Are Some People Afraid Of The Latin Mass?

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Frosty said:
Thanks. I’ve been trying to follow this thread but it has veered off into so many directions that It is hard to figure out at times exactly what some people are really trying to say. You are absolutely correct that there are many of us still alive who grew up with the Mass in Latin and understood what it was all about. However, we do have to admit that there were also many who didn’t.
Perhaps some of the misunderstanding we find here is that those of us who grew up in priviledged countries in North America or Europe and had the benefit and good fortune of a Catholic education forget those who didn’t. Even in our own countries, not all Catholics had the opportunity to attend Catholic Schools or even owned a Sunday Missal. Where they really able to follow along with the prayers of the Mass? I don’t know, but I do expect that a lot could not.
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True. DW is three years older than me and went to public schools all her life. She went to Sunday School and has her own 1962 St. Joseph’s Missal. I will grant you that both of us grew up in predominately Catholic South Louisiana.

Neither of us were priveledged. My father worked two jobs to keep us afloat and DW’s father fed his family via the family farm. Not exactly what you were thinking of. I’m about as middle classed as you can come. The life we live with both of us having Masters degrees is little different from how the two of us were raised.

South Louisiana to this day is overwhelmingly Catholic. There are those here for whom English is a second language. DW grew up in a French speaking community. Sorry, I just don’t see it or feel it. OK, DW had a Missal. Most of us had a Missal. It was a rite of passage when one got a Missal. Not a single thing unusual for a kid growing up in south Louisiana.

I’m the first one in my family on either side to move from New Orleans in over 200 years. I didn’t move far. I went 70 miles upriver to Baton Rouge. Met and married my Catholic wife of some 30 years.

We must be absolutely unique down here. We knew how to use our missals. Sorry, I simply don’t buy that. I knew too many fellow Catholics from other parts of the US in 1971 when I was in the Navy. But, no, y’all are far wiser. We didn’t know what was being said and all those Yankee boys I served with didn’t know how to serve a Latin Mass either.
 
brotherhrolf said:
Neither of us were priveledged. My father worked two jobs to keep us afloat and DW’s father fed his family via the family farm. Not exactly what you were thinking of. I’m about as middle classed as you can come. The life we live with both of us having Masters degrees is little different from how the two of us were raised.

You misunderstood what I meant by priviledged. I was not referring to one’s relative wealth or “class”. I was referring to the fact that in our countries, for many Catholics, there was access to a Catholic education. This was most certainly not the case worldwide.

We must be absolutely unique down here. We knew how to use our missals. Sorry, I simply don’t buy that. I knew too many fellow Catholics from other parts of the US in 1971 when I was in the Navy. But, no, y’all are far wiser. We didn’t know what was being said and all those Yankee boys I served with didn’t know how to serve a Latin Mass either.
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Why must you take everything so personally? I never said that no one knew how to use their missals or that no one even had a missal. No one is implying that your experiences are not valid However, if you cannot understand that your experiences and life as a Catholic were not necessarily that of the entire Catholic world then it is pointless to even bother trying to have a discussion.
 
I am not taking anything personally. I have merely mentioned my own experiences which, from what I am hearing, were quite extraordinary. OK, I understand.
 
Now, brotherhrolf, that was a nice direction you sent me in. Translations. Sigh. I must confess here that when the congregation sings the hideous translation of “Ode to Joy” I gasp in dIsmay. I learned the German from the Beethovan Symphony. The English is some insipid nonsense nothing like the Freude schoene Gotterfunken Tochter aus Elysium … sheer joy to sing and know.
The differences in the Masses are somewhat the same.
The English Masses here in the Southwestern US are just copies of the Episcopal Mass or what ever as far as I can tell.
Luckily my children were educated in a school that taught the old way - the glorious knowledge of man, a reverence for the Seen and Unseen world and honor for each individual (a great books program). They are light years beyond their peers. I do not like to see our youth so neglected. This “proletarianization” has seemed to do far more harm than good. I am greatly cheered by this apparent spiral back. I hope it continues on all fronts to the good.
 
I confess that I clean house with Beethoven’s Symphony #9 and that I do sing along in German. 😃 Which I’ve memorized and followed along with the handy-dandy libretto just like a handy-dandy Missal. Cognates abound in German just like they do in Latin.
 
Candace_Alexis said:
Now, brotherhrolf, that was a nice direction you sent me in. Translations. Sigh. I must confess here that when the congregation sings the hideous translation of “Ode to Joy” I gasp in dIsmay. I learned the German from the Beethovan Symphony. The English is some insipid nonsense nothing like the Freude schoene Gotterfunken Tochter aus Elysium … sheer joy to sing and know.
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Personally, I prefer the English text over the original German, simply because the German is, as the title says, an ode to joy – joy being the object of poet’s praise. The English, however, is a praise to God, the Creator of joy and of all good within us. Incidentally, the English is its own text, having little to do with the praises of Elysium, and is therefore not truly a translation. But I digress…

And now back to the topic, and to being less visible 😉

Gertie
 
I prefer the Latin Mass to the Novus Ordo if that makes anyone feel better. 😛 I grew up with the Novus Ordo (I’m 19) and I started going to an FSSP church in my town last summer and I was swept away by walking in! 😉 It was so peaceful and reverent. I went to a high mass, too, and the chant and incense and everything was just perfect. It was like “this is Catholicism”. The priests too loved their faith and knew it well, and you could tell they had a real reverence for Christ and a deep love for Him.

I think the only thing people are “afraid” of is the Latin but honestly, if you go a couple of times and read the book you know what’s going on; it is different from NO but it’s not completely out of nowhere. 🤷 Besides, if you hear a language enough you start to pick up little things, and the more you go the better you’d learn.

I think that if God wants you to do something, you should do it, even if it seems hard; if you think going to TLM would be a lot of work but would please God, then you should do the work for God’s sake. Just because God will accept you in either NO or TLM doesn’t mean you should be lax and not put out the work. 🤷
 
As to the thread’s main question, I do not fear the Latin Mass. I just don’t like it and never have, even when I was an altar server in the 50s and rattled off my responses to the priest’s unintelligible cue lines.

But neither am I very proud of many other liturgical reforms that brought our sense of the sacred to a rather outrageous low … especially with the turgid musical reform and “protestant” architecture.

I hope, and think, we will never go back to the Latin Mass en masse, I have no objection to those who find the Latin Mass uplifting, but for the life of me cannot understand why they think it is.

Think about it: did Christ institute the Eucharist in a language the apostles did not understand? And did he turn his back to them during the consecration? Did the early Christians do likewise?
 
I think the Latin Mass is so much more reverent than Mass in English, perhaps because the English is a poorly translated one. I’m 18 and I’ve grown up around NO Mass, but I still prefer the Latin Mass.

The EWTN Mass is a good mixture of English and Latin, and that’s what I like about it (although I prefer everything minus the readings and bidding prayers to be in Latin).

In my opinion, it’s the converts who don’t like the Latin. For the Easter Vigil Mass this year, we sang the Missa de Angelis. You could see, the only ones who weren’t singing along were the converts.

Strange views people have. They think they won’t understand it. If you’ve ever been to Mass, you’ll understand what’s going on and what the priest is saying.
 
MC_John said:
I think the Latin Mass is so much more reverent than Mass in English, perhaps because the English is a poorly translated one. I’m 18 and I’ve grown up around NO Mass, but I still prefer the Latin Mass.

The EWTN Mass is a good mixture of English and Latin, and that’s what I like about it (although I prefer everything minus the readings and bidding prayers to be in Latin).

In my opinion, it’s the converts who don’t like the Latin. For the Easter Vigil Mass this year, we sang the Missa de Angelis. You could see, the only ones who weren’t singing along were the converts.

Strange views people have. They think they won’t understand it. If you’ve ever been to Mass, you’ll understand what’s going on and what the priest is saying.
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I disagree with your statement about converts. Most converts (at least on this board) seem to favor the TLM.

I’ve only been Catholic for five years, but it’s been my observation that the people most against the TLM are the old-timers (people 60 years old or over). I’ve talked to people who are absolutely vitriolic in their assessment of the old Latin Mass. One man told me that he was going to leave the Church over it back when he was young–he hated it that much. Another elderly man smiled and gave me a thumb’s down when I asked him about it.

Obviously my personal observations are very limited, and only anecdotal. Not to be taken as scientific proof.

Our city has had TLM since the mid 1980s, and it’s very sparsely attended. Again, this is just anecdotal, and our city could well be the only city in the U.S. with a sparsely-attended TLM. According to many of the posters on this board, their TLMs are packed, mainly with teenagers. So I think I live in a freaky city. It might have something to do with the fact that we live so close to Willowcreek, and perhaps this changes the dynamics of Catholicism as well. (Our bishop is Thomas Doran, BTW.)
 
^^

In my parish, the majority of the congregation is over 40. I believe that most people like the Latin Mass. I agree with some of what you say, but in England, most of the converts come from the CofE, where much of what is done, in my opinion, is very “happy clappy”. They are used to that, then when they convert, they can’t adjust to the Latin, no matter how beautiful it is.

As the parish is made up (mainly) of families of Irish and Italian descent, from people who moved to England during the war, they’re used to the Latin. I think it would be good to bring it back. Almost as good would be to have the new Missal now (with correct translations, finally!)

I like your opinion…
 
Cat, our indult EF parish has a congregation of between 200 and 300 on Sunday, pretty much what my cathedral parish sees for 10 am Mass on most Sundays. St. Patrick’s in New Orleans is packed on Sundays for both the EF and the OF (in Latin). St. Patrick’s never stopped having the EF.

Our converts are taken to New Orleans during their mystagogia to experience a full sung Solemn High Mass at St. Patrick’s. (We’ve been doing that since the mid-90s when Latin was restored to the cathedral).

There is a great deal of interest in having an EF at the cathedral. But, when one’s bishop merely issues a one paragraph “acknowledgement” of the Motu Proprio followed by a scathing editiorial by the diocesan chancellor in which he repeats the same shibboleths one can find on this forum (e.g. no one understood what was being said, nobody wants it, etc.)…well, what can one say? I know how to read between the lines.

As I have consistently maintained, yes, there were people who embraced the OF. But there were just as many of us who were happy with the EF. I am not the least bit interested in trying to force the EF on any of you as was done to us forty years ago precisely because it was forced on us.

IMHO, what you are seeing, Cat, is a dialogue that should have taken place forty years ago. Because this dialogue did not take place, those of us who were happy with the EF are looked at with suspicion and often downright contempt today. But as we all know none of us knew what was being said; we all were just yearning for Mass in the vernacular; none of us enjoyed chant or sacred motets which was our heritage; etc, etc, etc.

Sadly, there is a huge element of fear. If there weren’t, there would not be the kinds of comments I read posted all over the threads in this forum.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Think about it: did Christ institute the Eucharist in a language the apostles did not understand? And did he turn his back to them during the consecration? Did the early Christians do likewise?
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:)Hi Charlemagne,
Is that true? Did they not use any hebrew or aramaic prayers? Do we know for a fact that Jesus intended the sacrifice to be to the people and not to God? (that is my understanding of facing God or facing the people…I could be wrong).

I’ve been meaning to read a book on the early Mass but haven’t found one.
I was wondering if you were speculating or if it was facts.

Thanks:)
Also, another thought, the Mass is not about imitating the last supper. Otherwise we’d be lying down around a table talking and spending time, and eating dinner.
So how far can you take that argument that “thats not what Jesus did at the last supper”?
🙂 Or, thats not what language they used.
 
:DHey, insofar as the apostles were facing Jesus at the Last Supper, they were facing God! Therefore, the Priest should also face God and not the congregation.

…am I close or way off?
 
MC_John said:
I
In my opinion, it’s the converts who don’t like the Latin. For the Easter Vigil Mass this year, we sang the Missa de Angelis. You could see, the only ones who weren’t singing along were the converts.

Strange views people have. They think they won’t understand it. If you’ve ever been to Mass, you’ll understand what’s going on and what the priest is saying.
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who have probably never had any exposure whatever to the Latin Mass, who have had no training in singing this Mass setting (wonder how many of the other congregants know how to sing it outside the exclusing TLM club in that parish), and I wonder what aids were provided for those trying to sing unfamiliar words in an unfamiliar language, to unfamiliar music. I don’t do that great with a song on the radio I have never heard. Pretty harsh judgment on the converts. What part did the TLM people play in the catechesis of catechumens during RCIA–don’t forget they were dismissed for most of that time and did not have the opportunity to even hear most of the Mass. Since so many traditionalists reject RCIA out of hand, my guess is they exist to criticize everyone who is not in their clique, not to help others who may have an interest learn and become part of this experience. To criticize someone for not sharing your experience and preference is a low blow, IMO. And how perceptive of you to have the ability to judge their “strange preferences” by their failure to sing along and follow the bouncing ball.
 
As it stands, we don’t have a Latin Mass in my parish (although the priest is going to start doing one on Friday evenings). The converts in the parish are the kind who think Latin has no place outside Ancient Rome. Whenever we sing hymns at Mass, both the hymns and the Mass setting are provided in a booklet, both in lyrical and notation forms.

The RCIA team is made up of many catechists from the parish, both old and young. The point I was trying to make is that the Latin Mass is beautiful. The groups of people from the RCIA course (there are rarely more than 2 every 2 years or so) are taught about the music of the Mass, and the Latin influences in all aspects.

I’m not disputing what you’ve said. I agree that some are quick to judge just because it’s not what the people likes. I’ve made sure the liturgy is balanced - to please all people (including the newly converted), we have a folk Mass with guitars, and then another with more traditional music.

Although it’s not what I’d prefer to have done, it’s done to make everybody happy. “Not to be served, but to serve” springs to mind.
 
MC_John, how do you know who the converts are at your church? I don’t believe that converts are any more afraid of a Latin Mass than we who were born Catholic.:confused: I believe you said in your OP that you were 18 years old. Did I mistake that?

If you are only 18 I am trying to understand how you have such knowledge of what is in the hearts and minds of converts.

Frankly, MC_John, I would hate the folk Mass with the guitar. 😦 I thought that fad had gone the way it should have long ago. There is no reverence to any folk Mass I was forced to attend in the early days after V2 when the church leaders were confused.

What makes you think that “new converts” prefer the folk Mass to the Pauline Mass or the TLM Mass? 🤷 You seem to be separating converts into a class of their own. That is not what the Catholic Church is all about. A convert is a Catholic like all the rest of us.

I was around before V2 (much before) but I prefer the Pauline Mass because I like the Priest to face the congregation. Why some people say that he is facing God when he has turned his back on the congregation is beyond me. The Priest has the Host in front of him at all times.

Anyway, I do like prayers said in Latin as they do on EWTN. At my parish we have a Mass said in Latin every Sunday at 9:00 a.m. so there is that option for anyone who prefers the Latin.

And, please spare us the folk Mass with the guitar; the clown Mass as shown on this forum on another thread; and any Mass that is irreverant.

The point is not to have a “Menu” for someone to choose which Mass they prefer to attend as MC_John said they do at his parish. :nope::highprayer:

:amen:
 
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