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Roman Missal Changes To The Nicene Creed
Once again, Joe Paprocki, national consultant for faith formation at Loyola Press, and D. Todd Williamson, director of the Office for Divine Worship of the Archdiocese of Chicago, have written a helpful article describing and explaining some of the key changes that will we will notice in the Nicene Creed. In their article “The Roman Missal Changes—Give It to Me Straight: Part 2,” the two authors look at this very important Creed and walk us through the reasons for the changes in this part of the Mass. The first big change involves using a different sentence subject—at the outset of the Creed, the word We (as in “We believe . . .”) will become I (as in “I believe . . .”). True, the reciting of the Creed is a communal act (thus the former We); however, the word I is actually a more accurate translation of the word Credo, which means I believe. This is consistent with changes throughout the new Roman Missal, where the translations are true to the Latin text. Additionally, every individual in the assembly is called upon to profess his or her own faith just as he or she did in Baptism. Our individual profession is joined together with the professions of all the other individuals present—and together we form the assembly. The important difference between unseen and invisible The next change in the Creed provides better clarity to the intent of the phrase: The words “of all that is seen and unseen” will become “of all things visible and invisible.” As the authors point out, something may be unseen for a number of reasons—another object may be blocking our view, we may be looking in another direction, or we may consciously choose not to look at the object even though it is physically right in front of our eyes. Something invisible, however, is clearly unable to be seen with the naked eye, whether or not we want to see it. Saints and angels, for example, are not just unseen—they are invisible! Paprocki and Williamson discuss numerous other Roman Missal changes to the Creed, but they end their discussion by explaining the change we will notice in the “climax” of the Nicene Creed—where we currently say, “We look for the resurrection of the dead.” The new wording for this phrase will be “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead.” At first glance, it may not seem like a big deal, changing “We look for” to “I look forward to.” In truth, we may look for something all our lives and never find it or experience it. But saying that we look forward to something implies that we KNOW it is going to happen—we are confident of it. The word forward also does a better job of conveying the sense of eagerness we have for that event to happen. After all, as Christians, knowing that death is not the final word is something to anticipate with great zeal! Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com |
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