God doesn't speak Latin

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Scotty_PGH said:
Can you think about what you just wrote please? You do realize that the Church received billions of converts in the centuries before Vatican II, right?

I’m really worried about how many NO people I see who treat Latin like it’s a Calculus problem. I do not buy this argument for a minute. I don’t know if it’s stubborn laziness or outright dishonesty. Not only are you not required to memorize the liturgical phrases (though i’s almost impossible not to after just a handful of Masses), BUT there are nifty little missals that spell everything out for you with an English translation right next to it. And guess what? Millions of Catholics (and many saints) lived very meaningful, participatory liturgical lives and they were illiterate!

So please stop crying about how Latin is a turn-off. The vernacular is the innovation! Vatican II did not call for Mass in the vernacular. In fact it is the vernacular that requires the indult, not the other way around!
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👍

The other great thing about those nifty little Missals is you can get one in just about any language so their does not have to be an English, Spanish, Polish and any other of the hundreds of languages at Masses around the country to make everyone feel at ease.
 
JKirkLVNV said:
Look, Walking, we can agree to disagree about Latin. I don’t care what you think about it and you obviously don’t care what I think. What I object to is this idea that the Mass HAS to be in Latin or that the Mass is BETTER in Latin. That is patently a matter of taste or of history or of any number of other things. What it isn’t is this, a part of the deposit of the faith. It’s not dogma,it’s not doctrine, there is no indication as Dauphin implies that it is the ACTIVE Will of the Holy Spirit that the Church uses Latin, any more than I could imply that it’s the Holy Spirit’s active will that the Church use only vernacular languages. One can be a perfectly orthodox Catholic without a whit of Latin or the desire to learn it. When you mention effort and desire, that’s fine if you’re talking about Christ’s narrow way. But that shouldn’t be confused as being Latin.
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Well JKirkLVNV—VatII–SC and the Popes themselves in a way do give us an idea of God’s Active Will. SC says Latin is to be retain as do the Popes. This would imply God’s Active Will. Now the incorporation of the vernacular to the extent that it has—that is more of God’s Permissive Will.
 
Walking_Home said:
Linnyo----I would never insult you by saying you do not have the ability to learn a second language. It would only take some effort and desire. I just don’t understand why a person would want to place limits on themselves.

Learning the parts of Mass in Latin does not require that you become an expert latinist.
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I have tried to learn other languages. Really I have tried both German at school and French at university. I studied them for 4 years and 2 years respectively. I’m afraid I have accepted that I am not a good language learner. I think I know how to count to 10 in both French and German and I can ask for a chocolate ice cream in German. 4 years learning and that’s what I got! No I am not thick. I have a degree and am half way through my second degree. I am a mathematical type learner though. I have huge problems with my memory and Isuspect this is why language learning is so difficult. Not everybody has the capacity for learning langauges they are not brought up with.
Besides, I speak very good English and I suspect Shakespeare would consider English to be a very beautiful language too even though it lack the Scot’s dialect.😉 It has nothing to do with laziness as I already mentioned. I do not recognise the semantics, syntax and phonology in Latin although the phonology is closer to English than in German or French. In order for people to pick up languages it is necessary to recognise the above.
 
Isa_Almisry said:
Uh, up until the invention of the printing press, there was no way they would have a missal in their hand. And not until perhaps the 18th century, could the masses read it.

This hit me at my niece’s baptism, Lutheran, and it also showed me how dated (ie. novel, recent, etc), Protestantism is.

One of the baptismal promises is to put the scripture in the child’s hand. Until the printing press and mass litracy, ie. over 1500 years after the Church’s founding, could sponsers even make such a promise. The handing of the Faith over to the next generation had to depend on other things.
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Alright, but a lack of missals doesn’t mean that nobody understood the Mass.

My point is that the Mass doesn’t have to be in the vernacular for people to have a full understanding of it.
 
Isa_Almisry said:
Ah, yes. Latinization, their universal fate.
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Let me ask you this. When a person enters the Orthodox Church–are they allowed to bring with them their beliefs and traditions and incorporate them into Orthodoxy. Or is part of conversion is leaving that life behind and internalizing what it is to be Orthodox.
 
AJV said:
Well, it does in a sense.I believe when St. Jerome translated it he did it as “supersubstantialem” which is even closer.That is one of the reasons it is so closely linked with the communion.

Gihr, in his exposition on the Mass says:
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Yes. Jerome lost on this one, just like the Psalter: the Vetus Latina was too ingrained in liturgical practice to be displaced.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vetus_Latina

gives a handy quick survey.
 
Linnyo said:
I have tried to learn other languages. Really I have tried both German at school and French at university. I studied them for 4 years and 2 years respectively. I’m afraid I have accepted that I am not a good language learner. I think I know how to count to 10 in both French and German and I can ask for a chocolate ice cream in German. 4 years learning and that’s what I got! No I am not thick. I have a degree and am half way through my second degree. I am a mathematical type learner though. I have huge problems with my memory and Isuspect this is why language learning is so difficult. Not everybody has the capacity for learning langauges they are not brought up with.
Besides, I speak very good English and I suspect Shakespeare would consider English to be a very beautiful language too even though it lack the Scot’s dialect.😉 It has nothing to do with laziness as I already mentioned. I do not recognise the semantics, syntax and phonology in Latin although the phonology is closer to English than in German or French. In order for people to pick up languages it is necessary to recognise the above.
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Thankyou for the explanation. So this means English is your one and only language.
 
Dauphin said:
I’m not saying we can only use these three languages. However, I consider anything attached to the cross to be utterly sacred.
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Sorry to butt in, I was just wondering… wouldn’t that argument make nails sacred as well?
 
lepanto said:
How do you know this? Did He tell you? If so, what language did He speak? 😉
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I know He spoke Hebrew.

I know He spoke Aramaic.

Depeding on who was Pharoah in Abraham’s time, He may have spoken Egyptian.

He may have spoken Greek.

But I have seen nothing to indicate He spoke Latin.
 
Isa_Almisry said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by iamrefreshed
Am I reading your post correctly? You do not believe celibacy should be required of priests?

Yes. The ancient practice of the Church.
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Isn’t it also true—that bishops are chosen only from the un-married clergy. So the Orthodox also have the tradition of celibate clergy.
 
Dauphin said:
Yes. Have you ever seen the Pope’s pallium? Nails are most certainly a sacred symbol.
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If just the latin phrase attatched to the cross was made sacred, then just the nails used would be sacred; but if attatching those languages sanctified the whole of those languages, then I would think it sanctified all nails as well. I think I’m going to have to start treating carpentry with more respect! 😃
 
Isa_Almisry said:
Uh, up until the invention of the printing press, there was no way they would have a missal in their hand. And not until perhaps the 18th century, could the masses read it.

One of the baptismal promises is to put the scripture in the child’s hand. Until the printing press and mass litracy, ie. over 1500 years after the Church’s founding, could sponsers even make such a promise. The handing of the Faith over to the next generation had to depend on other things.
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catholicity.com/encyclopedia/m/missal.html

The printed Missal of the present day, reproducing in substance the manuscript forms of the latter part of the Middle Ages, has resulted from the amalgamation of a number of separate service books. In the early centuries, owing to the lack of competent scribes, the scarcity of writing materials, and various other causes, economy had greatly to be studied in the production of books. The book used by the priest at the altar for the prayers of the Mass usually contained no more than it belonged to him to say. It was known commonly as a “Sacramentary” (Sacramentarium) because all its contents centred round the great act of the consecration of the sacrifice. On the other hand those portions of the service which, like the Introit and the Gradual, the Offertory and the Communion, were rendered by the choir, were inscribed in a separate book, the “Antiphonarium Missae” or “Graduale” (q.v.). So again the passages to be read to the people by the deacons or rectors m the ambo (pulpit) – the Epistle and Gospel, with lessons from the Old Testament on particular occasions – were collected in the “Epistolarium” or “Apostolus”, the “Evangeliarium”, and other lectionaries (q. v.). Besides this an “Ordo” or “Directorium” (q. v.) was required to determine the proper service. Only by a slow process of development were the contents of the sacramentary, the gradual, the various lectionaries, and the “Ordo” amalgamated so that all that was needed for the celebration of Mass was to be found within the covers of one volume. The first step in this evolution seems to have been furnished by the introduction of certain smaller volumes called “Libelli Missae” intended for the private celebration of Masses of devotion on ordinary days. In these only one, or at most two or three Masses, were written; but as they were not used with choir and sacred ministers, all the service had to be said by the priest and all was consequently included in the one small booklet. A typical example of such a volume is probably furnished by the famous “Stowe Missal”. This little book of Irish origin of which the leaves measure only five and a half by four inches, is nevertheless one of our most priceless liturgical treasures. The greater part is devoted to a single Mass of the Blessed Sacrament, in which the Epistle and Gospel are inserted entire as well as a number of communion anthems, the private preparation of the priest, and other matter including rubrical directions in Irish. Thus, so far as Mass was concerned, it was in itself a complete book and is prolix ably the type of numberless others – fragments of similar Irish “libelli Missae” are preserved among the manuscripts of St. Gall – which were used by missionaries in their journeys among peoples as yet only half christianized.

The convenience of such books for the private celebration of Mass where sacred ministers and choir were wanting, must soon have made itself felt. When one thinks of the many hundreds and even thousands of Masses which in the eighth and ninth centuries every large monastery was called upon to say for deceased brethren in virtue of its compacts with other abbeys (see details in Ebner, “Gebets – Verbrudernugen”, Ratisbon, 1890), it appears obvious that there must have been great need of private Mass-books.
 
Isa_Almisry said:
I know He spoke Hebrew.

I know He spoke Aramaic.

Depeding on who was Pharoah in Abraham’s time, He may have spoken Egyptian.

He may have spoken Greek.

But I have seen nothing to indicate He spoke Latin.
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But He’s God… that makes him omniscient. Therefore, he spoke absolutely everything. He spoke languages that haven’t even been invented yet! 😛
 
RPConover said:
If just the latin phrase attatched to the cross was made sacred, then just the nails used would be sacred; but if attatching those languages sanctified the whole of those languages, then I would think it sanctified all nails as well. I think I’m going to have to start treating carpentry with more respect! 😃
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I think if we use a bit of common sense, we can understand why language is different from nails.
 
Well I hope God speaks Elvish, because someone has translated the “Our Father” into it! 🙂

In fact, there’s more than one version in Elvish. Below is the Sindarin, translated by Ryszard Derdzinski . The Good Professor J.R.R. Tolkien translated the “Our Father” into Quenya Elvish.

Ádarem egor aerlinn na-Eru Phainadar

Ádarem i ne menel,
aer ess lîn aen,
árdh lîn tolo,
iest lîn aen
ne menel a ned amar.

Si anno i mast vîn órui ammen
ah ammen aranno raegath vîn
be arannam an raegdain vîn,
ah ú-dogo na-vael ammen
dan leithio ammen ed ulug!

Amen.

elvish.org/gwaith/sindarin.htm

See the website above for reference.

~~ the phoenix
 
Walking_Home said:
Thankyou for the explanation. So this means English is your one and only language.
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Yes it is my only language. In fact, in the UK, many people only speak one language. Our European counterparts put us to shame as they can nearly all speak English. Our schools are only now realising that to teach other languages effectively, they need to start at a young age when children are still actively learning about syntax and phonology naturally.
 
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