Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday 11 July 2011

New Mass Translation


Last Saturday evening I attended the Oxford Ordinariate Group Mass at Holy Rood and it was my first opportunity to experience the new translation of the Roman Missal, the use of which has already been accorded to the Ordinariate.

New Roman Missal 2011

Image from the Catholic Truth Society


I was fully prepared for changes such as "And with your spirit" replacing ( at long last) the dreadful "And also with you", but had not realised how different the new, and much more accurate, translation of the Roman Canon would sound. I am very happy that we shall have this new and more accurate translation, but do forsee that it will require the autumn to accustom many people to the new wording

Last Friday Fr Blake drew his readers' attention to a post by Father Simon Henry on how the CTS have, in his word, misrepresented the rubrics of the Mass in their material for the new translations in so far as they describle current practice rather than what the missala ctually says in the Latin original.

Both in getting congregations used to more elevated language and by fidelity to the rubrics that intriguing thing known as Anglican patrimony may well be able to assist all Catholics in the country.

Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham

No comments: