Revisions to Catholic Mass take effect Sunday

Beginning Sunday, when Catholic priests offer the blessing "Lord be with you," the response from parishioners will be "And with your spirit," a change from the traditional "And also with you."


Sunday marks the beginning of a new English translation of the Roman Missal, the ritual text of prayers and instructions for celebrating Mass.


After years of revisions negotiated by bishops' conferences and the Holy See, dioceses are preparing clergy and parishioners for the rollout, one of the biggest changes in Catholic worship in generations.


"It's a wonderful, beautiful new translation of the original Mass that is in Latin," said the Rev. Peter Mangum, of St. John Berchmans Cathedral in Shreveport. "The people of the Cathedral Parish and the Catholics in Shreveport have all been taught about it, and I think everyone is ready to embrace this new translation."


A lot of people are thinking, 'Oh, we're getting new prayers,'" said Todd Williamson, director of the Chicago Archdiocese's Office for Divine Worship. "No, we're not. We're just getting new translations of the prayers. We've had them since the Second Vatican Council and centuries before that."


Although the revisions will bring the English-language Mass closer to its Latin roots, they're almost certain to cause some confusion at first. The Chicago area has an estimated 2.3 million Roman Catholics, and the church has 68.5 million members across the U.S., making it the nation's largest religious organization.


For example, when the priest says, "The Lord be with you," at the beginning of Mass, the congregation for years has replied, "And also with you."


Now, churchgoers will say, "And with your spirit."


Priests must adjust to more changes than parishioners. In one such change — to describe the relationship between Christ and God — priests no longer will say "one in being," but "consubstantial," a more precise theological term.


Catholic churches and organizations throughout the archdiocese have spent much of the past year preparing clergy and laypeople for the changes. The new translation was incorporated into courses at Mundelein Seminary, which also presented a training program in more than 50 dioceses across the nation, said the Rev. Thomas Baima, the seminary's vice rector for academic affairs.


The archdiocese has held training sessions for deaf churchgoers and sign-language interpreters, and at least one church invited parishioners to practice the new responses with a priest. Most churches have also prepared one last line of defense — "cheat sheets" that will be placed in pews Sunday.


Despite the possibility of a rocky start, Sister Cindy Langlois said the new translation offers Catholics an opportunity to concentrate on the meaning of their words during Mass, rather than simply reciting them from memory.


"Whenever the language changes, that's an opportunity to hear with new ears," said Langlois, operations manager at Mercy Home for Boys & Girls in Chicago. "It will be fine. It won't take us too long to adjust, and it won't be too long before we'll be able to respond without reading a script."