Most of you are probably aware that in the Roman Catholic Church, we have been using the Missal published in 1970 by Pope Paul VI for the celebration of the liturgy.

This Missal was meant to be an implementation of the recommendations made during the Second Vatican Council of 1962–65.

In the experience of most Roman Catholics around the world, its most notable result was that it made the Mass available in modern languages (the vernacular).

In the last, let us say fifteen years, there has been an ongoing and serious reassessment of the effects in the universal Church of the reforms of the liturgy that followed Vatican II.

Some elements in the Church favored further reforms and modifications which can only be described as a deformation of the liturgy itself.

This included such radical ideas as the virtual elimination of the word "Father" from the prefaces that precede the Sanctus (Holy, Holy). However, a growing number of the bishops of the world (and many clergy and laity) are seriously questioning the wisdom and the effects of the reforms as they were implemented in the years following 1965.

There has been a growing desire that the liturgy reflect more faithfully the Tradition that the Council itself wanted to serve.

If I were to describe the major concern that is driving current discussions among bishops and commissions, it would be this: the loss of a sense of the sacred that is very prevalent in many, many places in the Church today.

In an effort to reach out to the modern world and to accommodate the Gospel to that increasingly secularized and hostile environment, there have been a lot of setbacks.

And, as the liturgy is the center and very heartbeat of Catholic life, setting it in order will be essential for the very proclamation of the Gospel on which the Second Vatican Council set so high a value.

Thus, beginning with Pope John Paul II and continuing with the present pope, documents have been published which have sought to re-instill a love for the liturgy and an appreciation of its centrality, its splendor, its mystery.

Examples include Pope John Paul’s letter, The Church and the Eucharist (Ecclesia de Eucharistia) of April 17, 2003.

In this encyclical, the pope devoted a whole chapter to "The Dignity of the Eucharistic Celebration," which gave the reasons why the clergy must adhere with great love and obedience to Church rubrics and lamenting how very often in the years since Vatican II this did not take place.

Of course, this adherence to rubrics is placed in the context of a whole letter devoted to the importance and beauty of the Holy Eucharist.

The very first sentence sets the tone: "The Church draws her life from the Eucharist."

The following year, on March 25, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, in collaboration with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued an instruction called in Latin Redemptionis Sacramentum. The English subtitle is: "On certain matters to be observed or to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist."

To put it bluntly, this document covered a multitude of liturgical sins with recommendations and prescriptions.

Matters covered included such things as who can and who cannot preach at Mass, why it is inappropriate to introduce texts from other religions during the liturgy, making sure that communicants consume the Host and don’t take it away with them, the forbidding of the use of vessels made of glass, earthenware or clay for the Eucharist, how to clean linens properly, the preference that priestly concelebrants wear a chasuble and not only an alb and stole.

The list goes on and on; this gives some idea of the number and kinds of abuses and problems that have not been uncommon around the world. Almost everything centers around a casualness regarding the Holy Liturgy.

Of course, our present pope has already been responsible for two documents in this year alone: The Sacrament of Charity (Sacramentum Caritatis) and the latest one, published July 7, Summorum Pontificum.

However, there is yet a more massive work going on, which is the revision and re-translation of the Roman Missal itself. After using the present edition (1970), the consensus is that the translation is very inadequate to the Latin original.

In the 1960s, a decision was made by those translating the Missal into English (and probably other languages as well) to settle for a translation that was simpler and more easily accessible to the people. This meant that a "dynamic equivalence" was preferred to accuracy in translation.

The result, according to those who know and love the Latin prayers: a loss of a sense of transcendence and of the divine beauty, a lack of sufficient fidelity to the Roman tradition, and an inculcation of a kind of Pelagianism which exalts human effort over the work of divine grace.

We expect that the English translation may be ready within the next two years, but no one knows for sure. When it does come out, we will have a new edition of the Roman Missal for our use, and this will include some modification in the wording of prayers with which we are familiar (such as the Gloria), and a noticeably different "tone" in the priests’ prayers.

We will just have to wait for that translation to be finished to see this difference and what it will involve for our praying the Mass.

Whatever the modifications we will all be experiencing in the coming years, a great concern of the Holy Father, which he has expressed in writings both before his election as pope and since, is that implementing too many changes too quickly violates the sense of the sacredness of the liturgy and disrupts the prayer of the people of God.

The result from Vatican II has been to give the impression that the liturgy is our possession, which we change according to our needs or "inspirations."

Historically, the holy liturgy has developed in an organic fashion through the centuries. The years after Vatican II were the first time that such a massive change had been attempted. Mind you, a lot of these changes were mandated by the hierarchy itself, and not only by those who took things into their own hands.

In any case, Pope Benedict does not favor this approach, and so as we are entering a time which some are calling "the reform of the reform." The hope is that the changes will be introduced gently and organically, even as a particular direction is followed with determination.

That brings me to the present document on the Latin Mass, just published on July 7. There has already been a lot of publicity about this document in the secular press, much of it inaccurate. (One example is the erroneous statement that it will reinstate prayers showing hostility to the Jewish people).

Rather, this Motu Proprio (meaning "on his own initiative") establishes the following points about the celebration of the Mass:

1) The Missal of 1970 of Pope Paul VI (usually celebrated in the vernacular) remains the "ordinary" or normal form for celebrating the holy liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church.

2) The Missal of 1962 of Pope John XXIII (in Latin) may be used as an "extraordinary" form for the Mass (that is, not the ordinary, usual form). Priests no longer need to ask permission of their bishop to celebrate this Mass privately.

Thus there are two uses of the one Roman Rite, exemplified in these two Missals.

3) In parishes where a stable group of the faithful request it and where there is a priest able to celebrate the Mass in Latin, it can and should be made available.

There are other details in the Motu Proprio, but this is sufficient for this particular article.

4) Although fear has been expressed that this will lead to new and more serious divisions in the Church, Pope Benedict does not agree and seeks to assure us that both forms of the Mass are beautiful and valid, and that there is a significant enough number of believers who treasure the Latin Mass to justify this decision.

In fact, the reason he gives for publishing this document is as follows: "It is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church."

Then the Holy Father adds this beautiful thought: "There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture.

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us, too… It behooves all of us to preserve these riches which have developed the Church’s prayer and faith and to give them their proper place."

The pope also notes in another place that "the use of the old Missal presupposes a certain degree of liturgical formation and some knowledge of the Latin language; neither of these is found very often."

So, he does not foresee a massive going over to the old (or "Tridentine") rite, which will remain "extra-ordinary" (not the usual form). Rather he is reaching out to those who have longed to pray the traditional Latin liturgy and who would benefit from the opportunity to do so.

Let us resolve to receive these teachings with open hearts, confident that where the holy liturgy is loved and well celebrated, the Catholic faithful will best bear witness to the truths of our Faith.