The “Gloria” of the Mass has also been expanded to follow “the exact translation of the Latin.”
It now reads “We praise you, we bless you, we adore you, we glorify you, we give you thanks for your great glory.”
The cardinal said there is nothing “wrong” with the current translation. “It’s just that now we have a fuller, and I believe richer explanation of, and proclamation of, our faith.”
Catholics uncomfortable with the changes should realize nothing essential is being changed, he said.
“I’m very sympathetic to people who say ‘I prefer we don’t have any changes at all.’ But change is a part of life even in the unfolding of the liturgy, where we deal with the non-essential items.”
“The celebration of the Mass is essentially what Jesus did at the last Supper, and commanded his Church to do. ‘Do this in memory of me…’ And the Church has done that faithfully for the last two thousand years,” Cardinal Wuerl said.
How the mystery of the Mass is “clothed” in language and rubrics has changed during the course of the Church’s history, he said. This latest translation aims to “get as close as we can to what the current Latin edition says.”
The Eucharist, Cardinal Wuerl stressed, is “at the very heart” of Catholic identity. Through the celebration of the Eucharist, Catholics “enter the mystery of new life in Jesus Christ” and “enter into fullness in his new body the Church.”
Cardinal Wuerl said he has encouraged his priests in the Archdiocese of Washington to begin to help Catholics understand the changes coming with the new missal.
“The changes are not substantive, but the Mass is going to sound a little different. I think we simply need to be helping all of our faithful people to get used to and prepare for some of those new sounds.
“In a very short period of time, we’ll become accustomed to them and we’ll simply take it as the normal way in which we celebrate Mass,” he added.
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“I encourage every one of our Catholic faithful to use this as a moment now to reflect on what is happening at Mass, what these words signify, what they communicate, and what mystery is being re-presented on the altar.”
Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency. He was a recipient of a 2014 Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship.