We will have a special mass schedule to accommodate traffic for the Indianapolis 500. Masses will be as follows…

Saturday, May 26
4:00 p.m. Mass
5:30 p.m. Mass
7:00p.m. Mass in Spanish

Sunday, May 27
7:30 a.m. Mass
9:00 a.m. NO Mass
11:00 a.m. NO Mass

Two new videos have been uploaded to our photo and video gallery that have to do with liturgy. One of them shows a First Friday Mass that was held September 2, 2011 with combined St. Gabriel and St. Michael School children. It’s an invitation to join us on each first Friday of the month to celebrate the Eucharist with our kids. The other one is a reflection based on Father Larry’s homily on October 2 in which he explained that because of the dedication of our altar and church by Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein on February 6, 2011, we are now standing on Holy Ground. Click on the “Photos and Videos” button on the left to see all of our photo and video gallery entries or check out these two particular videos in the links below.

• First Friday Mass
• Holy Ground

Over the next several weeks there will be flyers produced by St. Anthony’s Messenger about the upcoming changes in the Mass. In case you missed one or would like to have another copy we have them available as a download in PDF format. Here are the links…

• Week 1: What’s a Missile Anyway
• Week 2: Liturgy – It’s How We Pray
• Week 3: The Creed(s)
• Week 4: The Family Meal
• Week 5: The Eucharistic Prayer
• Week 6: Communion Rite

Throughout the month of October, Father Larry will be discussing the various parts of our mass to help us have a deeper understanding and appreciation of our liturgy. It also prepares us for the changes in the translation of various prayers that will occur beginning in advance. As a supplement to what he is presenting we offer you this article from the USCCB entitled “Parts of the Mass”. Click here to read the article.

by Chris Young, RCIA catechist

One of the changes in our mass that actually occurred in 2008 deserves some mention while we are talking about all of the changes in the translation of our liturgy.  Specifically the name of God “Yahweh” may no longer be used or pronounced in songs and prayers during liturgical proceedings. You may not have noticed this change unless you’re a big fan of certain hymns which use the word.  Here is some background on the word itself and the reasons for the change.

The Second Commandment is a prohibition against using the name of the Lord in vain.  But that begs the question what is the name of the Lord? That was the question Moses had when he addressed the burning bush. God had commanded him to lead the people out of slavery in Egypt but Moses wanted to know…

“But,” said Moses to God, “if I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what do I tell them?” God replied to Moses: I am who I am. Then he added: This is what you will tell the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.  – Ex 3:13-14

The words “I am” in Hebrew could be spoken as “Yahweh”.  It is a form of the Hebrew verb HAYAH which means “to be”.  So in effect the name of God is Yahweh just like my name is Chris or you might be Joe or Pete or Sally or Sue.  “God”, “Lord”, “Almighty” are what He is or how He is but His name is Yahweh.

The problem was that the Jewish people were so afraid that they would use his name in vain and violate the commandment prohibiting so that they were afraid to say it at all.  Old Testament manuscripts depicts this name with four characters YHWH which Scripture scholars refer to as the divine tetragrammaton (which is just a fancy way of saying the four letter name). The Jewish people would never speak this word directly.  When reading Scripture, the practice was to use the Hebrew word Adonai which means “Lord”. Greek translations of the Old Testament use the word Kyrios which also translates as Lord. When Scripture was translated into Latin these four characters were usually replaced with the Latin word Dominus which also translates as Lord.

The New American Standard translation of the Bible which we use for all the Scripture readings at mass and is considered the official Catholic translation uses the word “Lord” in place of the tetragrammaton but it uses a particular kind of type style called “small caps” and the word looks like this LORD. Note that the last three letters are smaller in size than the L but they are actually uppercase letters. Whenever you see this version of the word Lord in that kind of type then you know the original Hebrew used YHWH which is God’s name. The word Lord in any other type style and in the New testament generally just means Lord.

Various forms of this word evolved over the ages.  The letter “Y” can be pronounced like a “J” and if you throw some vowels in between the letters of YHWH you get the word Jehovah which is also used as a alternative to say the name of God without really saying it.

One exception to the rule that you can’t pronounce God’s name is in the word hallelujah or alleluia because these words are created from the phrase Hallelu-Yah (Praise Yah). Apparently the shortened form Yah when combined with the word “praise” has been and remains acceptable.

In modern times the use of the word Yahweh grew in great popularity thanks to a 1966 translation of Scripture known as the Jerusalem Bible. That version as well as the New American Standard version that we use at mass today were created as a response to the call of Pope Pius XII in 1943 that new translations of Scripture be prepared based not on the Latin version but on the original Greek and Hebrew texts. The Jerusalem Bible was published as an official Roman Catholic translation with full imprimatur. Published first in French and later in English in 1966 it used the word Yahweh wherever the tetragrammaton appeared.

In an article by composer Dan Schutte (see link below) he explains that this Jerusalem Bible translation was very popular when it was first released and that he and other composers were attracted to the use of the word Yahweh and thought that it added something significant to the lyrics of their songs most of which were adapted from the Psalms. He is the composer of a song called “You Are Here” which begins with the words “Yahweh I know you are here standing always at my side”. His publisher, Oregon Catholic Press, has rereleased versions of his and other songs that use the word Yahweh. They have suggested alternative lyrics so that these songs can continue to be used in our liturgy.

He goes on to point out that the Jerusalem Bible does have an imprimatur from the Catholic Church which is a kind of stamp of approval. He suggests we should feel free to use the Jerusalem Bible or any other prayers privately that use the word Yahweh if we feel that will make it a richer experience for us. He also points out that although the official Vatican statement from Bishop Arthur J. Serratelli of Paterson, N.J., chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Divine Worship says that the church has always substituted some form of the word Lord for the tetragrammaton, they did also approved the use of the Jerusalem Bible when it was first published. So he feels we should feel free to use it for our own private prayer and reflection while expecting the direction of the Vatican to leave it out of our liturgy.

One problem translators have with using the word Lord in this context is that there are some places in Scripture where the phrase says something like “the Lord Yahweh” did thus and so. In order to avoid redundancy, the translators have been told that the word Adonai should be translated as Lord and that Yahweh should be translated as God. So instead of saying “the Lord Yahweh” it would say “the Lord God”.

All of these changes whether we’re talking about eliminating the word Yahweh which was implemented a few years ago or the re-translations which we will be using very soon, the intent is to keep our prayer and worship meaningful experiences which reverently and accurately reflect our sacred traditions and sacred Scripture texts.

Here are some links to webpages and documents on this topic.

• Oregon Catholic Press music publishing company webpage on the topic
• Bishop Serratelli’s letter explaining the directive
• Dan Schutte reflection on the topic

For those of you who would like more information about the new translation of the Roman Missal that we will begin using an Advent, here is a link to a page prepared by the Diocese of Davenport Iowa which contains lots of great information about the upcoming changes.

New Roman Missal – Davenport Diocese

This is the first in a series of articles linking you to resources to help you understand the changes in the New Roman Missal 3rd Edition.

Probably the most comprehensive resource is from the United States conference of Catholic Bishops website on their page titled “Welcoming the Roman Missal”

http://www.usccb.org/romanmissal

Of particular interest if you click the menu at the top titled “Sample Texts” and choose “People’s Parts (with Commentary)” or access that page directly here.

http://old.usccb.org/romanmissal/samples-people.shtml

When viewing that page be sure to click on the “commentary” links in several of the sections for a very informative explanation of why that section of the mass is being retranslated.

For example in the opening greeting when the priest says “The Lord be with you” and we respond “and also with you” we will now  respond instead “and with your spirit”. The commentary explains that this really is a more direct English translation of the Latin version of the mass. Those of us who are old enough to remember the Latin mass remember that  the response was “Et cum spiritu tuo”. The commentary goes on to explain that other translations already use this wording. For example the Spanish version has long been “Y con tu espíritu“. When seen in this context it makes you wonder why they didn’t translate it that way in the first place.

We will be posting links to additional websites that will help you to understand and appreciate the changes coming to the mass.