Latin and You. Wherein Fr. Z Rants

[MagdalenaRita]

No! I’m a lady!

But I don’t do well with foreign languages.

Okay, very sorry, I totally misunderstood your sentence.

I’m not very good with foreign languages either. As a matter of fact I do not know any but since returning to the Church I have been able to learn some Latin, just a little at a time. Mostly prayers. I just take it one prayer at a time and one line every so often of the OF of the Mass.

 

[ProVobis]

A serious student of all the books of the Bible would do best if he or she tries to learn the Hebrew and Greek behind them.

If not then he or she would have to get an official English Bible. Oh wait…there is none.

 

[TMC]

it is not magic

This should be repeated often and vigorously.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I’m curious if anyone knows what the official languages are of the other 22 Catholic Churches faithful to Rome.

1. Latin Rite Catholic Church official language is…Latin
2. c’mon you nerds we need answers

Probably calling people nerds is not the best way to get an answer to a question. A quick search on the internet brings up the answer. Colin Donovan, author of the article, lists the rites and their languages at the bottom of the page:

https://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/catholic_rites_and_churches.htm

God bless

 

[Peeps]

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we’ve been singing parts of the OF Mass in Latin since last autumn, and now it’s April, and I still can’t remember the words. Thank goodness for hymnals! Wish they had overhead screens.

Oh, well–at least I’m trying to sing. Several hundred people in my parish seem content to just stand there. I assume they’re caught up in the beauty of the cantor’s voice and don’t want to mess up the moment by singing off key! (We do have some very talented cantors.)

 

[ProVobis]

We have a shortage of priests–why put up more roadblocks?

Latin wasn’t always considered a roadblock. In fact we had more Latin (and grammar) knowledge in general when the Latin Mass was the norm.

 

[Peeps]

But ProVobis, it’s not the “norm” now. The good ol’ days are here right now, and they aren’t the way they were back then. There is no reason to keep looking back because it’s not going to ever be that way again.

The best you can hope for is that those children and adults who are interested in studying Latin, Greek, and other classics will have the funding to do so and also the opportunity. So many people, even in the U.S., have to spend a lot of their time at work outside of home, and then come home to more work, not only taking care of children or older relatives, but cooking, cleaning, yardwork–and then there’s that awful “workout” that we’re all supposed to be doing to keep our bodies in decent shape (I do the workout, but my body is not trim because I head for McDonald’s after the workout!).

Most of us are lucky to get 6 hours of sleep out of the 24, which isn’t enough for good health.

So–if someone wants to learn Latin and has the time–good for them! But as I’ve said in other posts, it’s not realistic to expect most modern folks to be able to find the time to truly learn Latin. I think that if Catholics can manage to remember the Mass parts (other than the Gloria, which is pretty long), they are doing really well!

I for one, sometimes stumble over the Mass parts in English!

 

[GordonP]

I’m curious if anyone knows what the official languages are of the other 22 Catholic Churches faithful to Rome.

Latin is the official language of record for all of the Eastern Churches, regardless of which liturgical language they use.

As for official working languages, it is, like in the West, whichever vernacular language is most convenient. Their canon law is in Latin, which is their official language of record.

Significant official pronouncements are composed in the vernacular, and translated into Latin by Church Latinists for record keeping purposes. The Latin translation is the official reference version from which translations into other languages are made.

Just like in the West. Encyclicals and the like haven’t been composed in Latin for quite some time. Few, if any, Cardinals know Latin well enough to write something at the level of an Encyclical, and that was also the case well before Vatican II.

When Pope Benedict was resigning, he wanted to announce his resignation in Latin. He had a Vatican Latinist compose his announcement. At the conclave that elected Pope Benedict, there was only a single Cardinal that could actually speak Latin with any fluency. I think he was from Lativia or Estonia.

For a particularly gruesome example of what knowledge of Latin was among churchmen prior to Vatican II, listen to Cardinal Cushing at the funeral of John F. Kennedy on Youtube. It’s cringe worthy. First year high school at best, and nowhere near the top of his class.

That’s not to knock Cardinal Cushing, but to illustrate that he had only so many hours in the day, and did not consider improving his knowledge of Latin a wise investment of his time. He had bigger fish to fry.

 

[ProVobis]

I for one, sometimes stumble over the Mass parts in English!

I’m sure many have going to newer translations. What are we, on our third now?

 

[GordonP]

Several hundred people in my parish seem content to just stand there. I assume they’re caught up in the beauty of the cantor’s voice and don’t want to mess up the moment by singing off key! (We do have some very talented cantors.)

You’re describing the exact same situation that existed in the Church in the fourth century. After Christianity became the official religion, singing was performed by professional cantors, often from the east, who sang well beyond the level at which the congregation could participate. Congregational singing during the liturgy quickly died off completely, and would not reemerge until sometime after the Council of Trent. Even after plainchant became established, it was performed strictly by clerics. The lay congregation, as you put it, just stood there and listened and watched the best they could. Don’t forget that up to the time of Trent, the chancel was separated from the nave by a chancel screen, and the sanctuary was often further separated from the rest of the chancel (the choir) by an altar screen. These screens could be quite massive, something like the iconostastes in Eastern churches, so listening, and especially watching, were significantly impaired.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I assume they’re caught up in the beauty of the cantor’s voice and don’t want to mess up the moment by singing off key! (We do have some very talented cantors.)

lol. That could be me. Sometimes I just want to meditate on the words of the hymn.

 

[FOG]

Often wonder what Padre Pio would think of Father Z, if they were contemporaries, and what Father Z would think of Jesus Christ if they were contemporaries…and visa versa…fascinating thought!

 

[otjm]

But the Greek was used well beyond Cicero.

 

[otjm]

Well, at least you didn’t note anything from Palestrina…

 

[Peeps]

I wouldn’t care for that, GordonP.

There’s enough German (ancestry) in me, along with Irish, to cherish singing and making music. At work, I’m known for my humming (I try not to irritate people, but sometimes, I don’t even realize I’m humming or singing a song). I don’t listen to much recorded music on radio or CD, and I have no interest in an iPod because I prefer to make my own music. One of my daughters is the same way–she sings while she drives. The other one has enough songs in her iPod to last for several decades (she totalled it up once) and she constantly has an earbud! (She takes after her daddy.)

I LOVE singing with others, and even more than that, I enjoy accompanying them on piano or organ!

What I miss more than anything about Protestantism (actually, it’s one of two things that I miss–the other is fellowship and friendships) is the congregational singing! I have been playing (piano) at a small Protestant church for a few years now (I’m paid) and I love hearing that small group sing out on the old hymns, including many hymns that are in our Gather Hymnal!

So I don’t think I would enjoy a “silent” Mass very much. In fact, I know I don’t enjoy it, because when I play organ at the local Latin Mass parish, I sit quietly and listen with respect, and I recognize that this is a historical Mass and I appreciate it–but I would never attend a Latin Mass on a regular basis unless there was no choice.

I don’t see this as “rejecting Jesus.” To me, it’s preferring to be with Jesus and receive Him in a setting that helps me to get a glimpse of heaven. Everything I read in the Bible gives me the impression that heaven is a place where the heavenly hosts and the saints are constantly chanting and singing praises to the Lamb of God, not sitting or kneeling in silence.

I respect that others prefer the stillness and silence and I’m glad that the option (Latin Mass) is available for them. God makes us all different!

 

[goout]

I was joking. Nerds is a term of endearment where I come from.

 

[otjm]

2 heartbeats…

 

[PetraG]

But his point is that we are the Latin Rite, not Hebrew or Greek Rite. And the Latin goes all the back to Cicero.

There is only ONE Church. That is one of the marks of the Church. It is fine to have different rites, but there is no moral imperative to care about distinguishing one rite from another, let alone ours from any other. If anything, the imperative is to avoid doing that.

Going to be unpopular probably saying this but Fr Z would be better off getting from behind his computer and Amazon wish list and finding somewhere he can actually minister to people (and not just those who want to go back to pre VII days).

I’m not his bishop, but neither is he the supreme arbiter of all things Roman Catholic.

“B as in B. S as in S.” is a phrase Fr Z uses from time to time.

From the original Latin. St. Jerome, I think?

Why don’t you ask him? Where did he ever say or imply that this should be done? Do you think you know more about the Mass than a Catholic priest does?

To be fair, this is a priest who sometimes strays into talking as if he were more Catholic than the Pope.
(Like pretending a faint when the Pope mispronounces Latin.) He does gloss over the obvious truth that putting the Mass into Latin was itself a translation into a common language.

So who decides the language of “Love!”? We can plainly see today that the language of “Love!” changes with the culture, so we need the Church, which happens to have Latin as it’s official language, to guide us in what the language of love really is. Unchanging Latin, at least which should be known by our priests, keeps the Church from following the fads of the culture.

1 Cor. 13:1-13, which starts off with “If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.” The marks of love are patience and kindness and never being rude.

Fr. Z has a lot of things to say that are worth saying, but they’d be better said if he’d control his temper.

 

[GordonP]

At work, I’m known for my humming

Considered by psychiatrists to be a sign of feeblemindedness or a psychotic break with reality. (Just kidding! I do the same!)

For 1300 years, congregants basically stood there and didn’t have much opportunity to participate in the Mass. They didn’t have much of a clue about what was going on since they could not hear, and wouldn’t have been able to understand it if they did because everything was in Latin. There wasn’t much to see because most every thing was behind screens and curtains. People just attended to their private devotions, pausing only to pay attention to the Elevation.

If you have an hour to spend, you could check out this recreation of a Latin Mass from the 15th century:

A couple of quibbles:

Pews were not common during this period. People stood, or if old or infirm, sat on the floor or on benches along the walls of the church.

The congration would have been muttering their private prayers, rather than focusing their attention on the priest, except for the homily and elevation.

The chancel screen would have been fitted with curtains, which would have been opened only during the homily and the Elevation. I expect that they didn’t hang curtains in this recreation because they didn’t want to mess with the historical architecture of the church.

 

[otjm]

In that case, I wish we could ship a goodly number of them off to England. Let them sort it out.