 |
| The new Altar Missal for Sacred Heart Church shown in the sacristy |
The new Altar Missal book, with the new English translation of
the Mass, arrived recently at Sacred Heart Church. The translation will be
phased in, and so we will be using this book from the first Sunday of Advent. The
above photo shows the book ready for use in the sacristy here.
In the meantime, the first part of the translation to be
introduced will be the priest’s greetings and people’s responses. Msgr. Malachy
will introduce these first at weekday Masses, beginning next Monday, 26th
September, and they will be used for the first time here for Sunday Masses on
the weekend of 1st-2nd October.
Last weekend, I (Fr Hugh), devoted my homily to explaining the
reasoning behind the new translation. Fr Malachy has asked me to give this
homily again at next weekend’s Masses. (Don’t worry: You won’t get the same
homily at your Mass two weeks running! We alternate the different Masses
between us.)
At Mass this morning, I reflected on one of the newly translated
greeting / responses:
The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
In the new translation,
when the priest greets the congregation with ‘The Lord be with you’, the
response will be ‘and with your spirit.’ That translates the Latin ‘et cum spiritu tuo’. That’s how most
other languages do it, but, for whatever reason, the English the first time
round cut it down to ‘and also with you.’ We talk about the importance of
Scripture for all believers, and the greeting ‘and with your spirit’ is rooted
in Scripture because St Paul often used it to greet the people he was writing
to. Unfortunately, that scriptural echo is obscured when it’s shortened to ‘and also
with you.’ In his Letter to the Galatians (6:18), Paul says, ‘May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your
spirit’ . To the Philippians (4:23) he says, ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus
Christ be with your spirit’. Again in his Second Letter to Timothy (4:22), he
says, ‘The Lord be with your spirit’ And in St Paul’s Letter to Philemon (line
25), he says, ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit’ St Paul
is referring to the fact that the people he is writing to have received a
special participation in the spirit of God. And this greeting by Paul is in turn
rooted in the Old Testament.
There is a work describing Christian liturgical practices at the turn of
the third and fourth century called The
Apostolic Tradition and it describes the Bishop greeting the people, ‘The
Lord be with you’ and the people replying ‘and with your Spirit.’ The Apostolic Tradition also refers to how
at ordination ceremonies, prayers were offered that the Bishop, priest or deacon
would receive in a special way the spirit of the Lord. Therefore, in a
liturgical setting, when people reply, ‘and with your spirit’ to the priest,
they are referring to the Spirit the priest has received by the laying on of
hands at ordination. So the congregation is not just talking to the priest as
a private citizen. Rather, the priest has received a special grace at the
service of the Church, and the gift of the Spirit to the priest in this special
way is in fact a gift given for the benefit of all God’s people. So, at Mass,
we pray for each other with these greetings. The priest prays that the Lord may
be with the people and the people reply, praying that the Lord may continue to
activate the gift of the spirit the priest has received for his special
priestly service of God and his people.
