Dear John,

Yes well the major difference is that the text of the Mass has been retranslated.  Everybody always says that the Mass is "changing" but in my own opinion it's not changing at all...  Basically what we will be getting this Advent is what we SHOULD have gotten immediately following the reforms of Vatican II.  But, to the typical catholic sitting in the pew, yeah the Mass is completely changing.  :-)

This is what's happening:  the Mass has been retranslated into English from the original and official Latin text.  Special attention has been paid to translate the text exactly and as literally as possible.  Therefore, when we pray the Mass in English, we'll be praying much more closely as everybody else in the non-English speaking world who also uses translations prepared faithful to the Latin.  That's why I don't consider the translation a "change" but rather we in the English speaking world are just getting caught up with what everyone else has been doing since Vatican II.  I myself call it a "do-over" rather than a change.  You may remember in old Latin missals there used to be Latin and one side and an unofficial English translation on the other side so that the people could follow along.  In the "new" Mass coming up, our texts will be much much closer to that old unofficial English translation.

So why is all this even necessary?  Well back when the Mass was translated into English, it was done with the idea of "dynamic equivalence" which means that the WORDS were not translated, but instead the IDEAS were translated.  One of the points of Vatican II was to make the Mass more accessible to the laity, and here in the English speaking world in my opinion we got a little too carried away and drifted too far from a translation that was loyal to the original texts, and in translating only the "ideas" we lost way to much of the beauty and reverence that is rich in the original Mass prayers.

If you would care to browse some of the new texts I know that there are a few sites that can be googled that offer side-by-side comparison.  In reviewing the texts, it won't take you long to find some of the differences.  :-)

Try: http://usccb.org/romanmissal/examples.shtml

Thanks John,

Mr. Slavek