Six Days and Counting

The Roman Missal, Third Edition, will be implemented in the United States of America on the First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011.

That’s less than a week away, now.

The entire Church in the United States has been blessed with this opportunity to deepen its understanding of the Sacred Liturgy, and to appreciate its meaning and importance in our lives.

Now is the time to seize the opportunity given to us for all Catholics in the United States to deepen, nurture, and celebrate our faith through the renewal of our worship and the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy.

(US Conference of Catholic Bishops)

This past Sunday, at the Mass for the Feast of Christ the King, Father Delmore blessed our two new copies of the Roman Missal. It was my first chance to see the larger of the two.

It’s a stunning book, just in terms of binding, paper, typography, and illustration. Several of us leafed through the pages in the sacristy before Mass, and it is beautiful.

In fact, it looks suspiciously like the old Missale Romanum we keep in a display case in the Parish Hall.

The new translation of the Roman Missal, which is the fruit of a remarkable cooperation of the Holy See, the Bishops and experts from all over the world, is intended to enrich and deepen the sacrifice of praise offered to God by his people. … [T]he sacred liturgy and its forms are written deeply in the heart of every Catholic. Make every effort … to render the celebration of the Roman Rite in your Dioceses a moment of greater grace and beauty, worthy of the Lord and spiritually enriching for everyone.

(Pope Benedict XVI to the Australian Bishops, October 2011)

I’ve been excited about this forthcoming edition of the Roman Missal for quite some time. Ever the optimist, I actually thought it might be ready in time for our wedding. Little did I know.

The Barque of Peter is a big ship, and it can take a long time for course corrections.

How many years, how many decades before we have a similarly revised and corrected version of the Liturgy of the Hours?

The answer is: enough.

How long before we have any English translation at all of the Roman Martyrology?

It will happen when the time is right.

In the meantime, let us worthily celebrate the Sacred Liturgy using this new Missal, this gift of and to the Church.

Let us work with joy, brick by brick, to build the New Liturgical Movement, the reform of the liturgical reform, the New Cluny.