This new mass . . .

. . . it’s got style, and being more elaborate, gives the priest less room for his personal touch(es), as Roma Locuta Est points out brilliantly, especially in this part, italics mine:

3. The new translation will change the focus on the priests personality.

The new translation is harder to speak, and it is harder to understand . . . because it is more formal. Yet this was no accident; it was one of the goals of the new translation: an elevated language worthy of the worship of God. By way of a literary comparison, it is more like Dickens that it is like Nicholas Sparks.

Yet the funny thing about language that is more formal is this: the focus is naturally more on the words rather than on the spoken performance. When the texts are simpler, there is more opportunity for a personal stamp. With the new and more formal texts, the personality of the priest is crowded out by the words themselves. This is how it should be. As Benedict XVI has mentioned more than once, as both Cardinal and Pope, the personality of the priest is not the important thing – for he is standing in persona Christi.

As I listened to the words spoken, I tried to imagine them being spoken by a boisterous personality. And it occurred to me that it simply wouldnt work. Oh, dont get me wrong, some will still try, but inevitably it will sound goofy. It will be like trying to recite Shakespeare with the overbearing and overacted personality of Jim Carey [sic: Carrey]. Jim Carrey might have been able to carry the old translation – for a simpler translation allows for a wider variety of spoken performances – but the new translation demands the sophistication of a polished Shakespearean stage actor, someone who can let the text stand on its own.

I firmly believe that the new texts will eventually root out the performer priest and replace him with an authentic actor who understands that the part he plays in the great cosmic drama of the Mass is not about him, but about the God of the universe.