The first televised Mass in Ireland to use the full version of the new translation of the Roman Missal was broadcast by RTÉ on Sunday morning and is believed to have attracted up to 80,000 viewers.
The studio Mass was celebrated by Fr Patrick Jones, Director of the National Centre for Liturgy in Maynooth, a week ahead of the official introduction of the new Missal in parishes across the country this coming Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent, which marks the beginning of the new Church year.
Since 11 September last, parishes have been gradually introducing the changes that apply to the people’s responses, in preparation for the full introduction of the changed text next week.
Bishop John McAreavey, Bishop of Dromore, and the Irish bishops’ representative on the International Commission for English in the Liturgy, has said of the new translation that the “new text is the result of the dedicated work of many people from throughout the English speaking world over the past ten years. The challenge faced by the translators of the new text was to produce a text that was faithful to the original Latin and, at the same time, suitable for worship today.”
“I believe that the new texts capture the wealth of theological vocabulary of the original text and so helps us to enter more fully into the riches of the liturgy itself”, he added.
Efforts to bring about a new translation began in 2000 - the Jubilee Year - when Pope John Paul II announced the third edition of the Missal.
The Latin Missale Romanum was published in 2002 and the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), established by bishops in countries where English is spoken, was entrusted with the specialist work of translation.
Their work began in 2002, and under the norms for translation of Instruction Liturgiam Authenticam, the new texts were sent to bishops’ conferences in twelve segments.
Irish bishops reviewed and commented on each of these twelve segments, assisted by the Irish Commission for Liturgy.
ICEL received the Commission’s detailed comments and those from the other eleven English-speaking bishops’ conference it serves.
The revised texts were sent to the Irish Bishops’ Conference and approved over a period of six years, making it possible last year to forward the complete Missal to the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in the Vatican for its approval or recognitio.
The Congregation made changes, ensuring that a common text will be used throughout the English-speaking world.
It was assisted in its work by Vox Clara, a committee of senior bishops formed in 2001.
ICEL always intended to revisit the translation given in the Missal used since St Patrick’s Day, 1975.