A New Liturgical Year Begins with a New Roman Missal

GRANT your faithful, we pray, almighty God,

the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ

with righteous deeds at his coming, so that, gathered at his right hand,

they may be worthy to possess the heavenly kingdom.

Through our Lord.

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The Invitation to the Lord’s Prayer

In the current, 2nd edition of the Missal, the priest can choose between different invitations to the Lord’s Prayer but the New Missal uses has only invitation: “At the Saviour’s command and formed by divine teaching, we dare to say”. This is a literal translation from the original Latin text that was not translated in the previous English editions of the Missal.

At the time of Christ, no one would have dared to address God so personally and intimately as my “Father” but Jesus taught us that God is indeed our heavenly Father and so he revolutionized the way we relate to Him.

In the New Missal we see how the language of the prayers emphasizes God’s great power, majesty and goodness and with this particular invitation in the New Missal we are reminded that it is only because Jesus commanded us to pray using the words of the “Our Father” that we dare to so intimately address God as Father. 

– Rev. Geoffrey Kerslake

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