April of 2008. This epitome of American Catholic liturgy contained just about every form of misguided liturgical fluff the pope has written against over the last thirty years. He endured it all with a smile, but those who have read his writings know what he must have been thinking. The liturgical celebration in New York at St. Patrick's, a couple days later, more properly reflected what a Catholic mass is supposed to look like in the English language.
Hopefully, with the introduction of the new English liturgy sometime within the next year, we'll start to see a return to reverence and solemnity in the mass. But we lay faithful must keep in mind that the English translation is only HALF of the liturgical problem. The other half has to do with priests and bishops DOING THEIR JOBS! As faithful parishioners, we must kindly and respectfully request that they do so. In my own diocese, I have found that success in this matter is tied to humility. Faithful Catholics must respectfully request that parish priests strictly carry out the requirements of the
G.I.R.M. in a reverent way, and they must ask with the most sincere attitude of humility. Making demands and threats doesn't work, and if anything, it causes parish priests to become defensive and resist such requests. In the Diocese of Springfield - Cape Girardeau we have found that the recipe for positive change is: (1) HUMILITY, (2) PERSISTENCE, (3) PRAYER. I would like to say that we could all just sit back and wait until the new English translation arrives, and then all of our problems will be solved. However, I know from experience it doesn't work that way. We, the lay faithful, must petition our parish priests (and bishops) using the above formula starting right now. For only after years of humility, persistence and prayer will the fruit of our labor pay off.
