First Experience of the New Translation of the Mass

At Mass today, Father used the new translation, as a way of giving himself and us the chance to get used to them before their formal introduction in the autumn.

I was struck by many things: overall what an improvement!

In many ways it was the little changes that made a big impact:

The repeated assurance that the priest had a spirit;

Being allowed to say we adore once again in the Gloria...;

‘The Gospel of the Lord’ rather than ‘This is the Gospel of the Lord’, meant that our priest, at least broke his habit of raising the Lectionary at that point, so we remained focused on the fact that the words we had just heard were the Gospel;

‘The Mystery of Faith’, rather than ‘Let us proclaim the Mystery of Faith’, making it clear that the Mystery of Faith was the consecrated Body and Blood of Our Lord, not the acclamation by the people;

The omission of the acclamation that ends ‘Christ will come again,’ at precisely the moment when He has come to us on the altar;

The sins of the world, rather than the sin of the world...;

I will draw a veil over the number of times I responded ‘And also with you,’ out of habit rather than ‘And with your spirit,’ which I vastly prefer.

I would still prefer to be at an EF Mass every time (especially with regards to the Offertory!), but this is a vast improvement on what we have had to put up with for so many years.