In some circles it was hard this week-end to distinguish between “Black Friday” (that is the shopping day following Thanksgiving) and Translation Sunday (that is the week-end past when we started to use the new translation of the Roman Missal). Both were predicted in some circles to be “seismic” and both were awaited with some trepidation. Apparently the nation’s retailers were happy with Black Friday (and today’s Cyber Monday for that matter) and overall I think the Church should be happy with what happened this week-end. I offered the 930am Mass on Sunday at the Cathedral and the Congregation all had their “cheat sheets” in hand and were ready for that first “The Lord be with you.” Smiles were seen on faces when during the confiteor we returned to striking our breast three times and since there was no Gloria the worship aids were set aside to await the recitation of the Creed. Ah, but then there is that “The Lord be with you” which introduces the Gospel and about fifty percent of the congregation, sans aid, responded “and also with you” followed by broad smiles at their realization of their flub. Facial reactions ranged from bemusement by the generation which had grown up responding “and with your Spirit” and “under my roof” to befuddlement with the Holy, Holy, Holy. But I would wager a week’s salary that if I stood at the door and asked “how did you like it?” most would likely have responded “no big deal.” I always have believed and have written and spoken that the people would quickly adjust. One might get a different response if one were to ask them to define “consubstantial” and “ineffable” and a few of the other words not often used in spoken English in this country, but we have time to fill in the gaps. This morning twenty-eight of my priests on the Diocesan Presbyteral Council indicated that all went well yesterday in their parishes as well. One funny note is that the “cheat sheet” which most of our parishes are using uses red lettering to indicate the changes in the people’s parts but also has what we call a”rubric” in red ink which reminds the worshipper to bow their heads during the words of the incarnation in the Nicene Creed. In at least one parish, a good number of the participants at Mass read the rubric as well!

Now what about my challenges and those of other priests. A number said that yesterday was like saying their first Mass as they did not dare take their eyes off the text for fear of  missing a change in wording. We all “read” Mass yesterday and in the sense that we read the Divine Office also, reading does not necessarily mean not praying. I found yesterday akin to going back to T-Ball and learning from the beginning how to play the game of baseball. It was truly starting over but in time that will also come along. In the end I think yesterday went well in this diocese and I congratulate my priests, deacons and religious educators as well as the Worship Office for preparing us for this moment. Without the preparation and catechesis which preceded it, there might have been more challenges. So signing off with: THE LORD BE WITH YOU, AND WITH YOUR SPIRIT!” Why not?

+RNL

Darkness has now descended on northern Florida after an incredibly beautiful sunset and I am comfortable in my small room on AMTRAK’S “Silver Meteor” bound for the fall meeting of the bishops of the United States held in Baltimore and beginning tomorrow morning. If all goes well, which means God and AMTRAK working together, I will just arrive at the meeting room as the assembly begins. So tonight seems like a good night to post some unrelated and unconnected thoughts.

POPE BENEDICT XVI on Wednesday at the General Audience seemed to me to be quite animated and well. I had been reading of speculation about his health for several weeks and when he was an almost unprecedented twenty minutes late arriving in St. Peter’s square for the audience (very un-German like) I wondered, but once there, save walking more slowly (which I find myself doing), he seemed little different in bearing than when I last met him five plus years ago. We reminisced for about a minute and the fact that he still recognized me was encouraging also. From the beginning of his papacy, he has set a pace for himself consistent with his age and wisely has not tried to imitate his predecessor in having every meal with guests, forty people for daily Mass and individual opportunities for pictures at the drop of a hat. He should not be faulted for that and I suspect we will never again see the likes of a public pope like Blessed John Paul II.

THERE ARE ONLY THIRTEEN MORE DAYS LEFT for “Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.” The new translation will be placed into use in our parishes, schools and missions on Saturday night, November 26^th, the Vigil Masses for the First Sunday of October. All of will have to adjust but adjust we will. It may take some time to do so but it will be the new translation of very familiar prayers. I ask all of our good people to be patient with their bishop and priests for some time to come. Two weeks ago today, when offering Sunday Mass at the Church of the Primacy of Peter along the Sea of Galilee, the Franciscans in charge of the church had only the new English translation with which to work. I found praying the Eucharistic prayer to be challenging and difficult. In fact, I would say that I did not pray it as I would the translations with which we are so familiar as much as reading it. The wording is challenging, new in many instances, and the temptation to slip back into the more familiar when I took my eyes off the text was present and palpable. Only the “Our Father” has been spared change, everything else will require you and I and our priests for some time to pay attention to the printed word. And on both of our parts, in the beginning, we are going to “slip” from time to time. Please don’t write me with complaints about priests and deacons “refusing to use the new translation” when all that is happening is a simple mistake in these early months. It is going to take some time. Perhaps at the end of a year if you wish to share with me your thoughts about the changes, feel free to do so and I will respond by mail but give yourselves and us some time to make the change. I wish to thank our priests, deacons, and lay leadership who have prepared the diocese for this moment and you for being open to see how it goes. I have said many times this year and here will repeat for the last time, the changes will be far harder and more challenging on we priests than on anyone else. Soon perhaps we will be able to stop reading and resume praying when we commit to memory the new translation.

THE BALTIMORE MEETING this year going into it has a thin agenda – so thin I was able to read all the action items between the Orlando AMTRAK station and the Winter Park AMTRAK station. I do not see anything fractious or contentious to be discussed in public session but your bishops like nature abhor a vacuum and who knows? Unless there are more substantive issues, which arise in executive session (I have not seen the agenda), I wondered if I should even go to the time and expense of travelling to Baltimore. There are the usual elections plus elections of delegates to next year’s Rome Synod on the “new evangelization,” several small liturgical matters like the approval of some Mass texts for new saints and one for Blessed Pope John Paul II, and the annual approval of the budget and plans and programs for the Conference. Since its reorganization about five years ago, there has been a decided decline in matters brought before the body of bishops for debate and vote, which I think, was one of the purposes for the reorganization in the first place. I never thought twenty to twenty-five years ago that if a bishop I would want to miss a general meeting or leave early, but now I find myself guilty on both counts.

FINALLY, PENN STATE UNIVERSITY, JOE PATERNO and the sad news that children, minors, had been violated in the worst ways by a member of the coaching staff and while authorities knew of it, nothing was done brings back the worst of memory recall about our own challenges in this regard for the past decade. Since it all happened in 2002 and our dark night of the soul began in 2001 one would think that in light of our poor performance, every other organization would have learned and gained from our calamitous situation. As a Church in the United States and as a worldwide Church, we are far from “out of the woods” on this matter but we are working on it. Two things are foremost in my mind: anyone who has reasonably certain knowledge that an employee of the church, ordained, professed or employed is engaging in actions which even suggest inappropriate behavior need to report it to the civil authorities immediately, and second, when notified, those of us responsible for the governance of the Church must act as we promised we would in Dallas and have reaffirmed repeatedly. Words without actions spell further disaster.

IN THIS REGARD, the Diocese of St. Petersburg has been found to be in full compliance with the requirements of the Dallas Charter by Stonebridge Associates who have been retained by the United States Conference of Bishops to conduct annual audits. They made several recommendations, which will be implemented like posting in public places the phone numbers of where people should call and report if they sincerely suspect sexual misconduct with a minor to be present. Most of our parishes, schools and institutions have done this but apparently some have not. There was also a concern about one parish where it was not clear that all parents and children had been given the instructions about creating and maintaining a safe environment. I wish to thank everyone in the diocese from pastors to lawn care personnel for being attentive to the needs of insuring a strong safe environment. But in the end, like Penn State, it all depends in the end on me to make the right decisions with the help of a truly independent diocesan Review Board, Victims Assistance Coordinator and alert people.

The “Silver Meteor” has just landed in Savannah and it is time for me to go to dinner in the diner and nothing could be finer. Prayers for all of you this week and please keep me in your prayers as well.

+RNL

This  week-end many of the parishes in our diocese will begin to use the musical settings which will accompany the implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal. The whole new translation will begin to be used on the First Sunday of Advent in late November this year. Most of our priests have been talking to you about this change in the last few weeks and there will be more catechesis or teaching coming from them and from myself in the next few months. For the moment and for the purpose of this entry, allow me just to comment briefly on what begins tonight in our parishes.

The new translation of the Roman Missal will occasion some slight changes in wording of the prayers which we pray together as a worshipping community. There are such slight changes to be found in the Gloria and Creed of the Mass, the Holy, Holy, Holy and the Memorial Acclamations. Please remember that no changes have been made in the Lord’s Prayer. Beginning in November we will all be looking at prayer cards as we pray aloud these prayers until we become accustomed to the new wording, have them memorized, and no longer need a text in front of us. That will probably take at the most only several months for those in Church weekly.

But, the musical settings require something of a head-start. For one thing, during Advent and Lent we neither pray nor sing (which is also praying) the Gloria. On Christmas with our churches traditionally full of “CEOs” (aka. “Christmas and Easter Onlys”), when we sing these once familiar prayers there will be new words and new musical settings. Hence, we will all start this week-end learning the new words and music for our familiar sung prayers and responses. I will be celebrating the 1145am Mass tomorrow at Sacred Heart Basilica on the campus of the University of Notre Dame where I will hear and sing for the first time the revised setting for the OUR FATHER which has been set to music by Steve Warner of this campus and which we use almost everywhere around the diocese. Gone, of course, are the concluding words “from now until the end of time” and the conclusion of this particular setting will be as the Missal indicates “for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, now and forever. Amen.” We will also be singing a new setting for the “Glory to God in the Highest.” So, most likely will you in our parishes as the new musical settings and the new translation begins its implementation phase.

Always on this topic, I ask for your patience and prayers. For my generation, the future takes me back to the earliest English translations of the Roman Missal following the Second Vatican Council: for example, “Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof but only say the word and I shall be healed” or “The Lord be with you” followed by the response, “And with your spirit.” I will explain this movement back to the older translation in a coming blog entry. So some patience is going to be required on the part of all of us. Prayers should be said for your priests because the changes affect them the most as you will see come the First Sunday of Advent. They had better not have any breathing challenges if they wish to pray the opening prayers at Masses!

For some, the language of the new translation will seem archaic and to others it will seem far more reverential or more theologically rich. Since I survived the post-Vatican II changes without any deep wounds of doubt or disbelief, as a lay man I might add, I think it will not take long for the changes which we are beginning to be accepted and prayed. That, at least at this writing, is my prayer.

+RNL