The New Translation of the Mass

I’m starting to assemble some resources to support catechesis for the new English translation of the Missale Romanum (which, presumably, we in the UK should start using some time next year). In case any of this is useful to you, here’s what I’ve got so far.

One of the most remarkable things that I’ve found is how hard it is to track down the Latin text of the mass in an easily (i.e. on the web) or cheaply (i.e. book study edition) available form. As far as printed resources go (for the editio typica tertia) the only resources that I’ve found are the full altar edition (very expensive) and this study edition from the Midwest Theological Forum. Even this edition is expensive!

Online, we’re more fortunate. Probably the best version of the ordinary of the mass is available at the “Roman Liturgy” site. It’s not set up particularly well for printing off, but if you’re not afraid of a bit of html hacking, it can be turned into something quite presentable.

For the propers, the best site I’ve found is Bibliaclerus (which is useful for quite a lot of other things as well). You can get through to the missal by following the sidebar links to “missals and similar” (under "The celebration") and then “Missale Romanum 2002”, if you want to keep the frames intact, or you can go direct to here, if you hate frames!

The layout of these pages is pretty unfriendly, which is why I suggest using the “Roman Liturgy” site for the ordinary, extracting the propers (and full rubrics, if you like that sort of thing) from Bibliaclerus.

As for the new English text, the United States Bishops’ Conference appears to be ahead of us at the moment. They have an attractive site dedicated to the new translation and have quite a few helpful resources assembled there, including the approved version of the new translation of the ordinary of the mass.

For musical settings for the new translation, there is some material on ICEL’s site, but it seems to me that the best material is available from the Church Music Association of America, which you can find here. For the moment, one must assume that none of these musical settings have received any authoritative approval!

I’m not aware of any full edition of the mass propers being made available online yet. Please let me know if I’ve missed it! Also, if anyone’s got any more useful catechetical material, please share!