From back in 2008:(Erie Bishop Donald) Trautman said the draft (of the Roman Missal) includes words such as "ineffable" that would not be in the ordinary vocabulary of people.
"This should be the prayer of the people," Trautman said. "I'm not for having street language. ... We should certainly have elevated tone, but words like that are just beyond the common comprehension."
Catholics coming out of a lunchtime Mass at Erie's St. Peter Cathedral weren't familiar with "ineffable."
Welp, today I finally got to use the word that lunchtime Massgoers in Erie, PA cannot understand. The collect reads:
O God, eternal majesty, whose ineffable Word
the immaculate Virgin received through
the message of an Angel
and so became the dwelling-place of divinity,
filled with the light of the Holy Spirit,
grant, we pray, by her example
we may in humility hold fast to your will.
Through Our Lord Jesus Christ....
No complaints. No worries. No confusion. The early Massgoers in Oxford, MS listened to the collect probably about as closely as they have in the past.
"Beyond common comprehension"? Ineffa-believable!
