Mass in a foreign language

[Rosebud77]

To be honest, I have never noticed that nor really thought much about it.

Yes, it can be challenging when such a situation catches one by surprise, as in the Portuguese Mass scenario I described earlier. At that point, we do the best we can. The Lord understands and is happy to see us!

Driving past a church where the door is open is alien to me … Unless I am late for something else, the brakes go on,

Thing is there are so many churches in Ireland and on a Sunday…

 

[Rosebud77]

If you want to play around with Irish, Duolingo app has an Irish course

After studying it for 13 years you’d think everyone should be bilingual, but they don’t teach it very well In one sense, the Gaelteacht is bad for us English-speaking natives… the Irish educational system sort of assumes a level of fluency that we really don’t have outside of the Gaelteacht, at least once you get to the leaving cert.

I know.Unless you speak and use a language daily. I am however still fluent in French and when there have been French folk on holiday at my stall, have switched into it automatically. the delight on their faces after trying to understand irish accents…

Some of the islands etc do very well from Irish Schools in summer…But even so a language needs daily use .

 

[Phemie]

I know.Unless you speak and use a language daily. **I am however still fluent in French and when there have been French folk on holiday at my stall, have switched into it automatically. the delight on their faces after trying to understand irish accents… **

Some of the islands etc do very well from Irish Schools in summer…But even so a language needs daily use .

Hey, I’m francophone and had great trouble understanding the accent in Marseilles when I spent time there. The Irish accent would be a breeze because I hear it so often when speaking to people of Newfoundland, who are sometimes mistakenly believed to be from Ireland.

The Irish used to cross the Atlantic to fish and many eventually settled here back in the 18th century. The isolation of the fishing communities meant that each kept the accent of the folks who settled it and those accents persist to this day. One of the gals who was in our drama club was from Ireland and one day on the bus in Newfoundland found herself sitting by a guy she presumed to be from back home. He was a Newfoundlander through and through and he asked her which little fishing village she was from because he figured she was from his area of Newfoundland. That simply amazed her.

 

[Fuerza]

If you know latin you should have been completely comfortable with Spanish.

Knowledge of Latin provides one with no more understanding of Spanish than knowledge of Old Anglo-Saxon provides one with knowledge of English. Despite ultimately being derived from Latin, they are not the same.

 

[Fuerza]

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.

Your difficulty likely stemmed from the fact that Norman French, while typically thought of as a French dialect, is technically a separate Romance language within the Gallo-Romance family . It is not derived from French, but directly from Latin (albeit from the same dialect of Latin as French). It’s classification as a dialect of French is completely political, not linguistic.

 

[JanetF]

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.

Have never traveled overseas, but could you use your Ipad/Iphone to bring up EWTN’s app which has the daily readings and follow along in English?

 

[Rosebud77]

Have never traveled overseas, but could you use your Ipad/Iphone to bring up EWTN’s app which has the daily readings and follow along in English?

Neat idea but actually I do not have a ipad or phone… Low tech life here.

 

[Rosebud77]

Hey, I’m francophone and had great trouble understanding the accent in Marseilles when I spent time there. The Irish accent would be a breeze because I hear it so often when speaking to people of Newfoundland, who are sometimes mistakenly believed to be from Ireland.

The Irish used to cross the Atlantic to fish and many eventually settled here back in the 18th century. The isolation of the fishing communities meant that each kept the accent of the folks who settled it and those accents persist to this day. One of the gals who was in our drama club was from Ireland and one day on the bus in Newfoundland found herself sitting by a guy she presumed to be from back home. He was a Newfoundlander through and through and he asked her which little fishing village she was from because he figured she was from his area of Newfoundland. That simply amazed her.

Yes my family over there tell me that Newfoundland is another Ireland. But accent is one thing and a totally different and strange sounding language is another altogether.

 

[Rosebud77]

Knowledge of Latin provides one with no more understanding of Spanish than knowledge of Old Anglo-Saxon provides one with knowledge of English. Despite ultimately being derived from Latin, they are not the same.

Now old Anglo Saxon I can cope with; even know the entire Lord’s Prayer in that…

 

[MorEphrem]

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.

It’s a holdover from the primitive Roman liturgy (which was in Greek). There’s also the trisagion on Good Friday in Greek. It’s the same thing in Syriac liturgy - in fact we retain the Κύριε pre-vowel shift.

I just finished the book Liturgical Latin by Mohrmann - it’s short but does a good job at expressing the necessity of using a sacral language liturgically, even if not exclusively. In my experience, the opponents of employing sacral language have either never experienced it or have some strange ideological persuasion which compels them against 20 centuries of tradition.

 

[AXO]

Knowledge of Latin provides one with no more understanding of Spanish than knowledge of Old Anglo-Saxon provides one with knowledge of English. Despite ultimately being derived from Latin, they are not the same.

It’s not entirely false, but consider that English is less faithful to Anglo-Saxon than Spanish to Latin. English has a good amount of words imported from Latin. Frequently attending the Mass prior to the reform and reading its texts should give a certain level of Spanish, as well as of French or Portuguese, especially in grammar; obviously not reaching a perfect fluency as the previous user said.

 

[ProVobis]

I just finished the book Liturgical Latin by Mohrmann - it’s short but does a good job at expressing the necessity of using a sacral language liturgically, even if not exclusively. In my experience, the opponents of employing sacral language have either never experienced it or have some strange ideological persuasion which compels them against 20 centuries of tradition.

Sounds good but quite a pricey book.

amazon.com/Liturgical-Latin-Origins-Character-Lectures/dp/B000RLJGV6

I wonder if there is a copy in any library around me.

 

[babochka]

Sounds good but quite a pricey book.

amazon.com/Liturgical-Latin-Origins-Character-Lectures/dp/B000RLJGV6

I wonder if there is a copy in any library around me.

It is available in PDF here: churchlatin.com/library/books/samplepages/GBS03.pdf

 

[MorEphrem]

It is available in PDF here: churchlatin.com/library/books/samplepages/GBS03.pdf

Unfortunately that’s only the preface and page 1.

 

[Isca]

If you spend a lot of time in another country and you don’t speak much of the language, Mass is always a different experience from your “home” parish.

Yesterday, we arrived back in our village in Italy, we’ll be here for a couple of months. I went to the main church about 10 minutes early, but found the doors were locked and there was a hand-written notice saying the Mass was in another church in the village (no idea why, the second church has never been open in all the years we’ve been coming here).

I raced down the hill and got there about half a minute before the priest began. He had one altar server (not wearing a surplice, but that is not unusual).

The doors were left wide open, there was a street market going on right outside. We don’t sing hymns, but there’s a small group of ladies who usually sing some religious songs. Some people sit through the service, some stand, not many kneel.

The priest’s homily lasted for well over half an hour (this is normal for him, I had no idea what he was saying unfortunately). There was no offertory/collection, but I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t put anything in the box in any case!

When it was time to receive, everyone just got up and went in a kind of rush to the priest - not really a queue. This is the usual procedure. We only receive in one kind here in Italy.

After the Benediction, people leave immediately - the priest started disrobing at the side of the altar as I assume there’s no sacristy in that church. There is no procession and the priest doesn’t go to the door to shake hands with the parishioners.

This is Mass in our village - it’s very different from Mass in England, but that doesn’t really matter. The Mass is the Mass, full-stop.

 

[Rosebud77]

If you spend a lot of time in another country and you don’t speak much of the language, Mass is always a different experience from your “home” parish.

Yesterday, we arrived back in our village in Italy, we’ll be here for a couple of months. I went to the main church about 10 minutes early, but found the doors were locked and there was a hand-written notice saying the Mass was in another church in the village (no idea why, the second church has never been open in all the years we’ve been coming here).

I raced down the hill and got there about half a minute before the priest began. He had one altar server (not wearing a surplice, but that is not unusual).

The doors were left wide open, there was a street market going on right outside. We don’t sing hymns, but there’s a small group of ladies who usually sing some religious songs. Some people sit through the service, some stand, not many kneel.

The priest’s homily lasted for well over half an hour (this is normal for him, I had no idea what he was saying unfortunately). There was no offertory/collection, but I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t put anything in the box in any case!

When it was time to receive, everyone just got up and went in a kind of rush to the priest - not really a queue. This is the usual procedure. We only receive in one kind here in Italy.

After the Benediction, people leave immediately - the priest started disrobing at the side of the altar as I assume there’s no sacristy in that church. There is no procession and the priest doesn’t go to the door to shake hands with the parishioners.

This is Mass in our village - it’s very different from Mass in England, but that doesn’t really matter. The Mass is the Mass, full-stop.

Sounds delightful! Thank you! I may well end up in a strict Gaeltacht area before too long,

 

[Isca]

Sounds delightful! Thank you! I may well end up in a strict Gaeltacht area before too long,

The Church, the State and the people all seem to mould together here - when there’s a procession on a saint’s day, the local mayor will be up front with his big fancy sash and the carabinieri will be walking beside him and the priest, all in their uniforms. The villagers walk along behind with a little brass band. It’s great to see.

I love the Italians here. They are fantastic people - friendly, easy-going, rather chaotic in large numbers , helpful. We have a rough driveway down to the main road at our old farmhouse, it’s set back behind all the modern houses the Italians favour. When we were here in the winter and the heavy snow came overnight, I was trying to dig a path out so I could walk to the road and thus to the shop. My husband can’t do it, he’s disabled, and I’m not very strong (and getting older). I didn’t even have a proper shovel.

I gave up eventually and went inside, feeling miserable, cold and trapped. When I went out with the dogs late at night, the whole driveway had been cleared. One of the young men from next door had seen me struggling and had just hopped over the fence and done the lot. We don’t even know him, we’re foreigners and we don’t speak the language. It wouldn’t happen in England. God bless Italy.

 

[Rosebud77]

The Church, the State and the people all seem to mould together here - when there’s a procession on a saint’s day, the local mayor will be up front with his big fancy sash and the carabinieri will be walking beside him and the priest, all in their uniforms. The villagers walk along behind with a little brass band. It’s great to see.

I love the Italians here. They are fantastic people - friendly, easy-going, rather chaotic in large numbers , helpful. We have a rough driveway down to the main road at our old farmhouse, it’s set back behind all the modern houses the Italians favour. When we were here in the winter and the heavy snow came overnight, I was trying to dig a path out so I could walk to the road and thus to the shop. My husband can’t do it, he’s disabled, and I’m not very strong (and getting older). I didn’t even have a proper shovel.

I gave up eventually and went inside, feeling miserable, cold and trapped. When I went out with the dogs late at night, the whole driveway had been cleared. One of the young men from next door had seen me struggling and had just hopped over the fence and done the lot. We don’t even know him, we’re foreigners and we don’t speak the language. It wouldn’t happen in England. God bless Italy.

So glad for you and no it would not happen here in Ireland either sadly. Any room there for me!!! Only half joking. I am having to relocate soon and your farmhouse sounds… perfect… . When the tree came down that winter and knocked my communications out and cut me off, it was 3 days before help came. My family overseas arranged that. After that the landlord got a bit better re checking the lane after gales… God bless that young man,

Language means nothing where there is that kind of caring. Maybe I will find that…Will happily try at Irish if so…Blessings and thanks…

 

[Isca]

So glad for you and no it would not happen here in Ireland either sadly. Any room there for me!!! Only half joking. I am having to relocate soon and your farmhouse sounds… perfect… . When the tree came down that winter and knocked my communications out and cut me off, it was 3 days before help came. My family overseas arranged that. After that the landlord got a bit better re checking the lane after gales… God bless that young man,

Language means nothing where there is that kind of caring. Maybe I will find that…Will happily try at Irish if so…Blessings and thanks…

Seriously, you can get an old house here for a song. Ours has 3 bedrooms and some outbuildings, and a garden. It leaks in one or two places when the rain’s heavy and I think you could spend an awful lot of money to make things better if you could afford it, but it’s quite habitable.

We did “inherit” everything in the house when we bought it, the family of the old lady who’d lived and died here hadn’t bothered clearing a thing in the 6 years it was empty. That was sad, all her little treasures everywhere. However, you’ll get a substantial house here (Marche region) for the price of a one-bed flat in Ireland. We also have a wonderful view of the mountains.

I hope you find what you’re looking for. Blessings to you, too.

 

[Rosebud77]

Seriously, you can get an old house here for a song. Ours has 3 bedrooms and some outbuildings, and a garden. It leaks in one or two places when the rain’s heavy and I think you could spend an awful lot of money to make things better if you could afford it, but it’s quite habitable.

We did “inherit” everything in the house when we bought it, the family of the old lady who’d lived and died here hadn’t bothered clearing a thing in the 6 years it was empty. That was sad, all her little treasures everywhere. However, you’ll get a substantial house here (Marche region) for the price of a one-bed flat in Ireland. We also have a wonderful view of the mountains.

I hope you find what you’re looking for. Blessings to you, too.

Ah I have to rent. All sounds delightfully ME over there though… I am seeking what you have and still have a few weeks to find it… I did look at France and Italy years ago but Ireland at present is a good place for me to be money wise. I am going into deeper seclusion next year so need the right house. God is in charge and I am sure it will sort with help from me and my computer… and the prayers of many…