St. Benedict's Father Bob Reacts to New Missal

At last Sunday's Mass at , parishioners were introduced to new changes in the Catholic Missal.

Prayers church-goers have been saying for decades have changed and are a bit awkward to get used to, according to St. Ben's the Rev. Bob Miller.

He said the changes are to transmit a deeper, more literal meaning.

"The whole purpose of the new translation is two-fold," he said. "The first reason is that it's supposed to be more faithful to the Scripture. The second is for it to be a more literal translation to the Latin." 

For example, the response to "The Lord be with you" is no longer "And also with you." It is now "And with your spirit."

Other changes include "One in being with the Father" to "Consubstantial with the Father" and "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you" to "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof."

"At a first glance, you might think 'that sounds so weird,'" Miller said. "But that’s an example in Matthew’s Gospel, either Chapter 5 or 8, the centurion is asking Jesus to come cure his servant who’s ill, and so he says, 'Lord, I am not worthy to enter under my roof.' It makes more sense—it has a fuller meaning.

"It's a challenge because Latin has a different word order. We understand English in a different way than Latin—it's a little bit awkward. The challenge for me is to try to speak in such a way and emphasize certain words. It's challenging because we don't speak like that. 

Miller said his parishioners gave it "the old college try" last Sunday.

"Last week, it wasn’t perfect. People were making mistakes. It's something new, something novel. But, everybody sort of took it in stride and smiled at one another.

"Hopefully, we won’t get too discouraged, especially me, because the priest part has changed a lot more. We just have to keep at it, keep at it, keep at it, and become a little more familiar. It'll transmit a fuller, richer, deeper meaning."

Are you Catholic? What do you think of the new changes at Mass? Tell us in the comments.