[I couldn’t believe my ears.]
Then Bishop Trautman made a complaint about the brevity of response time allowed during recent regional meetings about the breviary project, and for that reason lent his support to Bishop Brom’s idea of putting a new breviary discussion on hold.
Bishop McDonnell (I think) argued that going back to critique the new missal was counterproductive when so many were working hard to support it, to “communicate the awesome and transcendent nature of the liturgy”. Criticism would only encourage disunity, he said, and if priests would just review the collects and prefaces before mass, they would know how to read them with understanding.
Due to these after- the- fact objections, Cardinal Dolan allowed the vote to be repeated. Thankfully, the plans for a revised breviary still passed, although this time the majority vote was only 189. Still the two thirds required, but obviously affected by the last minute attempt by some to stall it.
My own comments: I’m basically happy with the outcome. Much as I’d like an expanded Office of Readings, what I want even more is to have the basic problems with out current breviary corrected as soon as possible, and the work needed to expand the Office of Readings would eliminate any possibility of soon. To recap, here is what the approved project will do:
-replace the current psalms with the Revised Grail Psalter, which, trust me, is a huge improvement.
-replace the concluding prayers of the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer during the holy seasons with the opening collect prayers from the missal, and hopefully retranslate all the other hours’ concluding prayers to be similarly faithful to the Latin edition, i.e. more beautiful in language and complete in theology.
-demote modern hymns from their place of prominence in the breviary, instead restoring to us a treasure that has been denied us for years: the lovely, poetic, and theologically superior Latin hymns in English translation.
-eliminate the psalm prayers. I know some people will miss these. I believe that with a little instruction on interpreting the psalms, anyone can quickly learn to see the christological meanings in them on their own, and can then reflect in silence on these meanings, rather than rely on the psalm prayers.
-re-translate the antiphons to better match the psalms.
-possibly restore the traditional Glory Be. (…and ever shall be,world without end,amen.)
All in all, these are outcomes greatly to be wished for, don’t you agree?
