Patrick McPartland/Staff Photographer - Becoming familiar with the new responses to the Roman Missal will take time.
For the past decade, the Catholic Church has worked diligently to revise the translations to the Mass. After a year of preparation, the faithful of the Diocese of Buffalo began celebrating the words of Roman Missal 3 on Nov. 27, the first Sunday of Advent.
Many parishes held training sessions to help parishioners learn the wording, meaning and reasoning behind changes. Pew cards with the new text printed are now being used to help worshipers follow until they memorize the changes.
The diocesan Office of Worship has led workshops over the past year for pastors and lay ministers.
Father Czeslaw Krysa, director of the office, has heard from people inside and outside the diocese who have shared their views of the changes. Generally, people are accepting the new text.
“Most comments are along the lines of ‘We’re getting used to it.’ It’s not in any sense of disdain or anger or pain or anything like that. We’re getting used to it.”
This is to be expected. The last major changes to the Mass took place in 1985. The new prayers are longer and pull back from the familiar vernacular. They also have more meaning packed into each sentence.
“One of the things the bishops were trying to communicate is these are not just meant to be read out loud once or twice, but they are meant to be prayed. They are a source of meditation,” Father Krysa said.
One of his oratorians at St. Casimir’s in Buffalo said she would meditate with the old missal and will do the same with the new. Father Krysa encourages others to do the same.
“A number of people are seeing that this isn’t just a downloading of information, (it is) an entrance into the world of prayer,” he said.
At St. Louis Parish in downtown Buffalo, just after 12:05 p.m. Monday Mass, some worshipers spoke of their experiences adjusting to the new texts.
“It’s been going well,” said Bill Kender. “I’ve had the guides that have been provided. I’ve learned the common responses. I have to learn the Gloria yet because we don’t say that often during this time of year.”
Kender comes from Holy Spirit Parish in North Collins where he and his fellow parishioners had plenty of preparation.
“I guess it’s coming together as time goes on,” he said. “We’re getting closer to that (unison). Like anything new, it’s kind of hard to learn. We’ve had practice before and Father Walter (P. Grabowski, pastor), as the changes were coming up, was able to use it before it actually came into effect, so people are straight through with it.”
At St. Mark Parish in North Buffalo, people have gotten used to the shorter responses, such as “with your spirit,” but the longer responses seem to be a little harder to grasp.
“The first couple of weeks you do hear mumbling; you still do. Fortunately, the Mass books we have do have the Mass translations,” said Ben Spitler. “I think it’s good from the standpoint that you see a lot of people reading from the book. I think people knew the (previous) responses by heart so well that they say them almost without thinking, so now they are actually reading them from the book and having to think about what they say.”
Spitler works downtown and comes to St. Louis whenever he can for the noon Mass. He’s happy with the new texts, finding them more reverential, although he questions some choices in wording. “I do feel some of the wordings, not that they’re bad, I just don’t understand some of the simple changes of why one word needs to be changed here and there, when they still generally lead to the same thing. Obviously, the primary concern is how can this translation of the liturgy help in my praise for the Church and Christ and everyone else’s.”
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