A changing catholic missal

A bit off topic, let me begin this post by first apologizing for this post, and all of the other posts I have made on ILP. I tend to have feared what I post here due to the current inability to clean it up later.

I have attended a number of catholic masses, and here is something that has been brought to my attention.

Words practiced during mass (current missal):

Priest:
Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God.
People:
It is right and just.

As this is recited, I am trying to make sense of this. I look at this response “It is right and just” and I’m trying to make some sense of it. To me, this exchange of English does not seem normal. I would think, after a priest’s statement of “Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God.”, we would follow by giving thanks to the Lord.

I look at the words “It is right and just” and am thinking - “What is right and just?”

From google:
A definition of the word “it”:

Looking at the response of the people, as I try to apply the definition of “it” to these words, I am struggling to identify how this occurrence of ‘it’ is intended.
My assumption of this metaphor… “to give thanks to the Lord, our God, is right and just”.

Taking a look back at the older missal:

Priest:
Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God.
People:
It is right to give him thanks and praise.

To me, this English makes more sense. “It is right to give him thanks and praise.” When looking at these words, an answer to the question “What is right?” is clearly stated. Rewording: “to give him (the Lord) thanks and praise is right”.

In comparing these responses, I am thinking about another way this could be reworded. I would think the statement “It is right to give him thanks and praise”, taken to heart, could mean “I ought to give him thanks and praise”.

To me there is a nuance in this comparison. I would take the words of the older missal to include a stronger notion of what one ought to do. In my opinion, the newer missal is not as expressive regarding this idea. An entire idea is spoken, rather than using the word “it” to refer to the words of the priest (again, my assumption).

The below article does include some information regarding the changes (Keep in mind these missal changes were implemented some years ago)

ncronline.org/news/new-miss … ew-changes

I sympathize with the idea of the keeping the translations more accurate, yet, making sense of this changing nature can be quite a challenge.

Other ideas come to mind, and the lessons thereof, but perhaps I’ll expand on these another time:
Genesis 11:1-9 (Babel)
Matthew 24:35