Can unity justifies ignorance?

[tata888]

I love the Latin Mass, but assume the laity has no missal books, is the unity believed to spring from the use of Latin in the Mass justify the parishioner’s ignorance of what’s going on and what’s being prayed or what books and what verses are being read from the Epistles?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

I love the Latin Mass, but assume the laity has no missal books, is the unity believed to spring from the use of Latin in the Mass justify the parishioner’s ignorance of what’s going on and what’s being prayed or what books and what verses are being read from the Epistles?

There is no inherent " unity " in Latin as opposed to any other language. The unity comes from Christ present and the congregation united with him spiritually. Get a Missal or just say the rosary or just meditate on Christ’s presence until you can get a Missal.

 

[tata888]

There is no inherent " unity " in Latin as opposed to any other language. The unity comes from Christ present and the congregation united with him spiritually. Get a Missal or just say the rosary or just meditate on Christ’s presence until you can get a Missal.

It’s not about me. It’s just the argument for wider use of Latin seem to be all about this. I love the Latin Mass and I love Latin but I don’t know if unity is the right reason for disregarding the congregant’s need to know the mass

 

[mgsk]

but I don’t know if unity is the right reason for disregarding the congregant’s need to know the mass

What more do we need to know other than Jesus is being made present on the altar? Some may want to know more, but we can’t add anything to such a sublime sacrifice. We are there to witness the priest in his role as an alter Christus.

My Latin has improved greatly since I started exclusively attending the TLM, but I’ve actually stopped using my missal at Mass - instead of having my nose buried in the admittedly beautiful prayers (most of which I’ve memorized!), I can pay closer attention to the Mystery taking place before me. In a way, I wish I had started off without a missal.

Note: I’m not against hand missals at all, but I now use it exclusively at home as an aid to prayer.

 

[GangGreen]

In today’s world with the wide availablilty of printed documents, there should be no reason why people wouldn’t have a missal available to them at some point in their lives. If you were going to go to the Latin Mass every week (or more) for your whole life then you’d have one at some point I’d assume.

If the person truly cares about their faith then they should have no trouble putting in the time to learn the Mass (or at least most of it). If the Latin Mass was the only option and people were too lazy to learn it then that says something, no?

 

[revert_jen]

There’s no ignorance in my parish, which has the EF every Sunday.

Lots of people have missals, and there are also handouts every week with the readings in English and explanations of what to do and so forth. And if a person is interested, I’m pretty sure that they could find the EF readings in their own language online.

I do feel a greater unity with the global Catholic community when I attend Mass in Latin. Also, when I was travelling for work, I would have felt more in tune with the country I was in, if I didn’t have to find the special Mass in English that would obviously be full of tourists and ex-pats. I’d rather have gone to Mass with the locals, but I couldn’t learn 15 languages.

You don’t have to sacrifice knowledge of what is going on to have Mass in Latin. When I attend the Extraordinary Form, I know what is going on. Sometimes I do zone out a little, if I am particularly engrossed in prayer, but I don’t see that as a bad thing.

–Jen