In the last edition of the Chronicle I wrote about the project currently underway to create a new and better translation of the Mass in English. I spoke in mainly technical terms about the rationale for this project and the progress that is being made.

As a follow-up I would like to offer a more spiritual and theological reflection as to why everything connected with the Mass is so important, including the translation. I am going to begin by using the life of a saint to illustrate what I mean.

St. Pio of Pietralcina, popularly known as Padre Pio, was a great spiritual figure of the 20th century. During his lifetime he was known far beyond the borders of his native Italy as a mystic, a wonder worker, great dispenser of divine mercy in the confessional and in spiritual direction. He was also a stigmatic, that is to say, like St. Francis of Assisi before him, Padre Pio manifested the wounds of Christ in his own body. When he was canonized a saint in 2002, it was one of the largest attended liturgies ever to take place in Rome.

St. Pio died in 1968 at the height of the Cold War and its threat of nuclear annihilation. He lived through two World Wars that rocked his native Italy. He knew of the slaughter of millions by totalitarian regimes in what proved to be the bloodiest century thus far in human history. He was keenly aware of a growing forgetfulness of God in the world.

Amid all these tremendous threats, crises and problems, what did this extraordinary saint think was important?
In his characteristically direct way of expressing himself, Padre Pio said: "The earth could exist more easily without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the MassÉ If we only know how God regards this sacrifice, we would risk our lives to be present at a single Mass."

The Mass was the center of the spirituality of Padre Pio amid all the world's chaos and the insistent pleas he received from people suffering throughout the world. He ministered to thousands.  He was responsible for the construction of one of the largest hospitals in Italy. And yet it has rightly been pointed out that his day was a continuous preparation and a continuous thanksgiving for the Mass.

Reflecting on how Padre Pio celebrated Mass, one writer states: "We need a cosmic recall to the things of the spirit - and above all the Mass, the pulsating heart of Christianity. May it not well be that Christ...marked [Padre Pio] with His Five Wounds in order that he might stand at the altar as the living image of the Crucified, and that through him the Mass might become vital for us? For it is the Mass that matters, and until its power is again felt in the heart of our civilization, all will not be well."

Needless to say, St. Pio is only one striking example of a saint whose whole life's work and passion revolved around the Mass. He understood perfectly what the Second Vatican Council meant when it said that the Most Holy Eucharist was the "source and summit" of Christian life, containing within itself "the Church's entire spiritual wealth."

Everything connected with the Mass and its proper celebration is important and worth our time and our very best effort, including translations. To a revealed religion like Christianity, founded on the belief that "the Word became flesh," the spoken and written word is prominent and powerful.

After the Second Vatican Council Pope Paul VI said, "translations now have become part of the rites themselves; they have become the voice of the Church." The "voice of the Church" to which the Pope refers is not the voice of a merely human institution or society, but rather the voice of Christ's Body and Bride. Not only the words of Scripture, but also those spoken in the celebration of the sacraments "express truths that transcend the limits of time and space. Indeed, by means of these words God speaks continually with the Spouse of His beloved Son, the Holy Spirit leads the Christian faithful into all truth and causes the word of Christ to dwell abundantly within them, and the Church perpetuates and transmits all that she herself is and all that she believes, even as she offers the prayers of all the faithful to God, through Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit." (Liturgiam authenticam, no. 19).

This being so, the bishops realize the responsibility they have as "stewards of the mysteries of God" to provide for the best possible translation of Mass, so that English can be the "voice of the Church" in a manner worthy of the worship of God.
Each of us in his or her own way, like St. Pio and all the saints, is called to bear witness to the supreme importance of the Mass, for in a very real sense "it is the Mass that matters, and until its power is again felt in the heart of our civilization, all will not be well."

+Most Reverend Leonard P. Blair
  Bishop of Toledo