Can the Latin mass speak to all?

[Nesrad]

This obsession with understanding the words of the Mass betrays a certain misunderstanding on the nature of Mass. The Mass is a sacrifice, not a celebration or a communal meal. The words of Mass are directed primarily to God, not to the audience. The way we speak to God is important. It would be irreverent to address God using slang, for example, and that’s what vernacular languages are compared to Latin. The Church uses Latin because of its majestic qualities, as a language especially worthy of prayer. So when someone says that Latin shouldn’t be used in the Mass because the people don’t understand, one could respond that God understands and that’s what counts.

The mere idea that everyone present should understand the words of Mass is folly. There will always be people present who for one reason or another cannot wholly grasp what is being said. Children, for example, have a very limited vocabulary. Would that justify dumbing down the Mass so children can understand, as if that were the purpose of the Mass?

 

[ProVobis]

If Christ were living and dying and charging in these times, and St. Peter was founding the church in these times, applying the same standard as we did with Latin, then everything would be in English.

No way.

English is as barbaric as it gets. Hard to learn. Hard to sing. Unorganized. Many irregularities. Too many homophones. Too mutable. God deserves better.

 

[ProVobis]

And why do you think Latin was picked in the first place?

Because the Church feels the language is the best one to express its prayers, morals, and unchanging doctrines. As has been suggested, read Veterum Sapientia. You got the Bible in 200 English versions. Leave the Mass alone.

 

[ProVobis]

But, you are right. Latin should not be imposed on those who don’t want it.

Neither should English, for that matter.

 

[HumbleCatholic]

Neither should English, for that matter.

I agree with you, even though I stated the above statement re: English. I personally believe in and love the Latin MAss, and it is not offered in the church I am now attending.

And I agree with your other statement:

“Because the Church feels the language is the best one to express its prayers, morals, and unchanging doctrines. As has been suggested, read Veterum Sapientia. You got the Bible in 200 English versions. Leave the Mass alone.”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I love you, save souls!

 

[triumphguy]

There is a HUGE difference between Mass in the vernacular, and the ordination of women, condoning of birth control and perhaps abortion, celebrating same sex marriages, etc. To compare vernacular Mass with abortion is, IMO, illogical and inflammatory.

It is frightening to know that there are Catholics who actually believe and say in public that a Mass in the vernacular is equal to condoning abortion, same-sex marriage, etc.

The doctrine and dogma of the Catholic Church are unchanging. But the disciplines of the Church change constantly. The Church Herself has decreed the validity and rightness of Mass in the vernacular. For any Catholic to condemn this teaching and compare it to certain grave sins is disturbing, and I hope to heaven that those of you who love the Latin Mass will condemn this type of thinking and rebuke people who make statements like this.

[SIGN]I agree![/SIGN]

 

[triumphguy]

About “understanding” the Mass, there are a few things that need to be said:

1. It is not necessary to understand the Mass to fully benefit from its graces.
2. Modern Catholics see no problem with not understanding Mass when travelling in a foreign country, but they have a nutty when they can’t understand the Latin mass** that’s because they are at home.**
3. Catholic schools should teach Latin, and adults should learn it by taking evening classes. So many people are ready to learn foreign languages, but they totally neglect the language of the Church, which is their own language.

I don’t think very many English speakers are ready or willing to learn a second language. Heck most Americans and Canadians can’t even speak the Queen’s English

 

[Nesrad]

I don’t think very many English speakers are ready or willing to learn a second language.

Do you love the Church enough to learn her language?

 

[ProVobis]

But they are exceptions. Many people in this day and age have no interest in the past, and will simply walk away when they can’t understand something. That’s just the way modern people are. We aren’t the way people used to be. All of those modern innovations that I mentioned above have changed the way people are.

You are speaking from a consumer point of view. I encountered a lot of what you say in my IT career. I wouldn’t go back to the 70’s way of programming, but I never regretted that I learned enough to know the very basics of integrated circuitry and assembler progamming. But it seems the very people who wanted and went to all kinds of standard-setting with an English-based language like COBOL in the 70’s are now frustrated because the foreigners have now bettered this type of programming and are more employable in the IT field.

But should the Church be so dynamic as you suggest it should be? After all, the vernacular is for the most part mutable and forces changes every now and then, and then not everyone agrees with every bit of change. So you have tension, not only among the English-speakers but between Spanish speaker and Polish speakers, etc.

As that old expression goes, be careful for what you ask. You may get the vernacular all right, but it wouldn’t necessarily make you understand any more than you did before. The English Mass taught me nothing but that’s me.

 

[triumphguy]

Do you love the Church enough to learn her language?

Hey - I was reading Virgil’s Aeneid in Latin in 1974. Our Latin teacher used Catullus to give us sex ed classes because sex ed was banned in Catholic schools! I was an altar sever for Latin masses in the 60’s. Don’t presume that because I have a different opinion to you that I neither know Latin, or have not read the documents.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

About “understanding” the Mass, there are a few things that need to be said:

1. It is not necessary to understand the Mass to fully benefit from its graces.
2. Modern Catholics see no problem with not understanding Mass when travelling in a foreign country, but they have a nutty when they can’t understand the Latin mass.
3. Catholic schools should teach Latin, and adults should learn it by taking evening classes. So many people are ready to learn foreign languages, but they totally neglect the language of the Church, which is their own language.

1. True, but understanding can help us experience the true richness of what is going on. It is extremely good, even if not strictly necessary.
2. This is because we agree with you on number one, though we do think understanding is extremely good. Therefore, it makes more sense for other people at their homes to have access to this understanding and for me to have it when I’m at home, and since it will have to be sacrificed somewhere, it should be in the relatively rare cases of traveling to countries where you don’t speak the language.
3. Knowing Latin would be nice, but is not feasible for many people. I personally suffered through a total of 7 years of people trying to teach me Spanish, with the end result that I can ask where the bathroom is. It’s not so simple as “why doesn’t everyone just decide to learn Latin?”

Do you love the Church enough to learn her language?

This very nearly set off an explosive rant, but a calm and measured response is below:

Yes of course we do. If it were necessary. If it were truly necessary, most of us, as we are now, would struggle through it and try to force ourselves to learn it, even though for many of us it simply wouldn’t work.

But two points:

1. if it were required to learn Latin before I was where I am now, it is entirely possible that I wouldn’t have gotten here. I wasn’t born knowing Latin. Learning Latin as a child was not an option. I also approach everything intellectually, so while right now I know that the Latin Mass is an awesome and beautiful thing, and that understanding the particulars of Mass is not strictly necessary, before my faith solidified (I am a Cradle Catholic, but I can point to the specific 3 month period where the faith became real and not just an adjective) I may have admired the singing, but I would have been bored and, not having anything for my mind to work on, not picked up on the significance of what was going on.

Put it like this: Religious education where I grew up was, frankly, terrible, even at the Catholic schools nearby (which my parents sent my older brothers to for a bit and then stopped for money reasons and for lack of effectiveness). My father is not Catholic (though he is and was supportive, he obviously wasn’t going to be doing much teaching), and my mother tried to educate us on the faith, but we approach the world in so vastly different ways that it was like trying to read a foreign language in braille with thick gloves on.

So my experience of Catholicism came mostly through the Mass. And despite wincing every time some stupid happy clappy song started, it sort of permeated me. There wasn’t an awful lot of knowledge involved, but enough that when I ran into something challenging I had a sort of Catholic-ish frame of reference and so turned to Catholic sources to answer the questions.

And now, after that happened, I consider the Church my own and would do my best to learn Latin if it were required. But if I had not gained some intellectual understanding from a Mass I could understand, chances are I would be another CINO. If someone had told me that I could experience the fullness of God’s revealed truth if only I were to learn some other language that I would at that time consider to be mostly useless, then I would probably have smiled and nodded and ignored them.

So yes. I do. But I didn’t used to.

1. The Church itself has decided that it’s not necessary to learn Latin. So pretending that it is does no one any favors.

Ok, I lied. A third point:

1. I realize that what I said in point one was my own experience only, and I also realize that the Latin Mass has helped and does help many people, and that many people grow closer to God in ways there that they don’t in the OF. This is why I absolutely think that its continued existence is good, and support pretty much all measures to have it available more widely. And I certainly hope that much of the reverence found in the EF is restored to the OF.

But to recognize the good points of the EF does not require and should not lead to denigrating the good points of the OF, and there is no reason to completely scrap one or the other. Some people are like me and get more out of the OF, some the EF. The Church must be all things to all men. So - both.

 

[robert7685]

Here’s my (name removed by moderator)ut as someone who attends a parish that uses the Traditional Latin Mass and the older forms of the other sacraments exclusively. It does indeed speak to all. The question is, how well do people listen? God speaks most with a still small voice, and it is all too easy to miss it.

 

[TimothyH]

Do you love the Church enough to learn her language?

This is foul, completely unfair.

Triumphguy followed Jesus into and out of seminary, into marriage, and is now in formation to become a deacon. He has given up a significant portion of his life discerning, agonizing with tears over the call to follow Jesus through the Church.

He was ready to forsake everything for Jesus and the Church. Every single one of us owe him a debt of gratitude. He is a model for the rest of us.

-Tim-

 

[ProVobis]

Here’s my (name removed by moderator)ut as someone who attends a parish that uses the Traditional Latin Mass and the older forms of the other sacraments exclusively. It does indeed speak to all. The question is, how well do people listen? God speaks most with a still small voice, and it is all too easy to miss it.

Indeed. Even the submissa voce (low tones) of the Mass have deep meanings which words could never convey.

 

[october_baby]

The fact of the matter is, Vatican II allowed the Latin Mass in ALL parishes, which some
Bishops REFUSED to implement. Pope Benedict the XVI later reinstated the Mass, which some Bishops still refused to implement.It has been suggested that parishes that have
the Latin Mass are growing, while the Ordinary Mass attendance is shrinking.
The fact of the matter is that Vatican II gave a choice between the Ordinary and Latin
Masses. If we are serious about Vatican II, we should give ALL perishes a choice between
the two.

 

[Nesrad]

This is foul, completely unfair.

Speaking of unfair, I wasn’t implying anything, it was an open question.

 

[Nesrad]

Don’t presume that because I have a different opinion to you that I neither know Latin, or have not read the documents.

Your earlier response certainly suggests that Latin isn’t worth knowing for someone who speaks English.

 

[Nesrad]

1. The Church itself has decided that it’s not necessary to learn Latin. So pretending that it is does no one any favors.

Wrong. The Church has decided that the use of Latin is to be preserved, which necessarily implies that some people must learn Latin, especially ordained deacons and priests, and preferably anyone who has the intellectual ability. This is what Blessed John XXIII decided, and this is the law of the Church. Pretending that learning Latin isn’t necessary is not doing the Church any favours.

 

[Baelor]

The mass was in Latin for 1960 years and the catholic church was never stronger, the vernacular mass is a new innovation.

Until you prove cause, this is obviously a fallacy of correlation.

"Of its very nature Latin is most suitable for promoting every form of culture among peoples. It gives rise to no jealousies. It does not favor any one nation, but presents itself with equal impartiality to all and is equally acceptable to all…

Which is why Latin is the universal language of the Church, because no one else speaks it. But it is not, by nature, superior to any other language. That notion makes very little sense and has no basis in historical reality.

1. It is not necessary to understand the Mass to fully benefit from its graces.

That still does not address the issue of why we should not make the Mass understandable when there is really no downside. If everyone spoke Latin, should we then change the language because it is suddenly intelligible?

1. Modern Catholics see no problem with not understanding Mass when travelling in a foreign country, but they have a nutty when they can’t understand the Latin mass.

The reason is obvious: they would not care if the Mass were celebrated in Latin in a country in which they are traveling because they are there temporarily. The same persons would have a fit if their home parish decided to offer all Masses in a modern language they did not understand. This justification makes no sense.

1. Catholic schools should teach Latin, and adults should learn it by taking evening classes. So many people are ready to learn foreign languages, but they totally neglect the language of the Church, which is their own language.

Most adults do not learn foreign languages. Many schools, Catholic and secular, do teach Latin.

The language of the Church need not be spoken by all Her members. It is not a requirement given that documents are translated anyway. While it would be nice, it is hardly an obligation.

This obsession with understanding the words of the Mass betrays a certain misunderstanding on the nature of Mass.

No, because no one is saying that the nature of the Mass requires understanding the words.

The Mass is a sacrifice, not a celebration or a communal meal.

It is all three of those things.

It would be irreverent to address God using slang, for example,

That is not irreverent. You are simply incorrect.

and that’s what vernacular languages are compared to Latin.

Again, incorrect. Latin is merely a language that the Church adopted because it was expedient. It continues to be expedient.

The Church uses Latin because of its majestic qualities,

Which are defined according to what metric? What makes Latin more majestic than Italian, or Chinese, or Swahili, or Navajo, or German, or Prussian, or Gothic, or Old Norse, or Tocharian, or Hebrew?

as a language especially worthy of prayer.

No language is intrinsically worthy of prayer. That makes no sense because languages have no intrinsic properties, but rather are entirely dependent on the persons using them.

So when someone says that Latin shouldn’t be used in the Mass because the people don’t understand, one could respond that God understands and that’s what counts.

God understands all languages.

Do you love the Church enough to learn her language?

Reported.

 

[CMatt25]

I am a fan of the Latin mass and would love to see it celebrated more universally. However one thing that bugs me when the Latin issue creep in is whether or not it can speak to every culture. Latin is a deeply European language and the Latin mass itself is very European. Can the Latin mass then speak to people in other countries in Africa and Asia?

I’m not a fan. And though I’m not in Asia or Africa, but in the states, anytime I’ve attended a Catholic Mass or watched one on EWTN where Latin is used at all, I haven’t liked it. It’s not something that causes me to want to go back. If anything it’s the opposite. I don’t speak Latin and it doesn’t speak to me either.