When in the Roman Church... do as the Romans did...

Have you ever looked in the mirror and saw the image of your mother or father?

Or, have you ever thought to yourself, “I’ll never say that to my kids,” referring to something your parents used to say to you, only to hear yourself saying that same thing to your children?  You’re not alone.  As we journey through life, it’s likely we see more and more of our parents reflected in our bodies, our mannerisms, in the way we think and act.  We may have been influenced by many people, by our environment and by our circumstances, yet a part of us will always bear the mark of our parents. 

                                

In the same way, the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church, though influenced by many cultures, will forever mirror the influence of the city considered the Church’s Matriarch, Rome.   The rise of the Roman Empire and the legalization of Christianity in the Church’s early centuries provided the means for the Church to borrow a lot of its liturgical practices from the cultural practices of Rome.    Incense, candles, actions like bowing, processing and genuflecting, and gestures like beating the breast all came from Roman Imperial Court Ceremonies.   The vestment worn by the priest, the chasuble, was used in Rome as a garment for traveling.  The ranking of the clergy reflected the ranking system of the Roman government.  Even early church buildings were modeled after basilicas, large civic structures built as  monuments to glorify the Roman empire.   Liturgical language too was influenced as Greek yielded to Latin in the third to fourth centuries.    All of this will be important to keep in mind as we prepare for a new translation of the Church’s liturgical prayerbook , the New Roman Missal, which we will begin using on the first Sunday of Advent in November.   The prayers will conform more closely to the original Latin in which they were written, adhering to a more classical Roman Rite.

O Lord, help us as we prepare to pray with new words, AMEN.