Catholics adjust to new responses at Mass

The pre-Christmas season of Advent began Sunday, but for all the wreath-lighting and "Come, Lord" hymns, it was a different kind of advent for most Roman Catholics.

It was the first day of a long-awaited, mildly dreaded translation of the Mass that English-speaking Catholics will be reciting from now on.

"You're doing great," Msgr. John Savinski assured his parishioners midway through the 10 a.m. Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Hope parish in Morton. "It's my end I'm worried about."

Nearly all the parish priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and many in the Diocese of Camden have been teaching the changes for weeks. Still, the translation got a wide range of reception over the weekend.

"It's going to take me a while to cope," 57-year-old Charles Cianci said as he headed into the Saturday-evening vigil Mass at St. Peter's parish in Merchantville. "But at least the changes are just words. It's the same Mass."

"I just don't understand why they've got to change," grumbled an usher who declined to give his name.

"I kind of like them," said 58-year-old Mike Tomasetto.

But Karen Burns, 54, left St. Peter's an hour later wearing a broad smile. "I love the changes," she said. A daily Mass-goer and eucharistic minister who calls herself a traditionalist, Burns said the changes "will force us to think about what we're saying."

That is the hope of church leaders and liturgists, who predict that Catholics who reflect on the new English translation of the Roman Missal - 10 years in the making - will find it spiritually richer than the missal they have known for the last 41 years. They also say it is truer to Scripture and the original Latin.

"Only Son of the Father" is now "Only Begotten Son," for example, and "God of power and might" will henceforth be "Lord God of hosts."

The Nicene Creed no longer begins with a collective "We believe," but a singular "I believe." Jesus is no longer "born of" the Virgin Mary but "incarnate of." Nor is he "of one substance with the Father." He is "consubstantial."

Worshipers leaving St. Peter's and Our Lady of Perpetual Hope over the weekend joked about the awkwardness of "consubstantial." But the Rev. Anthony Manuppella, longtime pastor of St. Peter's, predicted most would soon grow used to it.

"Yes, these are formal words," Manuppella said last week, "but that's their beauty. Adoring God is the most important thing a human being can do. And that's what these changes are trying to convey: that the Mass is something absolutely awesome."

The earlier translation emerged in 1970 from the Second Vatican Council of 1962-65, when the world's Catholic bishops agreed to replace Latin for liturgies in the languages of the people.

Eager to make native-language liturgies less jarring, however, the church opted in the 1970s for "accessibility over fidelity," according to the Rev. Dennis Gill, director of the archdiocesan Office for Worship.

Most worshipers this weekend read from large printed cards bearing the new language in boldface, and - apart from some fumbling over "consubstantial" - most of the prayers went smoothly.

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block for most was change to the response that the laity speaks each time the priest says, "The Lord be with you."

Since the 1970s, it was, "And also with you," but the new translation reads, "And with your spirit."

"It's going to take a little while to get that one right," said Chris Myers, 23. "I go to church every week, and I've been saying that since I was an altar boy."

Christian Sloat, 15, agreed. "The old responses come naturally," he said. "Our first instinct is to say what we already know.

But Sloat, a former altar boy, thinks he has an advantage over most other parishioners at Our Lady of Perpetual Help. He spends Sunday mornings selling The Inquirer outside the church and he slips inside to hear all four Masses.

Savinski got some laughs at the end of Mass when he proclaimed: "I want to give everybody an A."

As he greeted parishioners outside, he acknowledged that the first day had proved surprisingly difficult for him as a priest. Nearly all the priest's prayers are changed, he said, but "I'd look down" at the new lectionary "and the words were not where they were in the old book."

As she headed for the parking lot, 72-year-old Mary Ann McGill said she found the changes felt good and were not that difficult. She predicted she would adjust quickly.

"I went to Catholic schools for 12 years," she joked. "You learn to do what you're told."