Praying in Latin

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Latin can be incredibly salty! The c-word for just one comes straight from the Latin. Try reading Colleen McCullogh’s series of books on Rome - lots of salty Latin to be found in there.

And that’s why, while loving Latin, I do not mind vernacular either. Latin, while its meanings are fixed, which is an advantage, does not change its speakers from flawed human beings into anything other than flawed human beings. It is (or historically has been) no less used for the mundane things of life (such as science and medicine and law) and even the profane things of life than the sacred.

St Augustine spoke Latin just the same as both sinner and saint. Likewise St Paul. Henry VIII, Martin Luther and King James of KJV fame were all well versed in the language. From memory Henry retained the use of Latin in worship well after his split with Rome. Latin did not make a blind bit of difference to the sanctity or otherwise of these people.
 
Marty Haugen’s Gather Us In
👍 (figured I’d give myself one of those since there may not be one forthcoming)
 
clem456 said:
Marty Haugen’s Gather Us In
👍 (figured I’d give myself one of those since there may not be one forthcoming)
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On the Latin side both Schubert’s Ave Maria and Lloyd-Webber’s Pie Jesu - overplayed overblown sappy bits of pap for the multitudes of ever any music was. And the Latin doesn’t redeem them in any way.
 
O Bone Jesu is a great Latin piece we sing for Good Friday. A very solemn emotive piece.

youtube.com/watch?v=SqkzQgcexQ4
just beautiful

O Bone Jesu - G.P.da Palestrina (1525-1594)

“O bone Jesu, miserere nobis,
quia tu creasti nos,
tu redemisti nos sanguine
tuo pretiosissimo”

“O good Jesus, have mercy upon us,
for thou hast created us,
thou hast redeemed us
by thy most precious blood”.
 
LilyM said:
…Why you feel the need to denigrate the language of Shakespeare, Milton, Coleridge, Whitman and Dickinson so.

English can sing trippingly o’er the tongue as beautifully as any other language. And can elevate one to the spiritual plane too. We Australians have a term ‘cultural cringe’, which describes extremely well the sense I’m getting from some of you that we somehow ought to be ashamed of our native language and culture, that it is somehow less than noble and worthy - in spite of its rich and glorious history. Why?

I propose my own equally interesting counterstudy on ‘anything but English - the peculiar loathing of their own language among the English-speaking Roman Catholic world.’
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I’ll have to agree with you at least in part. The study of Shakespeare and English literature has been declining rapidly but not only among the Roman Catholics. In fact, English grammar has gone beyond reproachment altogether. People are offended when you even try to correct their spelling.

But I don’t blame them anymore, not when they’re forced to speak in a barbaric language which has so many silent letters and homophones, and not to mention the many differences between British, Canadian, and American English. (Australian English too I presume?) A billion or gallon in one place does not mean the same billion and gallon in another place. And many other terms and expressions which can confuse a traveller or a mover. The subjunctive, an integral part of prayer, has become almost completely transparent.

Maybe more reason to return to a purer, more organized, more inflexive, and more stable language in our Sunday worship so it doesn’t matter whether one is in France or the United States or Australia?
 
And it’s really reaching, to find one or two examples of music, to negate a whole, ancient genre.
 
LilyM said:
Latin can be incredibly salty! The c-word for just one comes straight from the Latin. Try reading Colleen McCullogh’s series of books on Rome - lots of salty Latin to be found in there.
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I very much doubt that even Catholics literate in Latin would draw vulgar inferences from it in religious usage. Whereas the danger with English is that *any *phrase can, through constant use in everyday life, attract vulgar connotations.

Roman Catholicism → Latin Language. Quiet peculiar it was dropped. Given that the New Springtime that was promised with all the 60’s changes hasn’t arrived yet, I think it’s high time the Old School was given a chance.
 
clem456 said:
If you really want to get out of the everyday and into the spiritual world, go visit the dying at a nursing home. They couldn’t care less if you pray in Latin. And you would be doing something very special, as you say.
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I visited my dad every day of the last three months of his life, and he preferred my praying in Latin over English. (His native tongue was Polish.)
 
clem456 said:
If you really want to get out of the everyday and into the spiritual world, go visit the dying at a nursing home. They couldn’t care less if you pray in Latin. And you would be doing something very special, as you say.
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Social justice argument. Why worry about the spiritual realm when you have real life people here? Why even pray at all when you could be visiting the dying in a nursing home? You could eliminate all the poverty in the entire world and everyone still could go to hell. Prayer is absolutely necessary for salvation. That kind of social justice thinking concludes that cloistered nuns do no good just praying cooped up all day when they could be out helping feed the poor. This is a spiritual fallacy of placing the needs of the body above the needs of the soul. Remember the story about Mary and Martha.

Here is a corresponding story from the life of Mother Teresa. One of her sisters went to her saying that they had too many sick people to tend to and requested that the required one hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament be reduced to being optional. After considering the matter, Blessed Mother Teresa said she would help them, and instead of making it optional, she then required two hours in prayer rather than just one. She explained that the more someone worked the more they needed to rely on and trust in God in prayer.

“Jesus does not demand great deeds. All he wants is surrender and gratitude” (St Therese of Lisieux).
 
ConstantineTG said:
You misrepresented your opposition. The devil doesn’t care about Latin.
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What you said doesn’t even make any sense. Seriously. I presented an argument that cited the most credible first hand testimony concerning demons’ particular hatred towards the Latin language as well as logical reasons based on papal teachings to support my claim. I never even presented an opposing argument to this one, but obviously the opposition would simply state as you did that “the devil doesn’t care about Latin.”

Please point out the specific straw man that you claimed I built. Constantine, if you want to have an honest debate here then you need to either present evidence to support your claim or then be man enough (assuming you are a man) to admit that you misspoke or made a mistake. I mean no disrespect when I say this but I honestly feel as if I’m being met with thoughtless push backs rather than any well reasoned response. I clearly demonstrated you were presenting a straw man argument and your come back rather than defending your specific claim was to essentially say “no you are,” and then of course providing no support to the false assertion.

🤷
 
una_fides said:
What you said doesn’t even make any sense. Seriously. I presented an argument that cited the most credible first hand testimony concerning demons’ particular hatred towards the Latin language as well as logical reasons based on papal teachings to support my claim. I never even presented an opposing argument to this one, but obviously the opposition would simply state as you did that “the devil doesn’t care about Latin.”

Please point out the specific straw man that you claimed I built. Constantine, if you want to have an honest debate here then you need to either present evidence to support your claim or then be man enough (assuming you are a man) to admit that you misspoke or made a mistake. I mean no disrespect when I say this but I honestly feel as if I’m being met with thoughtless push backs rather than any well reasoned response. I clearly demonstrated you were presenting a straw man argument and your come back rather than defending your specific claim was to essentially say “no you are,” and then of course providing no support to the false assertion.

🤷
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No, what I said is true. St. John Chrysostom wrote 4 prayers for exorcism. Are you telling me they are useless because he is Greek and wrote in Greek?
 
RogerDeCourcy said:
Hmmm, regularly featured at local English masses are they?
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I’ve heard the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah much more often at Mass than I’ve heard Gregorian Chant there (which is a total of zero times). And before you start whining again, I absolutely love Gregorian chant - and own several CDs of it, unlike the Messiah, which I don’t, preferring to hear it live.

And I’m not citing them as isolated instances. There is a reasonably sizeable genre of sacred music of the baroque era written in vernacular languages - oratorios and such - of which they are one two examples. A lot of it quite stunning.
 
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