On the First Sunday of Advent 2011 a revised English translation of the Roman Missal will be fully adopted across the English-speaking world. Already, since the beginning of September this year, much of the translation has been gradually introduced. It takes the place of the version that we have been using for nearly forty years, since the introduction of the vernacular in preference to the Latin texts at the start of the seventies.

The translators had to work according to very strict principles, most particularly that the current Latin texts must be rendered very precisely into English, more or less word for word, as opposed to the previous 'dynamic equivalence' principle by which the translator communicates the sense of the original in an accurate but idiomatic way. This approach has unquestionably led to some clumsiness here and there - alongside a few quite felicitous phrases - and a generally 'elevated' language which is clearly not to everybody's taste.

Reactions have been predictably mixed. Some rather like it, others very much dislike it; a large number feel that it's 'no big deal' either way. Most importantly it has not caused division in the parish; it has been received generally in very tolerant way, and with an element of good humour when inevitably people slip up. It seems we are already getting used to it.

Perhaps the greatest blessing that should result from something that is in itself somewhat controversial is that we can hardly fail to think afresh about the underlying meaning of what may have become, after forty years, a routine form of words. We haven't got a 'New Mass': the Mass remains the same, our greatest treasure. Let's pray that we may be led to appreciate it even more and hold it dear and precious.