Parishes cross barriers of language and culture to make their Sunday celebrations more inclusive.

When Gini Eagen came to Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Stone Mountain, Georgia three decades ago, the parish had “a very white population,” she says. Now Eagen is the church’s pastoral associate, and things have changed. “We are today the Catholic Church I used to picture in my prayer life,” she says. “When you’re young and you hear that there are people all over the world saying the same prayers that you say, you can picture it, but this is the reality we can see on Sunday.”

It’s dress rehearsal time as parishes prepare for the new Mass.

It was last Advent season when Andy Hentz first heard his pastor talk about the new Latin-to-English translations coming to the Mass. But it wasn’t until Hentz, a mail carrier who reads Catholic magazines and listens to Catholic radio, read excerpts of the new texts on the Internet earlier this year that he realized how dramatic the changes will be.

American Catholics who still strongly dislike the new liturgical texts once they are implemented this Advent season will have three options:

1. Stop going to church.

2. Keep attending but stop participating fully in Mass.

3. Attend, participate, and learn to live with them.

It’s dress rehearsal time as parishes prepare for the new Mass.

It was last Advent season when Andy Hentz first heard his pastor talk about the new Latin-to-English translations coming to the Mass. But it wasn’t until Hentz, a mail carrier who reads Catholic magazines and listens to Catholic radio, read excerpts of the new texts on the Internet earlier this year that he realized how dramatic the changes will be.