U.S. news

New texts for eucharistic adoration, Communion outside Mass aim to promote unity

WASHINGTON — Three years after being approved by the U.S. Catholic bishops, updates to the ritual texts for distribution of holy Communion outside of Mass and for eucharistic adoration will take effect. The revised version of “Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery Outside Mass” will be implemented on the First Sunday of Advent, Dec. 1. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had signed off on the fresh texts in 2021, with the revisions reviewed by the USCCB’s Secretariat for Divine Worship and confirmed by the Vatican in March 2023. Father David R. Price, associate director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Divine Worship, said that “the main thing to keep in mind” regarding the revisions is that “this is a new translation of the ritual book that was given in Latin in the 1970s — so it’s a new translation, it’s not a new ritual book per se.” He emphasized that “the discipline of distribution of holy Communion outside Mass that is in place now is not changing.” The new translation “should hopefully be a way for people to continue to grow and deepen in their faith and to have a sense of unity with the universal Church, in that we are praying with words in English that are similar, that are the same in meaning, as words that people are praying these same prayers in other languages — and that the translations are consistent in their meaning between these different languages,” Father Price said. (OSV News)