Losing my religious language

There are few constants in life.

Death and taxes are the big two that always get top billing. Death, which isn't even life, I mean people say that it's a "part" of life but, come on. How can it be a part of life if you're not alive? But, still, we'll count that because it's the next step after life. After it, you know, finishes.

And then taxes. The other thing we can unfortunately all count on.

Another constant, according to me, is that if you were raised Catholic and went to church and Catholic school and/or CCD for many, many years, you can return to Mass after being absent for 79 consecutive years and recite all of the prayers and responses without skipping a beat.

That one? Yeah, that is now GONE.

I went to Mass today for the first time in, well, a LONG time with family to celebrate my grandmother's birthday. She would have been 89 today, and after a brief and quiet visit to the chapel where she rests in peace, we attended church. This also happens to be the second Sunday of Lent, which pleased me as I could kind of count it as going to church at Easter (close enough).

As long as it may be since I've gone to church (and I can't even venture a guess here), I find solace in the fact that all of the prayers and responses are as ingrained in my brain as multiplication tables. (Which might not be the best analogy as I'm afraid those are starting to erode a bit.) So imagine my surprise when I discovered that some of them have CHANGED!

Now, it wasn't a complete shock. I did have a small amount of warning from a regular churchgoing friend on Facebook, although to be completely honest I never paid too close attention. I didn't know if it was for a specific holiday Mass, or rite, or was something so small I wouldn't even notice.

Well. I noticed. And I clapped my hand over my mouth so many times during that Mass because I was saying the wrong thing, you know, the "old" way. But my question is WHY? I mean, what's wrong with "And also with you"? It rolls off the tongue and is perfectly polite without being too sappy. And why make it holy church instead of just church? It's a church. Isn't the holiness implied?

I mentioned this change to my uncle who was seated beside me, and he confirmed that there were several changes made to the Mass. "Like a lot of the music. They've changed it to rap to appeal to young people," he said.

I found this to not be true.

Still, I wondered why the change. So I looked it up online. This is reportedly only the THIRD time in the 1700-year history of the church that the Mass has been formally changed. And this couldn't have happened before *I* was born?! (And no, I'm not that old.) Until 1965, Catholic Mass was said only in Latin and so they thought, and rightfully so, that this might exclude a whole heck of a lot of people who came to Mass, and therefore it was translated into many different languages also meant to reflect the everyday vernacular. Apparently the whole point of this newest change is to try and bring the Mass a bit closer to its Latin roots.

Now, not being a regular churchgoer anymore, maybe I don't have a lot of room to complain when they decide to change the wording of the Mass. But I am anyway. Still, I thought I'd ask a friend who does attend church on a regular basis what he thought.

Surprisingly to me, he wasn't up in arms about it. (And he gets up in arms about a lot of stuff.)

"Personally, I don't have a problem with the new language. Of course, I'm also the kind of Catholic who likes going to the Latin Mass occasionally," says my good little churchgoing friend Mike. "I like that the new English version is more accurate and a little more solemn, although I agree that it can be jarring.

"However, even after 5 months of using the new language every week, I still go to 'And also with you' instead of 'And with your spirit.' But you can't expect 40 years of Catholic training to be replaced in just a few months."

Yes. THAT.

But still, it may not be for *me* to say what's right and what's wrong. Maybe if I start attending church again on a regular basis, I'll get used to the "new" way... after many, many years have gone by. And then they'll probably just go and change it on me again. But at least by that point I'll have the right to complain.