Teens likely to adapt quickly to new missal, say catechists
ShareThisWASHINGTON (CNS) -- Although the phrase "consubstantial with the Father" might not roll off the tongues of Catholic youths, church officials and catechists hope its meaning will sink in when it is said in the Nicene Creed later this year.
Consubstantial, which means of the same essence, is closer to the creed's original Latin and Greek text and basically holds more theological punch than "one in being with the Father," the phrase it replaces. It is one of several changes in Mass responses that are part of the revised edition of the Roman Missal to be implemented in Catholic churches Nov. 27.
One pastor explained this specific change in a July 31 Sunday bulletin noting that "consubstantial" reflects the "language of theology, the language the ancient church fathers carefully constructed to take a stab at the mystery of Christ's divinity. 'One in being' uses slightly more Anglo-Saxon words. It demystifies the theological language."
"Part of the intent behind the new translation is to re-mystify -- in the best sense of the word," wrote Father John Terry, pastor of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
Gertrude was born in the year 1263, of a noble Saxon family, and placed at the age of five for education in the Benedictine abbey of Rodelsdorf. Her strong mind was carefully cultivated, and she wrote Latin with unusual elegance and force; above all, she was perfect in humility and mortification, in obedience, and in all monastic observance. Her life was crowded with wonders. She has in obedience recorded some of her visions, in which she traces in words of indescribable beauty the intimate converse of her soul with Jesus and Mary. She was gentle to all, most gentle to sinners; filled with devotion to the Saints of God, to the souls in purgatory, and above all to the Passion of our Lord and to His sacred Heart. She ruled her abbey with perfect wisdom and love for forty years. Her life was one of great and almost continual suffering, and her longing to be with Jesus was not granted till 1334, when she had reached her seventy-second year.
As Caroline Alexander relates in "Lost Gold of the Dark Ages: War, Treasure, and the Mystery of the Saxons," Herbert had stumbled upon an Anglo-Saxon hoard: In fact, there have been many such caches of buried treasure discovered all over the country.
