Welcome! The parish of St. John Neumann is a Catholic community of over 2,400 families located in the heart of Westlake at 5455 Bee Cave Road in Austin, Texas.
“Nearly 40 years have passed since the translation of the first edition of the Missale Romanum. During that time, our liturgical experience has deepened our faith, nurtured our hope and become an instrument through which we celebrate God’s gift of eternal life to us through the Incarnation, Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. This history and our theological reflection also allow us to acknowledge the inadequacies in the text that is widely used in the English-speaking world. With the fifth instruction Liturgiam Authenticam, His Holiness Pope John Paul II provided a means for us to reclaim the theological richness of the words of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. What is called the Revised Roman Missal will begin Advent 2011, Nov. 27, 2011. We hope to educate you about the revisions through this featurette every week to help you understand and become acquainted with the upcoming changes in the way we say parts of the Mass. With this revised translation of the third edition of the Missale Romanum, we have an opportunity to embrace again the Church’s earnest desire that all the faithful should be led to fully conscious and active participation in the Liturgy.” ~ Letter from Most Rev. Arthur J. Serratelli, Bishop of Paterson and chairman of the USCCB Committee on Divine Worship
For more information on the Revised Roman Missal, please visit the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Web site devoted to it here.
I confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
(And, striking their breast, they say:)
through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault;
(Then they continue:)
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin, all the Angels and Saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God.
Hopefully by now, you have learned that we will be implementing the revised English translation of the prayers and responses of the Mass as directed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The new texts stem from a desire by Church leaders for more formal and literal translations of the original Latin texts in the Missale Romanum (Roman Missal).
To assist you in acclimating to the new texts, we recently provided a booklet to parishioners, “Understanding the Revised Mass Texts, Second Edition,” that explains, in some depth, why and how the Mass texts have been revised. If, by chance, you have not received a copy of the booklet, you are encouraged to pick one up in the church office.
At our sung Masses, many of the new and revised texts, including the Gloria, Sanctus and Memorial Acclamations, will (as has been our liturgical practice) continue to be offered as sung acclamations. Therefore, we will also be implementing new musical settings for those texts in the months ahead. Here is a look at the musical settings we have chosen to use for the new texts at those Masses.
For the Saturday Vigil and the Sunday 9 and11:30 a.m.Masses, we will be using a new Mass setting by Randall DeBruyn, entitled “Mass of Resurrection.”
Active as a church music composer for more than 30 years, DeBruyn has written several Mass settings, numerous choral and instrumental pieces and film score music for religious dramas and films. He is currently editor of Oregon Catholic Press’ English-language missals and of several major OCP hymnals (Journeysongs, Second Edition, and Glory & Praise, Second Edition).
We selected DeBruyn’s “Mass of Resurrection” to introduce the new texts based on several criteria:
singability – the melody must be in a comfortable range for most voices, easy to learn and free of unnecessary repetition to enable faster memorization.
originality – the music must be new to us. Revisions of the existing Mass settings would tend to cause confusion between the old texts and the new texts. New music will help provide a “blank slate” to more readily catechize the new texts.
musical interest – enough “substance” in the melody, harmony and other musical elements to sustain interest over a long period of use.
For the LifeTeen Mass on Sunday at5:30 p.m., our new LifeTeen Ensemble director, Aaron Barta, has chosen “Mass of St. Ann” by Ed Bolduc. Bolduc has written Mass settings and numerous songs for LifeTeen worship and has received two Unity Awards from the United Catholic Music and Video Association for his album “In the Light.” The rhythmic and uplifting character of his “Mass of St. Ann” should suit the LifeTeen liturgy well.
To help you learn these new Mass parts, the new musical settings will be taught to you over a series of several weeks in short pre-Mass teaches. We encourage you to arrive at Mass at least five minutes early to take advantage of these opportunities to acquaint yourself with the new sung acclamations.
Again, thank you for your willingness to embrace these new texts and musical settings. For many of us, change does not come easily, but, if we look upon the Revised Missal as an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the Mass, we will certainly grow in faith and our experience as a worshipping community.
One Comment on “Our chosen musical settings of the revised Mass”
1Gibbons Burke said at 12:43 pm on September 2nd, 2011:
If so, I hope that you are aware of the Revised Roman Missal — changes that are coming in the some of the words we say when we pray Mass, beginning Advent 2011 (Nov. 27). If you haven’t heard of this change, read more about it here.
If you have a wedding planned for after the change, here’s something to think about –
Decide how you will make the Order of Mass and people’s responses available to those who attend your wedding. For example, will you use the parish’s participation aids or hymnals, or might you include the people’s responses in your worship aid?
Pope John Paul II issued the third edition of the Missale Romanum (the Latin text of the Roman Missal) during the Jubilee Year in 2000. This new edition included many new texts requiring translation. In addition, the experience of the years after the Second Vatican Council gave rise to a desire for more formal and literal translations of the original Latin texts. This new translation will employ the best of what we have learned about translation nd liturgical language in two generations of celebrating the Liturgy in the vernacular. It will provide an opportunity to reflect ever more deeply on the eucharistic celebration that lies at the heart of the Church’s life.
Have you seen this video with former bishop of Austin, Archbishop Gregory Aymond? He’s discussing the coming changes in the Mass, the Revised Roman Missal, to be implemented Advent this year (2011).
Here is what it sounds like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nPhNVpHe7g