Pentecost and the Importance of Latin

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I wanted to start this thread about Pentecost and the importance of a universal language for the Church. Clearly, the miracle of tongues at Pentecost demonstrates the unity of us who are in Christ.
Likewiwe, it is important for the Church to have a universal language, it would appear. What do you think?
 
Kei said:
I wanted to start this thread about Pentecost and the importance of a universal language for the Church. Clearly, the miracle of tongues at Pentecost demonstrates the unity of us who are in Christ.
Likewiwe, it is important for the Church to have a universal language, it would appear. What do you think?
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Greek was the first common language for the liturgy and was changed in the west to vulgar (not classical) Latin in the third and fourth centuries A.D.
 
…A bit of a non-sequitur but thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut.
 
@Spyridon made a thread related to this very topic yesterday.
 
Kei said:
I wanted to start this thread about Pentecost and the importance of a universal language for the Church. Clearly, the miracle of tongues at Pentecost demonstrates the unity of us who are in Christ.
Likewiwe, it is important for the Church to have a universal language, it would appear. What do you think?
Click to expand...
Vico said:
Greek was the first common language for the liturgy and was changed in the west to vulgar (not classical) Latin in the third and fourth centuries A.D.
Click to expand...
I’m a lazy, monolingual, middle-aged woman – I vote for English to be the universal language, at least until after I’m dead, and then all y’all can do whatever you want.

Seriously, Latin already is the language of the Church. Or do you mean you want the mass to be in Latin?
 
If you mean me, I meant to talk about the importance of the universal language (which is Latin) of the Church. I also understand that that doesn’t extend to some of the eastern Churches (or am I mistaken?).
 
Kei said:
If you mean me, I meant to talk about the importance of the universal language (which is Latin) of the Church. I also understand that that doesn’t extend to some of the eastern Churches (or am I mistaken?).
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Yes, I did mean you – sorry that wasn’t clear.

Do you mean the importance of Latin in the context of Church writings? Or are you saying mass should be in Latin so we have a universal language?

In other words, to turn the question back to you, in what way do you think Latin serves a purpose as a universal language? I don’t understand Latin, so it’s not helping me at all.

And just FYI, I also sang the sequence at mass today, with the music director (we sang it antiphonally), in Latin. And the choir also sang “Veni Creator Spiritus” in Latin at communion, and the Regina Caeli in Latin after the final blessing (our pastor’s request).
 
I think it’s quite a sad thing that all of us educated in Christian lands are not educated in the Church’s language. It should be something understood by all people, as a universal language, to show the unity among us all, Jew and gentile. American and Peruvian. etc.
 
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Kei said:
I think it’s quite a sad thing that all of us educated in Christian lands are not educated in the Church’s language. It should be something understood by all people, as a universal language, to show the unity among us all, Jew and gentile. American and Peruvian. etc.
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Well, it’s an impossible dream, but still a beautiful one. ❤️

I grew up surrounded by relative speaking Spanish with each other, but never to us kids – we had to learn Spanish in school (cultural thing from my dad’s generation). Even with all that exposure, with listening in and trying to understand from my earliest days, with singing it, and watching television in it, and studying it for three years in high school… I still can’t carry on a conversation in Spanish, or understand my students or their parents when they try to tell me something in Spanish. But I have a great Spanish accent. :+1:t4:

There’s no way I’m gonna be able to learn Latin in a way that is meaningful. Best I can do is keep the translations handy when I’m singing in Latin.
 
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It seems I read anothe post here about how the vernacular was what was honored at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit gave the gift of tongues.
 
Yes, I think Latin is important for unity. In a sermon one Sunday, a priest told us about two Muslim women he was talking to on a plane and he asked them why they felt unified with Muslims around the world. They immediately said it was because they pray in the same language. All my Muslim friends learned Arabic at their Islamic schools and pray in Arabic daily. It’d be cool if Catholics learned Latin and prayed in it more.
 
I don’t even know what languages the East or where to learn them. Maybe the East can have its own universal language and that way the West can have Latin since most of the languages from the East are really different from Latin.
 
Uh, no. I’m perfectly happy with the mass in the vernacular. I do not speak Latin. I will NEVER learn to speak Latin.
 
Yet every man understood what was being said, which is not possible in speaking in vernacular normally.
 
If they are religiously Jews, then they are not formal members of the Church.
 
Why such visceral reactions to the language of the Church? I don’t get it, unless it’s just that this subject has been on the forums so much people are tired of it
 
Not only has it been beaten to death, but it gets old seeing thread after thread bashing the OF mass.

Beyond that, the mass was said in the vernacular for the first 500 or so years of the Church’s existence. It’s Latin that’s the innovation.
 
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