No sign of new Roman Missal in New Zealand -

No sign of new Roman Missal in New Zealand

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

As the English-speaking world began using the new translation of the Mass, there is still no sign of when New Zealand will have its re-printed Roman Missals.

As reported in CathNews on November 11, a technical flaw in the printing process means the missal’s introduction to New Zealand is delayed.

The Bishops’ November 9 letter explaining the delay, said their required high standards for the new Missal had not been met and they hoped the printer would be able to advise within 7 – 10 days when the reprinted missals would be ready.

However when asked yesterday, Angela Pyke of the Bishops’ National Communications office said she had not heard when the reprinted Roman Missals would be available.

Pyke confirmed the Missals are printed in New Zealand.

Despite the New Zealand delay, CNA reports that Cardinal Raymond Burke of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship is predicting great gains for the Church.

“I have a feeling that this will be a great moment for deepening people’s liturgical piety and liturgical spirituality,” he said.

“The prayers are much more beautiful and they carry with them a staying power,” observed Burke.

He predicted the new prayers would “get people thinking about what they prayed, and taking consolation from it, and also inspiration.”

“I have to say the texts are really much, much richer and much more beautiful.”

The cardinal said the previous translation was “often very bland and stripped of any richness.”

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, described the new translation as “Awesome, poetic, reverent language.”

“I found myself, personally, having to understandably go more slowly at Mass because I was having to look more closely at the text,” he recalled.

“And that’s no bad thing.”

Australian Catholics made these changes several months ago with their shift to the new English version.

“We’ve had no mutiny or revolution in Australia yet,” said Canberra’s Archbishop Mark Coleridge, chairman of the committee that prepared the new English lectionary.

“Predictions of chaos, and upheaval and revolution just haven’t come to pass,” he told CNA.

Public opinion however on Twitter was a little more diverse, and ranged from “excellent”, “excited” and “even pangs of joy,” through to describing the changes as “obsolete” and “stilted, with “no deeper grasp.” One person even suggested occupying the Vatican.

Sources