Change and Liturgy

With the implementation of the new translation fully this week, I was struck by two things.

The first was what a huge improvement this is on the previous translation.

But the second was, how distracting changes to the liturgy are.

Don't misunderstand me: I think this was a valuable and important change - essential even. However, it was also a distraction: we were suddenly paying attention to the minutiae of the words, and getting thrown when either we or our neighbours (or the priest, come to that) got it wrong.

The Liturgical Experts of the 60s and 70s seemed to think this was a Good Thing: that constant change woud keep us on our toes - and perhaps it did, but it certainly kept us off our knees...

And many priests still seem to believe that worn-out view: constantly ad libbing and trying to make the liturgy relevant: as though adoration, contrition, thanksgiving and supplication can ever be anything else.

So I would vote for no more changes for a while: and then for a restoration of Latin as the primary liturgical language of the Church (as the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council clearly mandated, in line with centuries of tradition) and the restoration of the Extraordinary Form as normative for the Western Church.