"Martha, Martha, you are concerned about many things..."

Recently I wondered why this caution of Christ to busy Martha has come strongly to mind? For the last three years, so many of us have been engaged in the important and very necessary task of the implementation of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal.

This summer, the parishes and missions of the Archdiocese are preparing to teach and implement the third edition of the Roman Missal, which will be used across the United States beginning on the First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011.  We asked parishes to share their plans for implementation.  Here are some of the responses:  

Holy Family, Auburn

So far, our leadership has attended workshops offered by the archdiocese.  Father began talking with the assembly about the coming changes last fall, and spoke about the changes again starting this last Spring.  The weekly inserts from LTP began in June.  We are currently having meetings with our pastor, liturgist, musicians, school liaison, and representative from Religious Ed, youth group, and RCIA for planning.  We plan to have small group education sessions about the Mass using Become One Body, One Spirit in Christ, plus speakers with all parish groups, from the Knights of Columbus to the Religious Education classes, starting in September.  Our goal is to teach the new prayers in the Mass, but also, and almost primarily, to take advantage of this opportunity to teach the community about the Mass with the ultimate goal of helping them to participate fully, knowingly, prayerfully in the celebration of the Mass.

Some of the resources we are using and would recommend to others are:  Preparing Your Parish for the Romal Missal- Homilies and Reproducibles for Faith Formation from LTP; Become One Body, One Spirit in Christ, DVD resource; Parish Guide to Implementing the Roman Missal 3rd Edition from the Conference of Catholic Bishops; Mass cards with new words from Our Sunday Visitor; and workshops offered by the Archdiocese.

We have also developed a plan for music, after group consultation and planning with pastor, musicians, and liturgist.  We will begin introducing the Amen, the Memorial Acclamation, the Holy, Holy, Holy, and the Gloria in chant settings over a 7-week period, one at a time, starting the first weekend in September through October 9th.  Then we will begin introducing those same Mass elements using the Mass of Christ the Savior starting the weekend of October 15 & 16 all the way through the Advent and Christmas seasons.  We chose chant first because our celebrant will be singing in chant (listen to and download the chants) and he wants the assembly to know how to respond in chant, and because we thought it would be easiest to begin with chant as a simpler melody so the assembly could concentrate on learning the new words. 

After Christmas, we plan to assess how things have gone and plan, musically, for the next seasons.

Dawn Kuhlman
Holy Family Parish, Auburn

St. James Cathedral

At the Cathedral Parish, our efforts to educate around the new Missal begin in September, with a special series of bulletin inserts that we'll be creating in-house.  You can read the materials and share your reactions at our Cathedral Liturgy Blog . These inserts will address the most significant changes to the people's responses, and will also give a sampling of the celebrant's texts-Collects, Prefaces, and Eucharistic Prayers.  At the end of the month, our annual Liturgy Day with liturgical ministers will focus on the new translations, and help our liturgical leadership to get a head start on understanding and getting comfortable with the new texts.

Because we have done two major catechetical programs focused on the Mass in the past five years, we decided that to focus on the meaning of the Mass in preparation for the implementation of the Missal would be too repetitive for our parishioners.  Instead, we've decided to offer a series of presentations on the history of the liturgy, from the early Church through the present day, with Edward Foley's From Age to Age:  How Christians Have Celebrated the Eucharist (Liturgical Press, 2008) as our "textbook."  We believe this will be an effective way to prepare for the Missal, as it will make us more aware of the roots of our tradition, and also reveal the many and dramatic changes in the Catholic liturgy through the centuries.

In November, as implementation draws near, we will offer information sessions after every Mass.  We will spend time reading the texts, both the people's dialogues and parts of the celebrant's texts, to let people experience the overall impact on the language of our prayer that the new Roman Missal will bring.  These short sessions-our hope is to keep them to about 30-35 minutes, in order to encourage as many as possible to attend-will also include an overview of the Missal, and time for questions and answers.

Corinna Laughlin

St. James Cathedral 

 
St. Alphonsus, Seattle

At our June liturgical commission meeting we established a parish liturgical commission subcommittee for preparation of the parish for RM3, laid out a few broad-brush plans for what we needed to do over the summer, and then we all "disappeared" in various directions!

Our subcommittee includes pastor, school principal, altar server coordinator, and me. We are planning a workshop with a guest presenter and will invite all parish leadership and all parishioners to participate.  For any who cannot attend for any reason, I will be offering "small group" workshops for anyone who wants to meet for an introduction to the Missal, much like the larger workshop in content, but for more intimate groups, such as seniors during the day, our choir members, as well as parish leadership and parish lay liturgical ministers who can't attend the larger session. Tentative scheduling is already underway for these sessions, which will be completed by November 13 or so.

In the meantime, for the rest of July and August, our subcommittee will meet and place orders for flyers, plan bulletin inserts to be included from September 10-11 through November 12-13, and other necessities and events.

We chose the LTP edition of the Roman Missal and pew cards for the parish, and these have been ordered.

Our music director will be participating in one of the music workshops being offered by the Archdiocesan Liturgy Office, and our choir members and sub cantors are very interested. Our School Principal has already signed on for the Principals, Pastors, School liturgy coordinator session at Palisades on August 17. Our sacristans are making plans to attend the November 5 or 11 workshop for deacons, sacristans.

Our preparations prior to the implementation of the Missal are meant to be basic. We are discussing also the possibility of follow-up catechesis on the Mass itself. We have not named any resources yet. I am drawn to Carstens and Martis, Mystical Body, Mystical Voice for lay liturgical ministers, but at this point it is for future reference.

Sandy Dresbeck

St. Alphonsus, Seattle
 

St. Benedict Catholic School, Seattle