I went to my first TLM ... did not go well

[Leonius]

Regarding reverence and silence, of course I appreciate that. But I go to Eucharistic Adoration for that, and I love it. For Mass, I like to pray with my fellow parishioners under the guidance of the Priest at Mass, and not just looking at him praying for us.

See this is your problem, you are not supposed to be just looking, aren’t you able to pray without been told to do so?

 

[Leonius]

How does one participate if he can’t hear what’s being said? Is he supposed to pray his own prayers? Just quietly observe?

I am a farily new Catholic from an Evangelical background… the NO mass is all I know… I’m just trying to wrap my brain around a mass where I can’t hear / have no idea what’s going on. I imgaine it would be similar to a Spanish mass I attended (I don’t speak Spanish - I was pretty much lost) Aren’t I supposed to participate in the mass? Or is that not the case with the TLM?

You can tell where in the mass you are by what action is taking place on the altar, it is perfectly possible to know exactly what is going on without been able to hear a word at the TLM. Also yes you can pray your own prayers, have you never heard of interior participation? This is far more important than exterior visible participation which so often can be just empty words and gestures.

You might find this useful:

scribd.com/doc/3931444/Participating-in-Traditional-Liturgy

 

[Leonius]

How ridiculous is this. At Mass, we pray with the priest to God, but we pray with the priest as a community. And it’s “we”, not just the priest. You talk as if there need be no laity present at all, just the priest offering prayers for everyone else, as if the priest constituted the whole Church. He does not.

Have you never heard of priests saying private masses? Guess what the Priest does these without any laity!?!?

It is not through the power of the priest joined with the laity that the miracle of the mass occurs, it is God acting through His priest who performs this miracle.

 

[Leonius]

That is exactly the point I logged back on to bring up. The prayers of the celebrant need to be audible so that the people of God can know that he is actually celebrating Mass and not reciting “Jabberwocky.”

And you say I should be praying the Mass with him. Great, I agree. But how can I pray with him if I can’t hear what he is praying?

What is so hard to understand about this? Is there something between my computer and yours that is garbling the message? The people of God have a right to hear what their priest is praying.

DaveBj

No Dave you have just made that right up, you don’t have a right to hear at all. As someone else said it is not up to you to act as if you are the Inquisition keeping a watch on priests saying the Mass, and I am sure the Altar servers would notice if the priest wasn’t saying the right words. Incidently there are words that are said silently by the priest at the NO as well.

 

[Leonius]

I believe that during the time of Christ all of the languages…Arameic, Greek & Latin were used…so no it was not such a leap

That would make sense given that is was the Roman Empire with Latin as the main language and that the Church was centred in Rome in the time of the Apostles, pretty much from the beginning, clearly St. Peter spoke Latin as he did much of his work in Rome, and among the poor and uneducated Romans at that, I seriously doubt they spoke Aramaic.

 

[Monica37]

Leonius,
Thank you for making the statement that there are parts of the OF that the priest speaks inaudibly. One of the amazing things I discovered with the EF is what the priest was actually saying. Since the missalette has all parts written and in front of me and either they weren’t in the missalettes at the OF or I didn’t bother reading them (because why, I could just listen, right?) I never knew what he was saying. When I started attending both High and Low TLMs I discovered how beautifully all of our traditions have been carefully preserved. I also appreciate the notes on the side of the missalette that explain why we do and say these things. With such a sad state of affairs we have in our catechesis, this sparks my interest and I make a point to follow up. I know it’s really sad, but I didn’t know that we quoted the centurion when we say, “Lord I am not worthy…”. I think the EF lends itself to catechesis more so than the OF.

 

[malphono]

That would make sense given that is was the Roman Empire with Latin as the main language and that the Church was centred in Rome in the time of the Apostles, pretty much from the beginning, clearly St. Peter spoke Latin as he did much of his work in Rome, and among the poor and uneducated Romans at that, I seriously doubt they spoke Aramaic.

No, Aramaic was never spoken in Rome. But Greek was. Anyway, I wasn’t in Rome at the time and don’t know for certain, but I’m not so sure that S Peter spoke Latin.

S Peter was a Galilean fisherman whose native tongue was Aramaic, but who was probably not literate even in that tongue. (Remember that tradition says S Mark was his scribe, so-to-speak.)

One has to keep in mind that Greek was more-or-less the lingua franca in the Roman Empire, and was also considered the language of the educated (much the way French was, e.g., in Imperial Russia and in the Royal Court of the Netherlands) in Rome itself, as well as in Antioch and Alexandria. Latin was the “vulgar tongue” (from whence we get Vulgate) in Rome itself and the western regions of the Empire. Interesting, too, that many slaves in Rome were Greek-speaking.

From that, I’ll suggest that it’s quite likely that S Peter learned some basic Greek, (he was in Antioch first, which was a bi-lingual city (Aramaic and Greek), but even so the “upper class” there was mostly Greek-speaking).

S Paul, on the other hand, would likely have done. He was a Jew who was a Roman Citizen. But even there, his writings were all in Greek.

 

[Leonius]

"1 And when the days of the Pentecost were accomplished, they were all together in one place: 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared to them parted tongues as it were of fire, and it sat upon every one of them: 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak with divers tongues, according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak. 5 Now there were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

6 And when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded in mind, because that every man heard them speak in his own tongue."

Acts of the Apostles 2

 

[DaveBj]

No Dave you have just made that right up, you don’t have a right to hear at all. As someone else said it is not up to you to act as if you are the Inquisition keeping a watch on priests saying the Mass, and I am sure the Altar servers would notice if the priest wasn’t saying the right words. Incidently there are words that are said silently by the priest at the NO as well.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. You’re not going to convince me, and I’m not going to convince you. I’m sure you’re not sinning by going to a mumbly-jumbly Mass, and I’m just as sure I’m not sinning by going to a Mass where I can hear what’s going on, even if I have to follow the Latin in a guidebook.

DaveBj

 

[ASD]

going to a mumbly-jumbly Mass

Oh, come on. For centuries millions of ordinary Catholics have been able to learn enough Latin to follow the Mass.

ASD​

Traditional Latin Mass: Translation and Grammar

 

[Leonius]

Yeah, yeah, whatever. You’re not going to convince me, and I’m not going to convince you. I’m sure you’re not sinning by going to a mumbly-jumbly Mass, and I’m just as sure I’m not sinning by going to a Mass where I can hear what’s going on, even if I have to follow the Latin in a guidebook.

DaveBj

You are however sinning by blaspheming the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass just because you are to obtuse to understand it.

 

[ac_claire]

Yeah, yeah, whatever. You’re not going to convince me, and I’m not going to convince you. I’m sure you’re not sinning by going to a mumbly-jumbly Mass, and I’m just as sure I’m not sinning by going to a Mass where I can hear what’s going on, even if I have to follow the Latin in a guidebook.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever”? Nice, Dave. And this brilliant"you’re not going to convince me, and I’m not going to convince you" tactic is inappropriate because y’all are not debating opinions here. The fact is the laity have no right to hear the priest clearly to make sure he’s not praying “jabberwocky.” This is fact, not opinion. And why you would even approach the Mass with such ideas in your head is beyond me.

 

[malphono]

Oh, come on. For centuries millions of ordinary Catholics have been able to learn enough Latin to follow the Mass.

I agree 100%, and am not arguing. And at the risk of being attacked again by certain parties, I’ll even add the fact that ad orientem was the norm (in both East and West).

But some people will never accept such things. It seems that such people are, for lack of a better description, “fugitives from the '60s” who insist that they have a “right” to see and hear everything, because otherwise it’s not – well, (and I hate this word for it’s 1960’s connotations, but I have to use it here) RELEVANT. When it comes to liturgy, they generally much prefer the “looser” versions (meaning, loose on the rubrics) of the OF. It’s (ugh!) “relevant” and the EF (heaven forbid!) is not. Well, I disagree totally, completely, and absolutely with that faction, but I suppose the one right they do have is to their opinion.

It’s no secret around here that I’m not, never have been, and never will be, a fan of the OF, but at the same time I don’t go around condemning it. It’s valid. (Well, at least it is unless it’s one of the “chips & coke” things from the late '60s-early '70s – and I hear they do still exist).

That said, it really bugs me that those same people insist on sniping against anything to do with the EF (or Latin, or ad orientem, etc – in short, anything pre-1966) in these fora. For all their liberality, they so often take the “my way or the highway” approach, and that so takes me back to the '60s. In the day, they always accused the the so-called “trads” of exactly that, but they were equally (if not more so) guilty of the same thing. They did it then, and apparently they (and their progeny) do it now.

In sum, I don’t see that there’s anything to be done for it, other than to ignore the sources and turn away from their incessant ranting and sniping. PP Benedict XVI has thankfully restored the option in the Latin Rite to use the EF. He’s certainly not forcing “them” (or anyone else, for that matter) to attend it.

 

[ASD]

… people insist on sniping against anything to do with the EF (or Latin, or ad orientem, etc – in short, anything pre-1966) in these fora. . . .

PP Benedict XVI has thankfully restored the option in the Latin Rite to use the EF. He’s certainly not forcing “them” (or anyone else, for that matter) to attend it.

It’s fascinating. Don’t you have to wonder what they’re so afraid of? Why the ridicule, mockery, etc.?

The only explanation that occurs to me is that they’re very worried by the fact that people can now test the party line for themselves. It used to be easy to simply assert that NO, vernacular, versus populum, etc, were huge, obvious improvements over TLM. Now people can see for themselves.

ASD​

Traditional Latin Mass: Translation and Grammar