Auxiliary Bishop of Denver James D. Conley praised the new
translation of the Roman Missal, calling it the Church's “gift to our
generation.”
“In order for the Church to realize the full potential of this gift,
it is vital that we understand why we need this new translation,” he
pointed out.
“The changes are not superficial ritualism,” Bishop Conley said in an
April 25 address to the Midwest Theological Forum in Indiana. “There is
a deep liturgical and theological aesthetic at work.”
The U.S. bishops have announced that parishes will begin using the
new translation in Advent of 2011. While the essentials of the Mass have
not changed, the bishops say the new translation offers a richer way to
explain and proclaim the Catholic faith.
Bishop Conley clarified in his remarks on Monday that he is committed
to the new order of Mass that emerged from the Second Vatican Council's
liturgical reforms.
“I was ordained a priest and a bishop in the Novus Ordo,” he said. “I
have spent my entire priesthood praying this Mass with deep reverence.”
The Novus Ordo “has helped the Church to rediscover the Eucharist as
the source and summit of our lives” he said. It has also “nourished and
sanctified the spiritual lives of countless souls over the past 40 plus
years,” including “two great figures of our generation – Blessed Mother
Teresa of Calcutta and the soon-to-be Blessed John Paul II.”
However, Bishop Conley explained that the subsequent translation of that Mass into English has been problematic.
“Something has been lost,” he said. “Something of the beauty and
grandeur of the liturgy. Something of the reverence, the mystery, the
sense of the transcendent. This has been a persistent criticism since
the Council – and not only from so-called traditionalists.”
The “problem is not the Novus Ordo – but the license that people sometimes take in celebrating it.”
“There is a banal, pedestrian quality to much of the language in our
current liturgy,” he said. “The weakness in the language gets in the way
and prevents us from experiencing the sublime spiritual and doctrinal
ideas woven into the fabric of the liturgy.”
Bishop Conley also said that the use of “abstract terms” in the
current translation effects how “we speak of God” and presents the
danger of “undermining our faith in the Incarnation.”
He praised the new translation of the Mass instead, saying that it
“restores this sense of the liturgy as transcendent and transformative”
and “restores the sacramentality to our liturgical language.”
He gave an example from the new translation of the Communion Rite,
which says, “Blessed are those who are called to the Supper of the
Lamb.”
“For the last 40 years we have erased this heavenly reference in the
Communion Rite with our bland translation: Happy are those who are
called to his Supper,” he said.
“The Mass is truly a partaking in the worship that St. John saw
around the throne and the altar of God,” Bishop Conley noted. “This is
not a beautiful idea, but a sacred reality.”
He went on to emphasize that the “essential matter” of the Eucharist
is its participation in the liturgy of heaven. “In other words, that’s
what the Eucharist is all about. The Eucharist we celebrate on earth has
its source in the heavenly liturgy.”
“Yet how many of our people in the pews – how many of our priests at
the altar – feel that they are being lifted up to partake in the
heavenly liturgy?” he asked. “This is why this new translation is so
important.”
The Mass is “not only about praying beautiful words,” Bishop Conley
said. “In the liturgy, we are praying to God in the very words of God.”
“They are not words alone, but words that have the power to do great
deeds. They are words that can accomplish what they speak of.”
“As Pope Benedict has said, our Eucharistic mystagogy must inspire
'an awareness that one’s life is being progressively transformed by the
holy mysteries being celebrated,'” Bishop Conley said.
“That is the great promise of this new translation and new edition of
the Missal. The promise of a people nourished and transformed by the
sacred mysteries they celebrate.”