It's a little easier to accept these changes when you consider that the Latin version is still the normative version of the Roman Rite, and that the changes bring the English closer to the meaning and the flavor (the style, the sound) of the Latin.
The original translation, while everybody's used to it, had some flaws that arose out of some fashions in translation at the time which have since fallen by the wayside. The most dangerous aspect of the translation was something called "dynamic equivalence", in which the translators argued that they not only didn't need a literal translation, they could use quite different words to say something that they thought was "better" than the original words. What this meant, of course, was that all sorts of dated idioms and personal hobbyhorses and what not worked their way into what should have been first and foremost an accurate translation . . . but wasn't.
Thanks to you and CTrent1564 I will have some info to share with her and possibly make the changes a little less of a shock to her system.