Mass in a foreign language

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Rosebud77

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I remember once on a school trip to France as a teenager passing a Catholic Church when Mass was in progress, hearing the lLatin and someone telling me that Mass was the same the world round and you could understand it wherever you were …

Many areas here are Gaeltacht, some stricter than others, Irish children have to learn Irish Gaelic., I have lived in such areas …but not a very strict remote one. Mass was in English and only a minority spoke Gaelic.

A couple of summers ago I was out on a Sunday and attended Mass at a remote village… Did not realise until the Mass started that it was Gaelic. I know two words; the first 2 words of the Lord’s Prayer… got no further…

The hardest part was the homily which went on for over half an hour…

I stayed after to talk to some of the families, The church had been well filled and many young children all well behaved and quiet all through the Mass.
The little ones as well as the adults, are bilingual. It was awesome. And beautiful,

From interest I checked mass times etc and masses in English are very very rare. The Parish web site is in Gaelic…
Wondering how folk here cope and have coped and how much the loss of Latin is regretted.
 
Rosebud77 said:
IWondering how folk here cope and have coped and how much the loss of Latin is regretted.
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I used to travel internationally a LOT several years ago. This was the mid 90’s, when email was common, but parish websites, well not so much.

I used to email the local chancellery of where I was going to be and find a (N.O.) Mass in Latin. It was not hard to do in a major city. There was little opportunity to learn the Mass responses when I was in Korea one week, and Brazil the next. and not knowing where I would be the week after that.

That, as you can imagine, helped out a LOT for my verbal participation at Mass. But you are correct, I generally did not get much out of the homilies 😛

If not, I simply said the English responses at the appropriate times.

Now, I do regular mission trips to Tanzania. Most of the Masses that I go to there are in Swahili. At least then, I know when I will be going there, I have put together a Mass guide that I print off before I go. I has the Mass responses in Swahili on one column, and English on the other.
 
Joe has always attended a Mass in Gaelic.
No problem fro those who live there.
 
The only time I had to hear Mass in a foreign language was when it was a holy day of obligation and we had to go to a late evening Mass at a different parish. It was the only Mass left in our diocese that we could make it to. It was in Spanish so I was completely lost. I could pick up some of the words from what I learned at school and home, but not very much. It was a little awkward since the priest made jokes and everyone in the church laughed except me. It’d be nice if all Masses were in Latin.
 
I’d be in big trouble if I was at a Gaelic Mass! In my training as a vocalist, I learned to pronounce all the romance languages properly, plus Hebrew, Russian, and German. I wouldn’t often know what I was saying, but I could pronounce those languages correctly. Gaelic is another animal entirely. None of the letters are pronounced the way they are in other languages and it includes so many letter combinations that make no sense to me. I have a sign with my name spelled out in Gaelic somewhere in the basement. It’s a source of great confusion for me.
 
Well, I’ve attended Mass in a little town in the Netherlands and at San Marco in Venice and, while I speak neither Dutch nor Italian, I still could follow Mass. Granted the homilies were incomprehensible but Mass itself was the same as anywhere else I’d attended. The same went for Latin when I was a child.
 
Confiteor_Deo said:
The only time I had to hear Mass in a foreign language was when it was a holy day of obligation and we had to go to a late evening Mass at a different parish. It was the only Mass left in our diocese that we could make it to. It was in Spanish so I was completely lost. I could pick up some of the words from what I learned at school and home, but not very much. It was a little awkward since the priest made jokes and everyone in the church laughed except me. It’d be nice if all Masses were in Latin.
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If you know latin you should have been completely comfortable with Spanish.
 
Rosebud77 said:
I remember once on a school trip to France as a teenager passing a Catholic Church when Mass was in progress, hearing the lLatin and someone telling me that Mass was the same the world round and you could understand it wherever you were …

Many areas here are Gaeltacht, some stricter than others, Irish children have to learn Irish Gaelic., I have lived in such areas …but not a very strict remote one. Mass was in English and only a minority spoke Gaelic.

A couple of summers ago I was out on a Sunday and attended Mass at a remote village… Did not realise until the Mass started that it was Gaelic. I know two words; the first 2 words of the Lord’s Prayer… got no further…

The hardest part was the homily which went on for over half an hour…

I stayed after to talk to some of the families, The church had been well filled and many young children all well behaved and quiet all through the Mass.
The little ones as well as the adults, are bilingual. It was awesome. And beautiful,

From interest I checked mass times etc and masses in English are very very rare. The Parish web site is in Gaelic…
Wondering how folk here cope and have coped and how much the loss of Latin is regretted.
Click to expand...
Was in Hanoi, Vietnam, a few months back this year. Attended mass at a beautiful colonial cathedral. Those who have been there would probably know it. However the mass was in Vietnamese, a totally foriegn language. I admit it quite difficult to follow the mass, you really have to observe the priest at what he was doing to know at which part of the mass we were. The homily, the priest might as well spoke in tongue.

It was a beautiful experience. I always marvel at the universality of the mass. It was truly a great privilege to the able to attend mass in different parts of the world where the only thing was the mass that we have in common. Receiving the Holy Communion, one can truly appreciate that it bring all the different tribes and tongues together in celebrating the feast of the Lord at one table.
 
Brendan said:
I used to travel internationally a LOT several years ago. This was the mid 90’s, when email was common, but parish websites, well not so much.

I used to email the local chancellery of where I was going to be and find a (N.O.) Mass in Latin. It was not hard to do in a major city. There was little opportunity to learn the Mass responses when I was in Korea one week, and Brazil the next. and not knowing where I would be the week after that.

That, as you can imagine, helped out a LOT for my verbal participation at Mass. But you are correct, I generally did not get much out of the homilies 😛

If not, I simply said the English responses at the appropriate times.

Now, I do regular mission trips to Tanzania. Most of the Masses that I go to there are in Swahili. At least then, I know when I will be going there, I have put together a Mass guide that I print off before I go. I has the Mass responses in Swahili on one column, and English on the other.
Click to expand...
I used to travel internationally a lot in the same period as you. In Seoul, as I recall there is an International (Franciscan?) community that offers Mass every Sunday in most major Western languages. French was on Saturday evening, and English on Sunday morning. Even though I prefer French for Mass as it’s my mother tongue (still can’t remember the Our Father in English to save my life, French and Latin are OK though), I’d go to the English Mass as Saturday was usually busy having dinner with colleagues, etc. The priest had a pretty thick accent though, and I do wish there were more Latin options.
 
pianistclare said:
If you know latin you should have been completely comfortable with Spanish.
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I wish I knew Latin. This was several years ago before I was ever exposed to any Latin at all so the little knowledge I have of it now wasn’t there when I went to the Spanish Mass.
 
pianistclare said:
If you know latin you should have been completely comfortable with Spanish.
Click to expand...
Not sure it would be “completely”. If a person hears the Mass in Latin often enough, his mind understands it, and the words are intelligible even if one couldn’t create even a single sentence in Latin. But it doesn’t take much of a shift to throw it off.

I remember, years ago when I was still fairly conversant in French, I went to the island of St. Barthlemy. There wasn’t a single English speaker there that I met. The tourists were all from France. I could converse with the locals, but not with the French tourists. I’m not sure why that was. I did learn that the locals had all come from Normandy about 300 years ago, and perhaps there was some Norman way of saying things that was akin to English usage, England being right across the channel from Normandy and all. Interestingly, the locals lacked some modern French ways of saying some things. I remember asking one local guy his name “Comment vous appelez-vous”. He didn’t know what I was saying until I changed to “Quel est votre nom”, which is much closer to English word usage.

I also remember once listening to two guys from Trinidad talking to each other. I thought they were speaking in Spanish. One of them then addressed me, and so I asked him what language they were speaking. “English”, he said, Trinidad being an English-speaking place. They just pronounce it differently somehow among themselves. As I said, it doesn’t take much difference to make what ought to be intelligible unintelligible.

I don’t remember a whole lot of Latin, but I do remember the Our Father in Latin. I can hear it and know what is being said even without re-translating it to English in my mind. I think people who learn Latin prayers by rote memory do understand it just as it is.
 
One thing I really miss is the “Kyrie”, which isn’t Latin at all, but Greek. I’m not sure why it’s said in Greek at “Latin” Masses. But I think of it as the last link with the Eastern church, a “bow toward the East” so to speak, an acknowledgment of at least a degree of universality.
 
Confiteor_Deo said:
I wish I knew Latin. This was several years ago before I was ever exposed to any Latin at all so the little knowledge I have of it now wasn’t there when I went to the Spanish Mass.
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I don’t know Latin at all, other than a few prayers. But one of my very favorites to say when I’m stressed is this, and I say it and think it in Latin:

“Quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea? Quare me repulisti? Et quare tristis in cedo dum adfligit me inimicus?”

"Where are you, God, my strength? Why do you keep me far away? And why do I go sorrowing while my enemies afflict me?
 
Ridgerunner said:
I don’t know Latin at all, other than a few prayers. But one of my very favorites to say when I’m stressed is this, and I say it and think it in Latin:

“Quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea? Quare me repulisti? Et quare tristis in cedo dum adfligit me inimicus?”

"Where are you, God, my strength? Why do you keep me far away? And why do I go sorrowing while my enemies afflict me?
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That’s wonderful. I’ve always liked that Psalm from the prayers at the foot of the altar.

One that I like saying when I need God to help me is: “Deus, in adjuotorium meum intende; Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina”. “O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.” Then, if He does help me, I’ll say “Deo gratias”.
 
pianistclare said:
If you know latin you should have been completely comfortable with Spanish.
Click to expand...
I am but the Spanish Masses I attend have a different Gloria and slight mofications with other responses too.

I had one kid looking at what page I was on as apparently he was confused too.
 
I prefer to hear the readings and homily in English or another language that I understand, but I sort of enjoy going to Mass in other languages. It was often said about the Latin that you can go anywhere in the world and know the Mass, but the same is still true of the Mass in any language. It is universal and even if I don’t know the language, I know the Mass.
 
Ridgerunner said:
One thing I really miss is the “Kyrie”, which isn’t Latin at all, but Greek. I’m not sure why it’s said in Greek at “Latin” Masses. But I think of it as the last link with the Eastern church, a “bow toward the East” so to speak, an acknowledgment of at least a degree of universality.
Click to expand...
There are other elements of Greek in the liturgy, in particular the improperes on Good Friday, at least when the liturgy is in Latin; the responses are in Greek:

Hagios o theos
Hagios Iscyros
Hagios Athanos eleison hymas
 
Ridgerunner said:
One thing I really miss is the “Kyrie”, which isn’t Latin at all, but Greek. I’m not sure why it’s said in Greek at “Latin” Masses.
Click to expand...
I believe it was inserted into the ancient Latin Mass (along with “Sabaoth”) to keep the three languages (Latin, Greek, and Hebrew), the languages which identified Christ on the cross, together in the Mass. “Amen,” “Alleluia,” “Hosanna,” (albeit in the Anglicized form) were also left untranslated.
 
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