A farewell to ad-lib liturgists?

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Apr 10, 2012

Have you noticed the blessing that has come along with the new translation of the Roman Missal? Priests aren’t ad-libbing their way through the Mass any more.

Over the years, many priests had grown so familiar with the old translation that they no longer really looked at the Missal. Confident that they knew what was written and what the words meant, they began to substitute their own phrases, their own interpolations, their own little tics and eccentricities. Eventually the Mass they celebrated became “their” liturgy—a bit different, in this way and that, from the liturgy as celebrated by other priests, and from the liturgy as guaranteed to the faithful.

No more. Now priests are reading the words from the Missal. The newly translated prayers are not just an improvement over the old translations; they are a huge improvement over the countless idiosyncratic prayers concocted by the free-lance liturgists.

Sure, priests still sometimes stumble over the new language, or accidentally slip back into the familiar patterns of the old translation. That’s not a serious problem. They’re human. We’re human. We all have lapses of concentration; we all make mistakes. The point is that when the priest reads what is written in back, and do what is indicated in the red lettering, he reminds us, and reminds himself, that the liturgy is not “his” prayer but “our” prayer, and more important that it is the prayer of the universal Church.