Question about the importance of Latin

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Wirraway

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why is Latin so important? my wife is on the verge of becoming RC. I was born into the faith but have no experience with a Latin Mass and can’t provide any answers to her question of “why Latin since it is not the language of either the OT or the NT.” there’s the obvious, that Latin was the then *lingua franca *of the ancient world but in a universal sense, everyone spoke it; whereas today, its use is rather limited.

I’m sure this has been covered here before, so if you can just point to a thread or two.

thanks.
 
Latin is the official language of the Church. There needs to be one single language for all documents and rituals as a “root” so to speak. Latin fits that bill nicely since it is essentially a “dead” language - not because noone speaks it, because it isn’t constantly changing nor does it have geographic variations like English, Spanish, French etc.

So everything official is written first in Latin and then translated to the language of the local Church for teaching and understanding. This includes the text for Mass.

With Mass, there is a tension between making the Mass instantly satisfying for the local participants and keeping a unity with the universal Church which is world-wide. So Latin in the Mass joins everyone saying the Mass into the same celebration regardless of their own language. Over the centuries, we have had Masses that were entirely in Latin to Masses with almost no Latin but all Masses should have a least some Latin (the documents of Vatican II say all the common prayers of the people) to join us with the rest of the Church. That way, no matter where in the world you are, whether you understand the local language or not, you can participate in Mass.
 
Latin unites all Catholics, regardless of their spoken language (though some speak Latin as well).

As a real-world example, I watched a video on YouTube once of a woman singing the Ave Maria. It was in Latin.

The first comment on the video was in English, talking about how beautiful the song was.

The second, Spanish, I didn’t know what it said.

Then the Hail Mary, in German.

A little ways down, Italian.

Then more German.
Irish.
Latin.
Lots of Spanish.

A lot of us couldn’t speak to each other outside that forum, but we all knew the Ave Maria.

There’s also a poster here who had a story about being in Europe during (I think) World War II. In France he was standing outside a Church when the priest came up and asked him something in French, and he didn’t speak French. He responded with “Introíbo ad altáre Dei” The priest grinned, said “Ad Deum qui lætíficat juventútem meam” and took him inside, to show him the interior of the old Church. (Those are the begining prayers at the foot of the altar in the TLM)

Latin unites us in a very real and solid sense.
 
Rawb said:
Latin unites all Catholics, regardless of their spoken language (though some speak Latin as well).

As a real-world example, I watched a video on YouTube once of a woman singing the Ave Maria. It was in Latin.

The first comment on the video was in English, talking about how beautiful the song was.

The second, Spanish, I didn’t know what it said.

Then the Hail Mary, in German.

A little ways down, Italian.

Then more German.
Irish.
Latin.
Lots of Spanish.

A lot of us couldn’t speak to each other outside that forum, but we all knew the Ave Maria.

There’s also a poster here who had a story about being in Europe during (I think) World War II. In France he was standing outside a Church when the priest came up and asked him something in French, and he didn’t speak French. He responded with “Introíbo ad altáre Dei” The priest grinned, said “Ad Deum qui lætíficat juventútem meam” and took him inside, to show him the interior of the old Church. (Those are the begining prayers at the foot of the altar in the TLM)

Latin unites us in a very real and solid sense.
Click to expand...
I’ve heard the Ave Maria sung in Latin during Mass, quite moving.

as I mentioned above, my wife is close to becoming RC. she is the daughter of a baptist preacher, and while she appreciated the beauty of the Ave Maria, the notion of a Latin Mass is, to put it mildly, alien to her (frankly, it is to me as well).
 
as I mentioned above, my wife is close to becoming RC. she is the daughter of a baptist preacher, and while she appreciated the beauty of the Ave Maria, the notion of a Latin Mass is, to put it mildly, alien to her (frankly, it is to me as well).
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It’s just to unite all Roman Rite Catholics under one voice (in a larger sense, all Catholics, as documents from Rome are first issued in Latin).

It used to be that an American could be on vacation in France and hear the exact same Mass he would back home, except for the homiliy and the gospel. As he country hopped through Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and off into China, Japan, Korea, down to Australia and to Hawaii the languages he’d hear on the street would be German, Italian, Spanish, Portugeese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean but, on Sunday, he would hear the exact same Mass, the Body of Christ praying in one voice and one language, moving as one with their genuflections and SotC, at every single parish, in every single country, no matter culture, language, skin color, politics, or any other variable.

That is all Latin is.
 
Rawb said:
It’s just to unite all Roman Rite Catholics under one voice (in a larger sense, all Catholics, as documents from Rome are first issued in Latin).

It used to be that an American could be on vacation in France and hear the exact same Mass he would back home, except for the homiliy and the gospel. As he country hopped through Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and off into China, Japan, Korea, down to Australia and to Hawaii the languages he’d hear on the street would be German, Italian, Spanish, Portugeese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean but, on Sunday, he would hear the exact same Mass, the Body of Christ praying in one voice and one language, moving as one with their genuflections and SotC, at every single parish, in every single country, no matter culture, language, skin color, politics, or any other variable.

That is all Latin is.
Click to expand...
that’s given me a new perspective on things. thank you much.
 
Wirraway said:
why is Latin so important? my wife is on the verge of becoming RC. I was born into the faith but have no experience with a Latin Mass and can’t provide any answers to her question of “why Latin since it is not the language of either the OT or the NT.” there’s the obvious, that Latin was the then *lingua franca *of the ancient world but in a universal sense, everyone spoke it; whereas today, its use is rather limited.

I’m sure this has been covered here before, so if you can just point to a thread or two.

thanks.
Click to expand...
The Latin Mass applies only to the Roman Church and not to all Catholics.
 
Wirraway said:
that’s given me a new perspective on things. thank you much.
Click to expand...
I have personal experience with that myself.

The parish my father grew up in was Irish\Hispanic. The Mass was in Latin, but everyone still worshipped together. The homily was touched on in both languages.

When Vatican II came around, the parish simply said the 'New Mass" it Latin, exactly as it was promulgated. So I learned the N.O. Latin Mass, as that was said whenever we went to Mass with Grandma.

Fast forward a bit.

I used to travel extensively (and globally) for work. Whenever I would be in a Country over a Sunday, I would send an email to the local diocese and enquire where a Latin Mass would be said.

In that way, I could pray along with all my brother\sister Catholics, together, in the same language.

It didn’t matter if I was in Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Holland or even Turkey. I could vocally participate and follow along in one common language.

So even if we don’t travel ourselves, it is good Christian charity to learn the Latin Mass and encourage it’s use; because it is a great way to welcome the foreign traveller. I know, because I was once that traveller 😉
 
Latin unites all Catholics, regardless of their spoken language (though some speak Latin as well).

Latin unites all ROMAN Catholic. The Eastern Catholics do not use Latin.
 
It also has a very utilitarian purpose for theology, liturgy and canon law. It’s a dead language. As such there is little to no slang or modification over time. In my life time words like queer, gay, sick, fat (or phat), and so on have greatly changed or added to their meaning. Going further back, words like doom and pray have changed their meaning since Elizabethan England. However, the Latin has stayed consistent. As such we can go back to the texts in the dead language and translate it to meet the modern languages definition.

Hence we only have the Vulgate and Neo-Vulgate versions of the bible in Latin, but we have KJV, NKJV, RSV, RSV2, NRSV, NIV, LWT, Jerusalem, NJB, etc etc etc in English. Some of that is due to the market (not many speak or read Latin) but its also due to the complexities of dealing with a living language.

Some mention has been made about the eastern churches, and it is true that Latin is too modern for many of them. The Maronites, for example, still do their liturgy in Aramaic
 
JMMK said:
It also has a very utilitarian purpose for theology, liturgy and canon law. It’s a dead language. As such there is little to no slang or modification over time. In my life time words like queer, gay, sick, fat (or phat), and so on have greatly changed or added to their meaning. Going further back, words like doom and pray have changed their meaning since Elizabethan England. However, the Latin has stayed consistent. As such we can go back to the texts in the dead language and translate it to meet the modern languages definition.

Hence we only have the Vulgate and Neo-Vulgate versions of the bible in Latin, but we have KJV, NKJV, RSV, RSV2, NRSV, NIV, LWT, Jerusalem, NJB, etc etc etc in English. Some of that is due to the market (not many speak or read Latin) but its also due to the complexities of dealing with a living language.

Some mention has been made about the eastern churches, and it is true that Latin is too modern for many of them. The Maronites, for example, still do their liturgy in Aramaic
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Latin actually evolved somewhat, hasn’t it? classical Latin isn’t exactly the same as church Latin post-late antiquity, or is that just in some trivial details?
 
Wirraway said:
I’ve heard the Ave Maria sung in Latin during Mass, quite moving.

as I mentioned above, my wife is close to becoming RC. she is the daughter of a baptist preacher, and while she appreciated the beauty of the Ave Maria, the notion of a Latin Mass is, to put it mildly, alien to her (frankly, it is to me as well).
Click to expand...
Actually, in the U.S., the likelihood that she will ever encounter ANY Latin in the Mass is fairly remote, unless you join a parish that regularly uses the TLM.

My parish forbids all Latin on the grounds that “nobody understands it.”
 
Wirraway said:
Latin actually evolved somewhat, hasn’t it? classical Latin isn’t exactly the same as church Latin post-late antiquity, or is that just in some trivial details?
Click to expand...
No, it isn’t trivial. Vulgar Latin (the Latin of the Bible and the Liturgy) is a different animal from classical Latin. And when it comes to classical Latin, no two “big” authors seem to write the same language. Once you think you’re a big smarty-pants because you can read Caesar, you move into Cicero, who has a whole different way of using the language and then you get into Catullus – another “different” language. Church Latin is actually easier to read because it is less “elegant” than classical Latin.
 
I don’t want to hijack my own thread, but my curiosity makes me ask …

can anyone recommend a site with audio of the Our Father in Latin? I say the Morning Office, and and I’d like to say that prayer in Latin. just once.
 
Wirraway said:
I don’t want to hijack my own thread, but my curiosity makes me ask …

can anyone recommend a site with audio of the Our Father in Latin? I say the Morning Office, and and I’d like to say that prayer in Latin. just once.
Click to expand...
I don’t have a link, but here’s a phonetic pronunciation guide I use with my 6th grade catechism class:

ATER noster, qui es in coelis: *
** PAH-tehr NOH-stehr, quee ess in TCHEH-leess*
** **Father our who are in Heaven

*sanctificetur nomen tuum: *
SAHNK-tee-fee-TCHEH-toor NOH-men TOO-oom
Holy (sanctified) name your

*adveniat regnum tuum: *
ahd-VEH-nyaht REH-nyoom TOO-oom:
may it come kingdom your

*fiat voluntas tua, sicut in coelo, et in terra. *
FEE-aht voh-LOON-tahs TOO-ah, SEE-koot in TCHEH-loh, et in TEHR-ah.
Let it be will your as in Heaven and in earth

*Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie, *
PAH-nehm NOH-stroohm KWOH-tee-dee-AH-noom dah NOH-beese OH-dee-eh

Bread our daily give to us today

*et dimitte nobis debita nostra, *
**et dee-MEE-teh NOH-beess DEB-ee-tah NOH-strah **
and forgive us debts our

sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
SEE-koot et nohs dee-MEE-tee-moose deb-ee-TOH-ree-boose NOHS-treese.
As also we forgive debtors our

Et ne nos inducas in tentationem,
Et neh nohs een-DOO-kahs een ten-TAH-tsee-OH-nem

And not us guide into temptation

sed libera nos a malo. Amen
Sed LEE-behr-ah nohs ah MAH-loh AH-men

But free us from evil.
 
Wirraway said:
I don’t want to hijack my own thread, but my curiosity makes me ask …

can anyone recommend a site with audio of the Our Father in Latin? I say the Morning Office, and and I’d like to say that prayer in Latin. just once.
Click to expand...
Here’s a video from You Tube showing Pope John Paul II singing the Pater Noster during a Mass in St. Peter;s Basilica in the early 1980’s. The clip begins with the Consecration and ends with the Pater Noster.

youtube.com/watch?v=GJVTLxUkfFs
 
Rawb said:
Latin unites all Catholics, regardless of their spoken language (though some speak Latin as well).

As a real-world example, I watched a video on YouTube once of a woman singing the Ave Maria. It was in Latin.

The first comment on the video was in English, talking about how beautiful the song was.

The second, Spanish, I didn’t know what it said.

Then the Hail Mary, in German.

A little ways down, Italian.

Then more German.
Irish.
Latin.
Lots of Spanish.

A lot of us couldn’t speak to each other outside that forum, but we all knew the Ave Maria.

There’s also a poster here who had a story about being in Europe during (I think) World War II. In France he was standing outside a Church when the priest came up and asked him something in French, and he didn’t speak French. He responded with “Introíbo ad altáre Dei” The priest grinned, said “Ad Deum qui lætíficat juventútem meam” and took him inside, to show him the interior of the old Church. (Those are the begining prayers at the foot of the altar in the TLM)

Latin unites us in a very real and solid sense.
Click to expand...
Ah, that explains the Latinisations of those Easterners who submit to Rome.
 
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