Our knowledge and love of God is based on the Bible, and the most noticeable changes in the liturgy reflect the words of the Bible (on which the Latin Missal was based) more closely.

Greeting

This greeting is from 2 Corinthians 13:13.

The word ‘Fellowship’ has been replaced by ‘Communion’. The New Testament talks a lot about communion. It is something that characterises the followers of Jesus Christ, us, the Church and our relationship with Jesus Christ. A profound concept. We are used to using the word ‘Communion’ to refer to Holy Communion, and Holy Communion is part of the communion that is the Church. Holy Communion is an act that takes place within a context of communion, the life of communion, the communion that is the church.

The Blessing

“The grace and peace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be with you” has changed to “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”.

This was a standard form of greeting among Christians in New Testament times. It occurs eight times in the Pauline letters, e.g. in Romans 1:7

But why is it in this odd format, with the nouns “grace” and “peace” separated by a pronoun? It seems an unnatural way of expressing ourselves. This comes directly from the time of the earliest Christians. It was written this way in the Greek New Testament, and retained when it was translated into Latin because it had been a kind of password between Christians. If you spoke like that, people knew that you knew the language of the Christian community. So that curious form has been preserved over many, many centuries as the distinctive Christian greeting. I think it is precious.

The Lord be with you

This greeting comes from Ruth 2:4.

After her father-in-law died, Ruth went, with her mother-in-law, Naomi, to Naomi’s original home in Bethlehem. There they gleaned wheat behind the reapers on the land of Boaz, a relative of Naomi’s late husband. In the story we read how Boaz greets his reapers, saying “The Lord be with you”.

When he asks a servant who the two new gleaners are, Boaz is told about Ruth. He is impressed that Ruth did not abandon her mother-in-law but is looking after her. Later Boaz marries Ruth, who becomes the mother of Obed. Obed was the father of Jesse, and Jesse was the father of David, in the well-known line that leads to our Lord Jesus Christ.

So, as the priest greets the congregation at the beginning of Mass, we have an echo of Boaz, as well as of the Angel Gabriel talking to Our Lady. Great things have happened after those words were spoken!

And with your spirit

This response to the priest’s ‘The Lord be with you’ is based on Galatians 6:18 and 2 Timothy 4:22.

At the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians Saint Paul wrote: ‘may you all be kept safe and blameless, spirit, soul and body, for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Spirit, Soul and Body. Why? Well, these words were probably chosen because the Galatian converts were concerned that the Jewish law on circumcision was binding on Christians (see 2:3–10). Paul rejected that idea, pointing out that Christianity is not a matter of the flesh, but a matter of the spirit. In Galatians 5:16–26 he goes on to list the works of the flesh and the works of the Spirit – well worth a read!

When the word ‘spirit’ is written with a small s it means our spirit, the human spirit, not God’s Holy Spirit. The human spirit is that something within a person which is closest to and most open to the Holy Spirit of God. When we use this word in the response, we are indicating that this is a spiritual encounter; we are affirming that our meeting is a meeting animated by God’s Holy Spirit. The Spirit is here.

Penitential Act

The change here is more than just the order of the words; it is also the addition of the word ‘acknowledge’. This word was chosen to replace ‘call to mind’ because its Latin root agnoscamus implies both interior and exterior acts – inviting us not only to call to mind our sins but also to confess them openly.

The Gloria

The Gloria reflects the various ways we approach God – we praise, we bless, we adore, we thank, we glorify. The previous text had shortened this and so could be considered as having limited the ways in which we approach God.

The Word of the Lord

The scriptural verses on which the references to Jesus are based are John 1:29, Romans 8:34, Ephesians 1:20, Hebrews 1:3, Colossians 3:1 and Hebrews 7:25.

You probably noticed some time ago that the readers were no longer saying ‘This is the Word of the Lord’ at the end of the readings, and now simply say ‘The Word of the Lord’.

This change was made so that ‘The Word of the Lord’ would be in a form parallel with the words ‘The Body of Christ’, ‘The Blood of Christ’ and ‘The mystery of faith’ (in the Eucharistic Prayer).

The Mass readings are the word of the Lord proclaimed – not just in written form, but as they are spoken. God is present to us in the speaking of the Word; in its proclamation. This is why we should listen and not switch off and simply read from our Missals – and why our readers need to practice well, and to proclaim, with faith and love, the Word of the Lord.

Blessing before the Gospel reading

When the Gospel is to be read – proclaimed – by a deacon, he first asks the priest for a blessing. The words of the priest’s response to this have changed:

The phrase ‘worthily and well’ is a translation of the Latin words digne ac competenter. A beautiful request. We are none of us worthy to proclaim the Gospel; none of us could even begin do it as well or as worthily as Jesus could, but this prayer is asking that the deacon be a person who can embody the message of the Gospel, so that it is proclaimed with integrity, and proclaimed well.

The Gospel of the Lord

Just as the readers no longer say ‘This is the Word of the Lord’ at the end of the other Mass readings, so the priest or deacon no longer says ‘This is the Gospel of the Lord’ at the end of the Gospel; he proclaims simply ‘The Gospel of the Lord’.

These final words echo many places in both Old and New Testaments, for example 1 Samuel 15:10; 1 Kings 16:7; 17:2; Psalm 33:4; Isaiah 28:14; Acts 8:25; 13:44; 1 Peter 1:25, and many more. And, as with the other Mass readings, the Gospel is not to be identified with the printed text, but with the text proclaimed. Again God is present to us in its proclamation.

Wiping Sins Away

These words are said by the priest as he kisses the book after he has proclaimed the Gospel. They are more accurate because they ask that our sins will be wiped away by God (who alone can forgive sin) through the means of the Gospel; they do not ask that the words themselves will wipe our sins away.

 The Apostles Creed

The Apostles’ Creed is an earlier and simpler Creed than the Nicene Creed. Unlike the Nicene Creed, it says nothing explicitly about the divinity of Jesus, nor that of the Holy Spirit.

English translations of the Apostles’ Creed have always used the ‘credo’ words ‘I believe’, rather than the ‘We believe’ previously used in the Nicene Creed.

The main change to the first part of this Creed (‘from the Holy Spirit’ instead of ‘by the power of the Holy Spirit’) brings the text closer to the original Latin:

The changes in the next two lines require some comment:

The word ‘hell’ can be seen as having more than one meaning. It is usually taken as referring to ‘the abode of the eternally damned’. But in Ephesians 4:9–10 we read of Christ’s descent among the dead in the time between his death and his resurrection, and the Church has a longstanding tradition that, after Christ’s death, the righteous people of Old Testament times were released from Hell’s captivity as he triumphed over inferos (‘those below’). So ‘the abode of the just who died before Christ’ is the meaning of the word as it is used here.

An obvious difference here is the addition of the words ‘God’ and ‘almighty’. The second of these comes from the original Latin: ad dexteram Patris omnipotentis. The addition of the word ‘God’ is based on Mark 16:19 and Hebrews 1:3.

The last sections are again similar:

Preparation of the Gifts Part 1 – the Bread and Wine

The words in which the bread and wine are offered on our behalf have changed slightly:

The new version says that we offer the bread and the wine, not merely that we have them to offer. The words ‘[which] we offer you’ were added by Pope Paul VI to indicate more clearly that all present – both priest and people – are offering back to God what he has given to us.

The words describing the bread have also changed:

We do not normally speak of grain as ‘fruit’, which may be why earlier translators avoided this word, but they translated the same Latin words in two quite different ways. The Latin uses fructum for both the bread and the wine, and the new translation preserves this parallel. (When applied to the bread, the word ‘fruit’ can be understood metaphorically, as in the well-known phrase ‘the fruit of many years’ work’.)

The change from ‘human hands have made’ to ‘work of human hands’ is to indicate more strongly the ‘everydayness’ of bread-making: hands working, hands covered in flour… This is the earth, the planting and harvesting, the ordinariness’, the beauty of people’s work being valued so much that it becomes an explicit part of the Eucharist.

So here we see human work and God’s work of redemption coming together in the presenting of bread and wine; gifts that will become the body and blood of Christ – the sacrament of our redemption.

Preparation of the Gifts – Part 2: the priest’s prayer

Daniel, Chapter 3, tells the story of King Nebuchadnezzar throwing Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (also known as Azariah) into a fiery furnace. Azariah began to pray, and part of his prayer forms the basis of this section of the Mass: ‘…may the contrite soul, the humbled spirit be as acceptable to you as holocausts of rams and bullocks, as thousands of fatted lambs; such let our sacrifice be to you today…’ (Daniel 3:39–40)

It’s easy to see that this where the priest’s prayer comes from, even though the references to animal sacrifice have been removed. It is also easy to see that the new text is closer than the old to the words of the original prayer.

The Washing of Hands

From the earliest days the priest has washed his hands after receiving bread and wine from the congregation. As he does so, he prays a short prayer, expressing his desire for interior purification. This prayer is based on the second verse of Psalm 51: ‘…wash me clean of my guilt, purify me from my sin’.

The new translation follows the Latin word-order more closely: the Latin starts with Lava me (wash me), and puts Domine (O Lord) later. This change makes the sentence seem less peremptory in addressing God.

Prayer over the Offerings

When the gifts of bread and wine have been prayed over, the priest turns to the people and asks them to pray with him:

From the earliest days the priest has washed his hands after receiving bread and wine from the congregation. As he does so, he prays a short prayer, expressing his desire for interior purification. This prayer is based on the second verse of Psalm 51: ‘…wash me clean of my guilt, purify me from my sin’.

The first change here is the addition of the more overtly inclusive ‘brothers and sisters’ as an alternative to ‘brethren’ – which is in itself an old-fashioned word.

The second change is in the priest describing the sacrifice as being both his sacrifice – as an ordained priest – and ours. The new translation keeps more truly to the Latin, where the word ‘our’ was not used; using the two words ‘my’ and ‘yours’ draws us as a congregation more fully into the prayer. We are reminded that we all have sacrifices to offer as well.

 Dialogue before the Preface

At various times during the Mass the priest greets the people by saying: ‘The Lord be with you’.

As we mentioned in another place, the response ‘And with your spirit’ is based on greetings in the Epistles (others are in Philippians 4:23 and Philemon 25). These words reflect more accurately the Latin words et cum spiritu tuo, a phrase used in the Mass from earliest times.

The second change is in the priest describing the sacrifice as being both his sacrifice – as an ordained priest – and ours. The new translation keeps more truly to the Latin, where the word ‘our’ was not used; using the two words ‘my’ and ‘yours’ draws us as a congregation more fully into the prayer. We are reminded that we all have sacrifices to offer as well.

The dialogue continues:

Here the priest’s part has again not changed, but the people’s part has. We now say only: ‘It is right and just’. Why is this? Once again the new response is closer to the Latin: dignum et justum est. The word dignum means ‘appropriate’ or ‘right’, and justum means ‘just’ or ‘righteous’.

At the start of Preface, which follows this dialogue, the priest will now say: ‘It is truly right and just…’, echoing exactly what the people have said. This gives an important character to the dialogue before the preface: it’s not all the priest telling the congregation what to say and do; in this case the priest follows the lead of the people, giving the congregation a more prominent contribution.

Preface

There are many Prefaces; this example is the Preface usually associated with Eucharistic Prayer II.

As previously mentioned, the new words ‘It is truly right and just’ echo the immediately preceding congregation’s response. The single word ‘Father’ has been replaced by the phrase ‘Father most holy’ – in keeping with the Latin. When this Preface was first translated, the translators avoided using ‘holy Father’ to address God, to prevent confusion with the Pope. As work on the Missal progressed, this seemed less important. Consequently addressing God as ‘holy Father’ has been added here, and remains, too, in other parts of the Missal.

The next change is to ‘you made all things’. The ‘all things’ sounds more clearly inclusive-of-everything than the rather general ‘the universe’. It also reflects the plural in the Latin and in the underlying Greek, and echoes John 1:3: ‘All things were made through him’ or ‘Through him all things came to be.’

The old version of this Preface puts Christ’s titles ‘Word’ and ‘Saviour’ on the same level, thus obscuring the difference between the eternal, transcendent generation of the Word and Christ’s mission as Saviour in time and space. The noun ‘Redeemer’, which comes from a Latin title for Jesus, is stronger than the infinitive ‘to redeem’.

There are a number of changes here. The old version, which ends ‘won for you a holy people’, gave the impression that the winning, or gaining, of God’s people was completed at the time of the Crucifixion, whereas the new word, ‘gaining’ – like the Latin – represents it as a process still continuing. The underlying text here is 1 Peter 2:9.

Next we come to ‘he stretched out his hands as he endured his Passion’. The change from ‘arms’ to ‘hands’ comes from the Latin: extendit manus. The old version made no mention of Christ’s suffering on the Cross; again the new version depends on the Latin: cum pateretur. Then ‘so as to break the bonds of death’ replaces ‘put an end to death’ with a far more powerful image. Lastly, the translators have avoided repeating the word ‘reveal’ by replacing ‘revealed’ with ‘manifested’

The Sanctus

The various Prefaces all end with the same words:

A clear change here is the introduction of the word ‘acclaim’ which covers both ‘saying’ and ‘singing’.

Apart from punctuation, there is only once change in the section which follows:

The words ‘Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts’ come from Isaiah 6:3 where they are sung by the seraph angels in God’s temple. Both the New Revised Standard Version and the New American Bible use the word ‘hosts’ here. The Latin translation uses ‘Sabaoth’– as does the Jerusalem Bible – a Hebrew word that denotes armies.

An iconographical tradition has grown up around the Christian world – in both the East and the West – of depicting angel hosts massed around God’s throne. The new translation respects that tradition.

The Consecration

The Memorial Acclamation

Remembrance

Intercession

Final Doxology

Embolism

Priests Prayer