This seems to be turning into a lets go back to the good old Latin mass vs everyone else. I truly don’t understand what is, was, or ever made the Latin mass this “great” that its proponents seems to say it is. Having only experienced the mass post Vatican II I do admit some limited knowledge but I also believe that I have one less bias, that of reminiscing or romanticizing the past.
On the language to be used at mass
What I see here is this people claiming Latin is supposedly better than the lingua franca (sorry had to do that sense we are on the topic of language
) of the region. I have to dismiss this, why? Simply because any language is used to communicate between people and so by its very nature would not be able to truly communicate what happens in the mass (yes Latin included in this). So then if no language is able to communicate it perfectly is one able to communicate it better, I would say yes one is, and no it is not Latin, it is Aramaic and Greek, why, because the former is what Jesus spoke and the latter is the language that he was recorded into. So wanna learn Aramaic and Greek, GREAT good for you, not many people do though. So now we come to the question what language do we use Aramaic and Greek, the two language’s that could communicate what happens best or the lingua franca that could do an admirable job and that people could understand (please note the former is better at communicating and the latter is better for people to UNDERSTAND). So in summary, what language is best for the mass the one people understand or the one that sounds like gibberish? I think it is obvious, or did not the apostles speak at Pentecost in the lingua franca (albeit through the Holy Spirit).
To those who like the old mass
I have a quote for you to show the effects of romanticizing the past. Such things as it was better back than, church attendance was higher, we were more moral, etc. Now I am not disputing those things but it hardly has to do with Latin as the mass language and more to do with the butchered translation into English that was done in Vatican II, the movement of atheism, the horrible catchesis of children, etc. Just because someone can make a really bad steak doesn’t mean that piece of meat couldn’t have been the best steak as well, the cooks were bad, not the steak (the translators were bad, not the goal a new translation).
Oh ya the quote… Who said this
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
Could you say it sounds like today, oh and here is another popular internet meme, it goes like this
[Something was better in the olden days when I was young] now get off my yard!
) ecumenical services are encouraged and are indeed offered more often, and there was a time I was scared that the Protestants would silently “sneek” into our catholic faith and slowly, and turn it all upside down and all of a sudden we would realize that we’re only a shadow of ourselves anymore, like something in between the Catholic and the Protestant faith.