april 2011

An invitation to engage personally in the celebration

By Sister Mary Kathleen Ronan, R.S.M., S.T.D.
Special to the Transcript

More than once in the translation of the Roman Missal, a careful translation of the Latin reveals a fundamental understanding of the essential freedom of the person created in the image and likeness of God. While the new translation in no way calls into question the validity of the teaching that Christ died for all, it equally emphasizes that salvation, with all its benefits, will be attained by personal choice. By virtue of the inherent gift of human freedom, nothing is imposed upon us, not even our greatest good, personal salvation. We only need to recall the two men crucified alongside Jesus to see this truth revealed (Luke 23:39-43). The following examples from the English translation of the third edition of the Roman Missal may illustrate this point.

• In the opening moments of the eucharistic celebration, during the penitential rite, we affirm our common need for the salvation that Christ has won for us as we respond: “For we have sinned against you.”

• The translation of the Gloria echoes the prayer of the angels of Bethlehem of the Gospel of Saint Luke 2:14: “… peace on earth to people of good will.” This is not a peace dispensed indiscriminately to all, but a divine gift imparted to those who choose to live in accord with the divine will.

• Further into the words of the Gloria, in the praise and petition addressed to Christ, we find the words peccata mundi twice as we say: “… you take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us; you take away the sins of the world, receive our prayer.” The translation of the plural noun peccata, as sins, reminds us that it is by our personal choices that we sin and have need of the mercy of God. Expressing directly to Christ our sorrow for our sins, we pray with confidence to him for mercy. In the 1984 apostolic exhortation “Reconciliation and Penance,” Pope John Paul II wrote of the importance of retaining and recovering a sense of personal sin. Even as he acknowledged the existence of what we might call social sins, he emphasized that “… cases of social sin are the result of the accumulation and concentration of many personal sins.”

• Our personal engagement in the proclamation of faith will be more apparent as we begin the Nicene Creed, saying, “I believe in one God …” The Latin text begins with the word Credo, which means “I believe.” Proclaimed by priest and people in unison, each person is invited to new awareness of the importance of assuming one’s part as a living stone that contributes to the building up of the Body of Christ.

• At the consecration of the precious Blood, we will hear the priest say, “ … he gave thanks, and gave the chalice to his disciples saying: Take this, all of you, and drink from it, for this is the chalice of my Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.” The change in translation from “for all” to “for many” was prompted by the strong scriptural basis of the text as found in Matthew 26:27-28, Mark 14:24 and Isaiah 53:12. The sources do not support the claim that a return to the words “for many” is an indication of the denial of the universality of salvation. No one is excluded from the offer of salvation that awaits a person’s personal and free response for its fulfillment.

• For the dismissal of the Mass, Pope Benedict XVI added two new texts to emphasize the call to evangelization inherent in our participation in the Eucharist. Father Richard Hilgartner, executive director of the Secretariat of Divine Worship of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, indicated that the additional dismissals were inserted into a Latin 2008 reprint of the third edition of the editio typica. This means that they will be used in the Roman Missal in all languages. The priest may say, “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord,” “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life,” “Go forth, the Mass is ended,” or “Go in peace.”

At every eucharistic celebration, Christ Jesus our Redeemer is present in his word proclaimed to us, and supremely and uniquely, in his sacrifice made present on the altar in the eucharistic species and in our reception of his Body and Blood given for our nourishment. The power of his total gift of himself to the Father on the Cross for our sins is made present and achieves its saving effects within us and for the whole world.

By baptism we are given a share in the divine life of grace, in the communion of love of the Holy Trinity. This gift is given to us because of the Passion, death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ made present and effective at every Mass. We are invited, empowered and entitled to join ourselves personally to the action of Christ as he offers himself for our salvation and that of the whole world through the ministry of the priest. With St. Paul, we place our lives on the altar with Christ as we say, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church” (Col. 1:24). Christ, the Lamb of God, head of his Body the Church, calls us to unite ourselves to his loving praise of God the Father that echoes continually throughout the courts of heaven (Rev. 19), a foretaste of the eternal banquet.

We can say that, as the new English translation of the third edition of the Roman Missal has recovered the deeply personal dimension of our participation in the sacred liturgy, it also promises to raise our awareness of the liturgy as the prayer of the whole Christ and his Body the Church. By personally and wholeheartedly engaging in the celebration of the Eucharist, we approach the font of life, love and virtue and are inflamed with love for God and for one another.

Sister Mary Kathleen Ronan is the Archdiocese of Hartford’s liturgical consultant.