New version of Mass, in priest's own words as of Feb 10, 2011, when the mass as head trip was already living rent-free in the worshiper's mind, a flea-bitten space . . .

It gives a certain I-don't-know-what to the mass as announced by certain priests, he wrote. Bored by or concerned about the implications of masculine-only pronouns as dictated by their holy mother church, they improvise. I catch every one of these improvisations, or used to before I stopped worrying and learned to love deviation.

I was like the TV detective Monk, cursed with the gift of paying attention, in my case fretting and fuming when I was supposed to be praying. I used to, anyhow. Now I go into a sort of free-fly zone.

In this zone, I woolgather, daydream, write columns for Chicago Catholic News dot, etc., God rest its soul. This means that one minute I’m saying “Lord hear our prayer” with the other faithful, next minute that I know about, I am rising for the Our Father. Awful, I know. Can only say I’m working on it, he wrote.

The paying close attention thing is a bigger problem. The priest subs out “His” for “God’s,” “disciples” for “friends,” “Almighty God” for “Almighty Father,” etc. Two of these reduce masculine references, sparing feminine sensibilities. The other is apparently meant to de-emphasize levels of authority in favor of intimacy, giving us a kindler, gentle church.

Irritating, if you are a listener like me, who has leaned toward close listening for years, even before becoming a reporter and having to get things straight - listen, listen, scribble, scribble, run it for thousands to read or at least call it in to a persnickety rewrite man.

Our friends (what else can they be?) at the Vatican are paying attention to this phenomenon. In 2004 they called it a “reprobated practice by which priests, deacons or the faithful . . . alter or vary at will the texts of the Sacred Liturgy that they are charged to pronounce.” Hmm.

They said this in the presumed "disciplinary document" (the nerve), Redemptionis Sacramentum, issuing a must-cease order in the matter because such freelancing with the liturgy makes its celebration “unstable” and distorts its meaning.

Yes. Unstable because worshipers who pay attention never know what they will hear from the man with the microphone up front. Distorts meaning in various ways, including (egregiously) in the matter of the centrally located doxology.

That’s when we praise God, as when the priest says in a fairly dramatic wind-up to the canon, “Through him, with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.”

To which the people say the Great Amen, affirming trinitarianism, telling the world we are not Unitarians, not Arians, that we think Jesus is God the Son. It’s a very important case of “lex orandi lex credendi” - as we pray, so we believe, or “prayer determines belief.”

I have heard, however, “Through him, with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, in, all glory and honor is yours, almighty God, for ever and ever.” For Father, male authority figure, we are given “God.” It doesn’t deny the Trinity, of course, but it undercuts the liturgical expression.

Why? Apparently to cut back on masculine references, the priest sidesteps the fatherhood of God in favor of the politically correct non-reference to gender. It’s part of the church’s save-the-women project.

By the way, one has the devil’s own time in finding the official version of the Mass at the U.S. Catholic bishops’ site. I didn't. Found it at Catholic Resources dot org.

As for the Lord’s Prayer, I am waiting for “Our Parent, who art in heaven,” etc. It’s coming.