New Missal - Lift Off!

Congratulations.  It appears that you are reading this.  That can only mean one thing... the world did not come to a fiery end in a blaze of God's anger on account of this new translation being an affront of all things holy and good.

Heh.

With all the back and forth regarding these new translations, you'd think they sky was falling and God was preparing to smite any of us who thought this was a good idea. 

A friend of mine, seeing all the "hullabaloo" on Facebook and whatever RSS feeds she's attached to, asked what it was all about.  She hasn't confirmed this yet, but I am fairly confident she picked up the confusion through a mutual friend of ours.  He's of the mindset that these translations are horrible, the Church is horrible for attempting to institute them, and anyone who accepts them as valid simply doesn't understand how the Church works.

Anything that's aimed at refocusing, preserving and highlighting the sacred mysteries of our Mass is A-OK in my book.  So far, that's my understanding and experience with these translations.

Take, for instance, "And with your spirit."  Some folks are so irritated by that, and I still don't grasp why.  I remember when we were first introduced to these changes, the gentleman explaining them was bombarded with questions like "How is that a response?"  "Whose spirit?"  "Isn't that the same as saying 'And also with you'?" 

Unable to ferry the questions to their proper destination (not due to his own intelligence, mind you.  The room had gotten a bit rowdy over these four words and side-chatter was implosive), he tabled the discussion until after we got through the Gloria.  Poor guy never had a chance to cycle back...

Anyway, I wanted to prepare my CCD kids for the upcoming changes, and since this'd be the first line they'd encounter, I went with it.

"And with your spirit" is the response all other non-English speaking countries have been using... we're only now catching up.  The spirit we refer to is the priest's spirit... but more concretely, the part of the priest's soul that Christ, Himself, dwells within upon marking that priest through Ordination.  Christ is the spirit that animates the priest's soul and thus makes consecration possible.

(Some of you may remember my "Do Animals Have Souls?" entry... that deals very much with the above idea, so it might help to gloss that over for the biblical explanations of soul / spirit and how they are, in fact, separate from one another.)

That being explained, someone asked "Well, why would we wish peace to Jesus, then?  Isn't He already Peace?"

Aside from being ridiculously proud that this young man understood that Jesus is the Fountain of all Peace, I explained it this way...

A mother is waiting up for her son until midnight.  He's usually home by now, but she knows he stays out studying late sometimes.  He called and said, "Hey Mom, I'm coming home in a few minutes, I promise."  She's a little less worried, but still wants to be sure to see him walk through the door before resting.  As soon as he comes into the house, she kisses him and, relieved, heads to bed.

The mother in the story understood that her son expected to reach home shortly and would likely make it home unhurt.  However, the mother also understood that there are dangers in the world that sometimes cannot be accounted for... so until she saw him safe and home with her own eyes, she would not be able to rest properly.

This is true of Jesus, too.  He knows that we all have our good intentions... that we all want to reach Heaven.  We've all sent up our prayers which act as short phone calls to our Lord letting Him know we're thinking of Him and attempting to do right by Him.  However, until we walk through those Church doors into His Home, He worries for us.  He understands the evil and temptations of the world and He longs to have us near Him.  Thus, upon responding in this fashion, we do bring Jesus peace.  We bring Him the peace of knowing that our souls are yearning for Him... that our souls are trying to get back to Him as best we know how. 

Another hand shot up.  "Yeah, but if Jesus knows everything, wouldn't He already know that we wanna get to Heaven?"

I smiled.  That whole "God knows everything, so what's the point?" sentiment is a very typical one... even among sixth graders. 

So again, I explained it with a story. 

Two girls grew up next door to one another.  They were best of friends from kindergarten straight through until 8th grade.  In 8th grade, however, one girl moved away and attended a different high school.  Sure, they wrote to each other now and again, and they'd call each other once in a while, but pretty soon, one girl stopped calling or writing.  The other friend was really sad, but she knew her friend still cared about her.  She knew they would eventually have time to talk and hang out like they used to when summer rolled around.  Even though she knew that, it still hurt her feelings not hearing from her best friend.  It still made her feel kinda rotten when she'd be missing her old friend and her old friend was doing other things. 

So I asked the class, "What, then, should the friend who moved away do?" 

All of them agreed that she should try to see her best friend more often.  I questioned, "Why?  They'll be able to hang out over the summer, right?  Why is it important to see each other a few times during the school year?"

I could see some lightbulbs going off.  They were understanding. 

"Because it'd make the other girl happy to see her best friend.  She wouldn't miss her as much and she'd still feel like she was loved."

For the holdouts, I explained:

We are like that best friend who moved away.  We left Heaven to come to Earth for a while.  Jesus misses us terribly, though, and wants to see us.  Coming to Mass is our way of showing Him we care.  Coming to Mass is our way to see Him!  We're all friends of Jesus, right?  So imagine how happy He must be when we come into His House to visit Him!  Imagine how much peace and joy fills His Heart!

I really hope they took something from that and kept their ears perked up for it.  I know by the 3rd recitation of this particular response, folks were grinning as they let the words become familiar to their lips.  I hope my children did more than grin.  I hope they truly wished Jesus peace as they felt happiness at sharing their souls with their Best Friend.  :)

---