Mass being said in Latin

  • Thread starter Thread starter JayCL
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Well you know, it is not all about ‘comprehensibility’. I mean, for hundreds and hundreds of years you had men and women and even little children who didn’t ‘speak Latin’ and who found incredible strength and beauty in the Mass —which itself is, like the Bible, multi-layered and meaningful.

The Mass didn’t change the vernacular in the 1960s because all over the world people were complaining all of a sudden that they ‘didn’t understand it’. And quite a few people had great difficulty adapting from the EF (TLM) that they knew and loved to an OF that, in many respects to them, seemed like the equivalent of a Manga version of Tolstoy’s “War and Piece’. And I LIKE Manga and find many of them brilliant. But again, the Mass is more than a collection of ‘option A, B, or C”, sit, stand, briefly kneel, everybody is either speaking or hearing something, and often on a near par with “Run Spot Run”. And again, there is a place for “Run Spot Run’ but nobody ONLY reads or hears those without ‘moving higher up and further in.”
 
Yes, I do understand what you mean. And I agree that there should be places where you can go and hear a Latin Mass.

I was referring to “from this day forward,” in regards to trying to evangelize people from outside the Church and get them inside the Church. I would like it if more non-Catholics could be persuaded to come sometime and experience a Catholic Mass. Then they could decide, Is this for me, is this not for me…?

The more the Mass is incomprehensible to newcomers, the fewer newcomers we are going to have. (That’s a pretty blanket statement, and I could, of course, be wrong, but I don’t think so.) My thrust here is how to at least give it our best effort to get some new Catholics into the fold.
 
I think our Good Lord would be upset that we argue so much about Latin vs the vernacular. In His eyes, celebrating the mass is what is important, not arguing who’s language is better. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and as we heard on Sunday we are to Love the Lord, your God, with all your hearts, with all your soul, and with all your mind; and we are to love our neighbor as yourself… not argue about languages.
 
Shasta-Rose said:
We do want more people to join the Catholic Church, don’t we?
Click to expand...
You mean like they did in the glorious days of missionary effort in the far eaat, Africa and the Americas, when all they had was the Latin Mass?
 
No, I mean offer both. But offer a Mass where newbies can come and hear something they can understand. I am not insisting that there is no place for the traditional Latin Mass. I am saying that I, and probably many others, would prefer to hear something where they can understand all the words. There is room in the world for more than one way…right?
 
Shasta-Rose said:
There is room in the world for more than one way…right?
Click to expand...
There is always room for more than one way. But some ways are more effective than others. The Latin Mass is associated with the Church’s greatest expansion in history. The Ordinary Form is associated with its greatest contraction.

The reason, I think, is that understanding the words is less important than understanding the action.
 
Maximian said:
The Ordinary Form is associated with its greatest contraction.
Click to expand...
Only in the West, where mainstream Churches in general have contracted. It has nothing to do with the form of the Mass; just ask the Anglicans. In fact the contraction started well before Vatican II. The graphic on this page shows a sharp decline starting in 1955.


Interestingly, the decline has levelled off starting in the mid-90s… largely under the OF (that’s well before Summorum Pontificum which liberalized the EF).

In Africa, where the OF is the norm as elsewhere, including with African cultural variations such as (gasp!) liturgical dance… which I have experienced at a Congress in Rome and was very beautiful, uplifting and reverent… the Church is thriving. Same in some parts of Asia. The OF does not seem to be an obstacle to their thriving. Quite the contrary, from what I’ve seen and heard of African liturgy and music, it has unleashed the full power of the Church to reach out to non-Western cultures.
 
Thanks for posting those informative graphs. They do make one stop and think.
 
JayCL said:
I’m a relatively new Catholic (3 years or so) and it’s always troubled me a little bit that certain people act as though Latin is the only language Mass should ever be delivered-in, as though it’s been in Latin since the time of Jesus. I mean, clearly it was in the vernacular (Greek, etc) for the first few hundred years. I don’t object to Latin Mass, but when people act as though it’s quasi-heretical to give the mass in anything but Latin seems misinformed at best.
Click to expand...
There are two distinct arguments of Latin vs. Vernacular “liturgical wars.” I’m going to focus on the 2nd.
  1. The first is the Tridentine Mass compared with the Mass of Paul VI. Most people who prefer Latin, simply prefer the prayers & rubics of this Mass. Others have discussed this here.
  2. For people who just like Latin over the Vernacular (who are the minority, because few people are calling for the Mass of Paul VI in Latin) it has to do with concerns regarding translation. When these people (including some theologians) say “Latin is better,” you have to understand their theological & logical reasoning. The reasons these people prefer Latin for the Roman Rite vs. English (for example) are:
  • The Roman Rite (even the current edition of the Missal) was written in Latin.
  • There has never been a Mass written in English, Spanish, French, Italian, etc. The vernacular Roman Rite Masses are translations.
  • The other ancient Divine Liturgies in Greek, Coptic, etc were written in those languages, just as the Roman Rite was written in Latin. They are not praying an entirely translated liturgy. Yes, some prayers, like the Our Father and Creed have been translated into Latin, but the point is that most of prayers were written in Latin for the Roman Rite.
  • In other words, for some “Latin purests,” (esp the ones who want the Ordinary Form in Latin) it’s about praying the liturgy in the original language the Rite was written in, not praying a complete translation. Their concern is that translations do always perfectly convey exact meaning, etc.
  • They also like the idea of being able to travel anywhere in the world and walk into a Roman Rite Mass be able to completely follow the canon of the Mass with their missal.
I pray I’m making sense.

God bless
 
Last edited:
And the vernacular Mass is associated with what, exactly? Roe v Wade? I mean, Roe V Wade took place during the time of the OF so. . . .

I personally think there is room for both, for now, and considering the tiny numbers of the EF, it does strike me as strange that there is such a howl from many (not all) of the OF about how allowing the EF is silly, that it takes away from people ‘understanding the Mass’, etc. Etc.

Let’s do a comparison. There is the giant Coca-Cola. . .and there is a much lesser known brand, Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray tonic. Now most people love stuff from Coke (or Pepsi, meh), but Dr. Brown’s is only readily available in a few states.

How much do you suppose the average Coke or Pepsi drinker worries about people consuming Cel-Ray? Do they froth at the mouth (aside from the coke fizz) at the idea that there are groups of people around them who prefer a nicer old (established 1869) old-fashioned soda? Do they say that having that musty old bottle around will confuse their fellow Coke drinkers?

If a Cel-Ray drinker offers to let them having a taste, they might try it or say, “eh, not for me thanks” but they don’t usually accuse the Cel-Ray drinkers of secretly trying to sabotage Coke and its plants in order to turn the world into a Cel-Ray only place. Mind you, I’m sure some Cel-Ray drinkers would like to have it that way, but there are too many Coke drinkers in the world.

So why is there so much animus directed at the EF (we who are the “Cel-Ray” drinkers of the liturgy world) even if we might like to state how much better our soda (our liturgy) is, when we’re lucky if in our lifetime we’ll find a bottle or two, and if incredibly lucky, a drugstore with a decent supply (although at any time the bishop, I mean the distributor, will pull it), when the Coke people can literally have their coke anytime, anywhere, whatever flavour they choose?
 
Julius_Caesar said:
40.png
Maximian:
The Latin Mass is associated with the Church’s greatest expansion in history
Click to expand...
And the Reformation period.

Don’t tell half the truth.
Click to expand...
Latin was being used for all Rites in the Latin (Western) Church for at least 1000 years before the Reformation.
 
Last edited:
JayCL said:
Some people also have the opinion that the Devil hates Latin and it’s somehow a specially holy language. That seems a little far-fetched to me.
Click to expand...
The reason the “devil hates Latin” is because the people who are learning Latin in order to pray are doing that for very pious reasons.

In other words, when lay people learn to pray in Latin, they are going above and beyond in the name of Christ & His Church. That’s why he hates Latin.

It’s the same reason he hates the Rosary and all Catholic devotions.

I pray I’m making sense.
 
Last edited:
Maximian said:
40.png
Tis_Bearself:
Jesus himself probably didn’t go around speaking Latin, and with the possible exception of Matthew who would have interacted with the Romans for his work, the Apostles didn’t either.
Click to expand...
Are you sure? Pilate caused the Titulus placed on Jesus’ cross to be written in Latin as well as Hebrew and Greek. These signs were placed as a warning to His followers. The implication is that some of those followers spoke Latin but not Hebrew or Greek. One such may have been the centurion whose servant Jesus healed, and with whom He conversed.
Click to expand...
This is a good question.

However, Greek was the lingua franca in the Eastern Part of the Empire during the time of Jesus. Latin didn’t become the lingua franca until after Jesus’s life time.

So the question really is, which language(s) did Pilate speak? Personally, I doubt he would have spoken to Jesus in Hebrew or Aramaic (even if Pilate knew how to). It was most likely Greek or Latin.
 
Last edited:
phil19034 said:
Latin was being used for all Rites in the Latin (Western) Church for at least 1000 years
Click to expand...
During the time the Borgias controlled the Papacy, the Theophylacti era…yeah. Latin Mass has had it’s share of bad times in the Church.
 
Julius_Caesar said:
40.png
phil19034:
Latin was being used for all Rites in the Latin (Western) Church for at least 1000 years
Click to expand...
During the time the Borgias controlled the Papacy, the Theophylacti era…yeah. Latin Mass has had it’s share of bad times in the Church.
Click to expand...
Honestly… this is a pretty ludicrous comment. The Latin Mass has NOTHING to do with the corruptness of Pope Alexander VI (the Borgia pope).

The Latin Church had been praying the Mass in Latin for approx 1000 years before him.
 
This is a very fascinating film. It doesn’t deal directly with when Latin started being the language accepted in the early church but is worth having and watching. Thank you. There are many excellent answers. To me Latin started to be standard in the church around 180 to 200 AD.
 
phil19034 said:
Honestly… this is a pretty ludicrous comment. The Latin Mass has NOTHING to do with the corruptness of Pope Alexander VI (the Borgia pope).
Click to expand...
I think the point he was trying to make is that it is equally ludicrous to assign to the OF blame for the decline of the Western Church, when the Church thrives in places where the OF is pretty much standard (Africa, Asia), and when the decline started well before the OF was promulgated (15 years prior in fact).

I guess irony doesn’t transmit very well over the Internet…
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top