Responding to: I get nothing out of the Latin Mass

[Andreas_Hofer]

Look, I have absolutely no problem with having a Latin Mass, What I have a problem with is the Traditional Insistence that we go back to the archaic language of Latin for no good reason. Keep your Latin Mass, let me keep my English (or Spanish for that matter). It’s really that simple. If you want to appeal to tradition as the sole reason then I suggest we go back to saying Mass in Aramaic, which was the first language the mass was said in.

I don’t often get into the Latin vs. vernacular debates (or at least I try to avoid them now), but I can’t help but point out that you seem not to have listened to anything brotherrolf and palmas have said. They’ve been arguing overwhelmingly from the value of Latin as a universal and thus unitive language, allowing people from all over the world to worship together; you, then, say that if they want to appeal to tradition as the sole reason they’re not going to get very far. If you want to get a list of reasons for Latin, just read Veterum Sapientia by Bl. Pope John XXIII. But after you’ve read it, you’re most certainly not allowed to say, “Well, if Good Pope John wants to argue from tradition as the sole reason…” or dismiss him as wanting Latin for “no good reason.”

 

[palmas85]

Despite your insistence most parishes are not multi-lingual…at least not to the point that a common language can’t be used and understood. In my home parish we have Indians, Pakistanis, Hispanics, Poles, Germans, Italians and Caucasions…we all share two linguistic oddities…we all understand English and speak it in our lives outside the home, and none of us understand Latin to the point that it would be a viable language for conversation.

Another fine example, in an Indiana town there were large numbers of Hispanics that didn’t speak English. They formed a seperate mission parish, but as the immigrants learned English they started going to the English language Mass. The mission Parish no longer exists and the primary parish offers Mass in Spanish once a month…none of the Spanish speakers speak Latin to this day.

Look, I have absolutely no problem with having a Latin Mass, What I have a problem with is the Traditional Insistence that we go back to the archaic language of Latin for no good reason. Keep your Latin Mass, let me keep my English (or Spanish for that matter). It’s really that simple. If you want to appeal to tradition as the sole reason then I suggest we go back to saying Mass in Aramaic, which was the first language the mass was said in.

I don’t know where you are living or what the conditions are in that area. I can assure you however that in many areas multi lingual parishes are indeed the norm rather than the exception.

Lets say that for the sake of argument you are in an area where neither English or Spanish is spoken. I see that you advocate for English or Spanish Masses, probably because you speak those two languages. Mass is done in the varnacular language of that area which you do not know. How would you react to that?

I have made no appeal to tradition at all. In fact, I think that if tradition is the only reason some want Latin, they don’t have a clue whats really going on. No I speak only to the good sense of fostering the unity that using a language that is not spoken by any in their private life can provide amongst the faithful.

Brotherrolf and I are totally different linguistically and ethnically, not even close to be truthful. Yet, as boys we could have served together at the altar, made the responses knowingly and prayed together in a common language and yet be totally unable to communicate with each other in any meaningful way outside of that. That created a bond amongst Catholics worldwide that is sadly lacking these days. Heck in those days Catholics tended to identify themselves more often as Catholics than as of whatever nationality they happened to be. I full remember the great and overwhelming pride we as Catholics felt when Kennedy was elected President.

That is the true unity that existed within the Church prior to the insanity and elitist mentality that grew from the misguided and ill advised policy of doing away with the use of Latin in the Mass.
And it is an elitist mentality, my language is better than yours.

With Latin you did not have that sort of divisiveness or cultural elitism

In those days we were all on the same page, every last one of us.
At least those that wanted to be.

 

[anthony022071]

I don’t often get into the Latin vs. vernacular debates (or at least I try to avoid them now), but I can’t help but point out that you seem not to have listened to anything brotherrolf and palmas have said. They’ve been arguing overwhelmingly from the value of Latin as a universal and thus unitive language, allowing people from all over the world to worship together; you, then, say that if they want to appeal to tradition as the sole reason they’re not going to get very far. If you want to get a list of reasons for Latin, just read Veterum Sapientia by Bl. Pope John XXIII. But after you’ve read it, you’re most certainly not allowed to say, “Well, if Good Pope John wants to argue from tradition as the sole reason…” or dismiss him as wanting Latin for “no good reason.”

People from all over the world are still capable of worshipping together with the vernacular languages. Catholic churches nowadays have much more racially mixed congregations than before Vatican 2,if only because of societal changes. The Latin language did nothing to help unify Catholics from different ethnic neighborhoods or prevent hostility and rioting between them. Latin was the universal language for the Western Church,but it still was not a language that the majority of Catholics could understand. To have to refer to a missal translation is a little awkward,like going to a museum and having to refer to the museum brochures in order to understand the objects you’re looking at.

 

[mercygate]

People from all over the world are still capable of worshipping together with the vernacular languages. Catholic churches nowadays have much more racially mixed congregations than before Vatican 2,if only because of societal changes. The Latin language did nothing to help unify Catholics from different ethnic neighborhoods or prevent hostility and rioting between them. Latin was the universal language for the Western Church,but it still was not a language that the majority of Catholics could understand. To have to refer to a missal translation is a little awkward,like going to a museum and having to refer to the museum brochures in order to understand the objects you’re looking at.

Before the change to the vernacular, multicultural parishes were not the norm in the U.S. Now they are common. In Universities, when Mass was in Latin, people DID feel a sense of commonality in their worship. Travelers could go anywhere in the world and be “at home.”

 

[brotherhrolf]

People from all over the world are still capable of worshipping together with the vernacular languages. Catholic churches nowadays have much more racially mixed congregations than before Vatican 2,if only because of societal changes. The Latin language did nothing to help unify Catholics from different ethnic neighborhoods or prevent hostility and rioting between them. Latin was the universal language for the Western Church,but it still was not a language that the majority of Catholics could understand. To have to refer to a missal translation is a little awkward,like going to a museum and having to refer to the museum brochures in order to understand the objects you’re looking at.

Oh, please. Palmas and I can cite you the fact that there are two churches directly across the street from each other in New Orleans. The Irish built St. Alphonsus and the Germans built St. Mary’s - 150 years ago. We have those two parishes in common and there never was any fighting. My mother’s family went to either one. Both parishes were staffed by the same Redemptorist priests. Both parishes prayed for the beatification of Blessed Father Seelos who was a German.

Second, you believe that the missal was awkward. I grew up using the missal and it was completely normal for me. Do you think that I or any of my fellow students had our Missals with us at school when we had our weekly school Mass? No, we just sat there stupidly and didn’t know what was being said or what was going on. This issue of whether or not we understood Latin is getting tiresome.

If I say I understood Latin, I mean what I say. If I could sit all you naysayers down in a room, I can still recite large portions of the Mass in Latin AND tell you what I said. You would probably be astonished at all of us old geezers in my cathedral choir. Do you think I need a hymnal to chant Ave Maria or Ave Verum Corpus?

I grew up with Latin. By the time I made my first communion in second grade, I pretty much knew what was being said and by the end of third grade when I became an altar boy, I knew what was being said. By eighth grade, the Brothers made sure that we did our vocabulary exercises and GASP!, you know all those tri-syllabic words in English? SHOCK! They’re Latin.

As I have consistently pointed out, I can’t speak Spanish well but I can pick up a Mexican newspaper and read it. I passed my GSFLT test for Spanish in grad school with flying colors but don’t ask me to speak Spanish because I am hesitant and awkward. But this business that you have to be able to conjugate verbs in Latin to understand Latin is way off the wall. Just like I can read Spanish fluently don’t you think that Latin was just as easy - even more so since it was restricted to the liturgy?

 

[mercygate]

Oh, please. Palmas and I can cite you the fact that there are two churches directly across the street from each other in New Orleans. The Irish built St. Alphonsus and the Germans built St. Mary’s - 150 years ago. We have those two parishes in common and there never was any fighting. My mother’s family went to either one. Both parishes were staffed by the same Redemptorist priests. Both parishes prayed for the beatification of Blessed Father Seelos who was a German.

Second, you believe that the missal was awkward. I grew up using the missal and it was completely normal for me. Do you think that I or any of my fellow students had our Missals with us at school when we had our weekly school Mass? No, we just sat there stupidly and didn’t know what was being said or what was going on. This issue of whether or not we understood Latin is getting tiresome.

If I say I understood Latin, I mean what I say. If I could sit all you naysayers down in a room, I can still recite large portions of the Mass in Latin AND tell you what I said. You would probably be astonished at all of us old geezers in my cathedral choir. Do you think I need a hymnal to chant Ave Maria or Ave Verum Corpus?

I grew up with Latin. By the time I made my first communion in second grade, I pretty much knew what was being said and by the end of third grade when I became an altar boy, I knew what was being said. By eighth grade, the Brothers made sure that we did our vocabulary exercises and GASP!, you know all those tri-syllabic words in English? SHOCK! They’re Latin.

As I have consistently pointed out, I can’t speak Spanish well but I can pick up a Mexican newspaper and read it. I passed my GSFLT test for Spanish in grad school with flying colors but don’t ask me to speak Spanish because I am hesitant and awkward. But this business that you have to be able to conjugate verbs in Latin to understand Latin is way off the wall. Just like I can read Spanish fluently don’t you think that Latin was just as easy - even more so since it was restricted to the liturgy?

Hey, Bro! Time for you and me to drop this thread and go down to the pub, raise a cold one and chant a few choruses of Alma Redemptoris Mater.

 

[brotherhrolf]

Hey, Bro! Time for you and me to drop this thread and go down to the pub, raise a cold one and chant a few choruses of Alma Redemptoris Mater.

Am I getting strident repeating the same thing over and over again? Sounds like a good idea…

If my friend Palmas reads this, we could go to Parasol’s and have a roast beef poboy too.

 

[Volodymyr_988]

Those of us that love that Latin Mass do not go because it is in Latin. We go because we love the symbolism and the structure of the Mass compared to the Novus Ordo.
From the prayers at the foot of the altar to the reading of the Last Gospel of John and the Leonine prayers at the Low mass. The symbolism of all of the signs of the cross and genuflections made by the priest, the beautiful traditional music, communion on the tongue, kneeling to receive Christ. It is the reverence of the sacrifice not the Latin.

Then why not please both sides and offer it in the vernacular. I believe the Sarum Rite is very close to this idea.

 

[brotherhrolf]

Then why not please both sides and offer it in the vernacular. I believe the Sarum Rite is very close to this idea.

That is a very nice sentiment. But it doesn’t meet what I knew as a child. I was born in 1951 and I’m not dead yet. The Mass was in Latin, we understood it, we had demonstrably Catholic music, etc., etc., up until 1968. We had our roots ripped out and tossed away. It was not done carefully. It was not done slowly. It was done BAM! in the course of two short years everything that I knew as right and just was tossed out. We ditched 1500 years of musical tradition, our reverence, and I could go on and on.

My parents and myself submitted to the Magesterium of HMC. We found ourselves exiles at the Saturday vigil Mass to avoid the …I cannot be charitable here and all I will say is that not all of us were happy to wipe out our 1500 years of musical tradition in favor of hearing Kermit and Miss Piggy a’strummin’ and a’grinnin.

I’m not cool with “I’m OK; you’re OK - lets just focus on the Eucharist”. It means that much to me that had I not been invited to join the Cathedral choir (by a Protestant no less)…I can’t go to an SSPX chapel in good faith. I loved being Catholic. I grew up being Catholic and so in 1968 when I had my roots ripped out from under me and tossed away, what was I supposed to do?

Is it not a rule of physics that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction? The part that all of y’all don’t understand is that we didn’t fight or protest the actions of HMC. I didn’t have long hair back then. I didn’t protest what the government was doing. And I enlisted into the US Armed Forces and submitted to the Magesterium of HMC.

Dear God, have mercy on my soul. Y’all are listening to the small minority of us who were happy what happened in 1968. I sang in the choir for the seniors who graduated in May of 68. It was Catholic music. When I graduated in May of 69, it was Sons of God, Bridge over Troubled Waters, Sound of Silence and They’ll Know We are Christians.

I get dissed but it was my high school graduation and I didn’t have a word to say about. So too Vatican II. You have no idea about how we folks in the pew didn’t like what happened. You take your modern philosophy that everyone can speak out and in your cultural snobbery, you ignore the fact that the world was different then and one did not speak out against HMC but submitted to the magesterium.

We got handed a bundle of goods. Our Holy Father has given us hope. I don’t wan’t to go back to the TLM but I sure would like a once a month Solemn High Mass with choir so that my two sons know what it was like. The oldest is 26 and took it upon himself to learn how to chant the Pater Noster in Latin.

Instead, we have converts who are intent upon shaping HMC into their vision, telling me I am wrong. I agonize about this. I really do, I was a teenager during Vatican II. I knelt and kissed the archbishop’s ring when he consecrated our new church in 67. I cried when I saw all of the victims of the twin towers kneeling and kissing the Holy Father’s ring. And I am getting awfully tired of converts telling me that I am wrong simply because they have no idea of what we grew up with.

I do not apologize for my past. I went to Catholic schools from Primer to 12th grade. My father was not Catholic and he was the one who got me up and drove me to serve 6am Mass. Enough already. Forty years ago we had the roots ripped out from under us. I didn’t protest the Vietnam War nor did I protest what happene in HMC. (Y’all have no idead of how much the removal of the communion rails distressed me)

I don’t want to go back to the TLM exclusively. But I do want my children, those of you who were born after 1958, and you converts to know and appreciate that…I am a Catholic, my ancestors died in Ireland and Scotland for their beliefs. It’s not I’m OK, you’re OK - lets just focus on the Eucharist.

Y’all have no idea how hurtful it is to be dissed simply because I grew up Catholic and my ancestors were Catholic.

 

[Volodymyr_988]

I’m not a convert, I’ve always been a Catholic (not always a good one, but a Catholic nonetheless.)

My dad was born in '53 and my mom in '58. She was confirmed at the age of nine since that was when the bishop was coming and wouldn’t be back for years, and this is in Southern Illinois.

I have no problem with people who love the EF of the Mass. I do have a bit of a problem with the OF of the Mass. I wish that there was the EF in the vernacular, the Rite is much better (my opinion of course) and more poetic and uses “Sacred Language.” But, even with all my post graduate degrees I can’t get in to praying silently and having to flip through pages to catch up to the Consecration.

This is why I spent two years in the Eastern Catholic Churches, the Liturgy hasn’t been messed with (well, now it has ) and it’s also in English. I just can’t handle their attachment to Hellenic cuisine. (They don’t allow fish, dairy, or oil, but they do allow shrimp, octopus, and sea urchins on Wednesdays and Fridays.) Why can’t I have a Traditional Mass in my own Western heritage (my mother’s family were nobility in Ireland going back to the Norman Invasion) using the old rituals?

There is no Anglican Usage parish near me, and the churches that use the EF are over an hour away and my MTV warped mind can’t handle EF of the Mass at those places anyway. The local priests are revolting from our bishop and we have no place to go.

Don’t take my posts as dissing a person who has had to put up with a change in his culture, especially in his religious culture.

 

[John_Higgins]

brotherhrolf,

I’m another veteran born in 1951 (getting ready to turn 57 tomorrow) who experienced all the changes, but has a different outlook. I do believe the changes in the Mass certainly could have been promulgated with a little less edict, and a little more persuasion, but, by and large, I am an unrepentant Norus Ordonian.

My favorite Masses (outside of my own wonderful parish is downtown Chicago) we at a Jesuit university where my wife was getting her doctorate. On Sunday evening as 10 PM there was the Campus Ministry Mass. The lovely old church was filled with students for what was, in essence, a Solemn High Mass. It was a Mass concelebrated by seven Jesuit priests, a thurifer and adult acolytes, backed up by a magnificent orchestra and fabulous choir. I believe the OF should be and can be done with reverence and majesty. For those who love the TLM, there should be the TLM, but I doubt seriously it will ever be the exclusive Mass of the Church ever again.

John

 

[mary_bobo]

No one is saying that we go back to the Mass in Latin exclusively. I certainly don’t promote that. But to throw away our heritage simply because it is not in the vernacular is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Forty years ago those Hispanic folks up in Indiana could have walked into any parish in the USA and would have been able to participate. They might not be able to have coffee and doughnuts in the parish hall after Mass but they would have been able to participate fully in the Mass. Why is this objectionable?

Brotherhrolf, I am late to this discussion, but what you say expresses how I feel. I had the good fortune of attending a Solemn High Latin Mass last weekend and it was wonderful. But I regularly attend a N.O. Mass and love it dearly. It is too bad that so many want to deny the heritage of Mother Church and make it an either/or situation. I was raised in the traditional church and will always love it because it is part of me. But I would never deny the younger generation the NO if that is what they prefer. I just wish they would not condemn that which they do not know.

 

[JW10631]

I usually get hammered for suggesting this, but why don’t people who claim they won’t understand actually try to learn some Latin? Despite what some think, it’s not a very difficult language, and the extremely limited amount needed to “understand” the Mass could be learned relatively quickly. It may take a little work for some people, but it’s fun and rewarding. Plus, it can’t possibly hurt to learn something new. I guess I just don’t understand all the resistance.

This is typical of Americans. Because our “native” tounge is English, most expect EVERYTHING to be in English, even if we Americans travel abroad. American Catholics have either forgotten or refuse to realize that there are a billion Catholics in this world, and that most of them don’t speak English, and the norm for the “Latin” church is the Latin language, even if it has been discarded by our American bishops, priests, seminaries, etc.

The typical excuses are:

• I don’t understand it.
• I had trouble learning it.
• I don’t want to learn it.
• I’m American, I speak English, and the Mass should be celebrated in MY language, not some other language.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

My favorite Masses (outside of my own wonderful parish is downtown Chicago) we at a Jesuit university where my wife was getting her doctorate. On Sunday evening as 10 PM there was the Campus Ministry Mass. The lovely old church was filled with students for what was, in essence, a Solemn High Mass. It was a Mass concelebrated by seven Jesuit priests, a thurifer and adult acolytes, backed up by a magnificent orchestra and fabulous choir. I believe the OF should be and can be done with reverence and majesty. For those who love the TLM, there should be the TLM, but I doubt seriously it will ever be the exclusive Mass of the Church ever again.

John

Boy, were you lucky. Usually “Jesuit . . . 10 pm . . . campus ministry” is going to be setting up a punch line, not talking about a recognizable Mass - let alone solemn and orchestral.

 

[anthony022071]

Oh, please. Palmas and I can cite you the fact that there are two churches directly across the street from each other in New Orleans. The Irish built St. Alphonsus and the Germans built St. Mary’s - 150 years ago. We have those two parishes in common and there never was any fighting.

Here in Chicago and also in New York there was a lot of mutual prejudice and hostility between the Catholic ethnic groups. I’m not blaming the use of Latin for that,but the point is that the use of Latin was not something that the different Catholic ethnic groups bonded over and it did not get them to worship together.

Second, you believe that the missal was awkward. I grew up using the missal and it was completely normal for me.

Well of course it would be normal for those who grew up with it.

 

[John_Higgins]

Anthony,

Ironic. Here in Chicago, the Gemans built St. Alphosus and the Irish built St. Mary’s. The ethnic parish (called “national” parishes here) were a response to the body of priests being overwhelmingly Irish. So the territorial parishes were Irish, and the others were whatever ethnic group they were. There were often two or three churches within blocks–all with full congregations. The only time ethnic groups wandered our of their ethnic parishes was Holy Thursday.

Brother,

A lot of my group growing up who graduated Catholic high school in 1969 didn’t have a problem with the New Mass. I think it was “sold” better here–even to us former altar boys who had to memorize the Confiteor et al. BTW, I took four years of Latin and can (and could) find my way around the TLM without incident. I know declensions and conjugations. I know which prepositions take ablative and which take accusative. I just don’t prefer to have the Holy Sacrifice in Latin. You do; good for you. I am happy for you and yours who have the Motu on your side. However, I think the “If you build it, they will come” attitude that some TLMers have is truly wishful thinking.

John

 

[IvanKaramozov]

Boy, here we go again. I fell asleep at teh computer and woke up with the same myth being flouted in my face. Nope, I never saw my mother’s fingers showing me the words in Latin and English. This little round faced Irish kid had no idea of what those words meant on the laminated placcard while serving Mass. All holy mumbo jumbo that could just as well have been Vietnamese.

You cheapen my mother. You cheapen me. No. I had no idea what was going on when I was a kid. I had not one iota of understanding of what I was saying all those years of six AM Mass with just me and Father present and no, I was not abused.

My pastor back then was a holy man who was a chaplain durining WWII and jumped out of a plane into Normandy along with our troops. No, I didn’t experience any of that. I didn’t understand what was going on in Mass until 1968 when the guitars got brought out and “Sons of God” was proclaimed.

Stop this myth! I am sick of it! I am not a scholar. I am not unusual nor was my mother from whom I learned how to read a missal.

I am tired of being cheapened and ridiculed. We did know what we were saying. I bear unto you as a servant of Our Lord Jesus Christ that I knew what I was saying all those years ago when I served Our Lord in Latin.

Stop this stupidity that we had no idea what we were saying. It was all by rote, etc. Can I speak Latin? No. But did I understand what those prayers meant? Yes. Can I understand what those Latin motets my choir sings mean to this day. You betcha.

I can read Spanish fluently but I didn’t understand a word of the sacro-salsa sung at the Washington DC Mass of the HF.

I am so tired of hearing this blatant taurine foecal matter. No. I don’t/didn’t understand. We didn’t understand until the veil was lifted off our eyes in 68. NOT!!!

Chill out, he’s not saying no one understood the Mass, however many people didn’t, that’s not oppinion, he’s pointing to specific individuals who had no idea what the hell was going on.

It’s not an afront to you, or your mother, or your paratrooper Priest, it’s just an observation of individuals who were unable to participate in Mass because they did not speak Latin.

I studied Latin for quite some time in High School and could read and speak it fairly well, even I could barely follow the simple Latin in Agnus Dei because Church Latin, as sung and spoken, so often drifts from classical Latin, that’s not a shot at Church Latin, however when even the Choir only know the Latin phoenically it get’s jumbles.

“Qui Tollis”

was sung

“Petullus”

“Hucus Pocus” is a specific refrence to the old Latin Mass.

Now, the Idea that most people in barely literate 17th century German villages, with a slightly less illiterate parish Priest had any concept of what was being said other than a memorized association of the German with that garbled mess that was supposed to be Latin is just silly.

I’m sure you followed the Mass fine, you were literate in you native tongue.

 

[brotherhrolf]

I was stationed in Glenview in the 70s and I had never seen a more ethnicly segregated city in my life so I can well imagine that hostility could be a problem.

BTW I attend a reverant NO cathedral parish and our bishop merely “acknowledged” the MP in a brief one sentence statment. We have a local indult parish which is strictly low Mass. Our choir regularly intones chant and has a large repertoire of Latin sacred motets. I have always maintained that I did not want to go back exclusively to the TLM but it sure would be nice to have a sung Solemn High Mass once in awhile.

We sing the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei during Lent. We sang the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Pater Noster in the two years of transition ffrom the TLM to the NO. They aren’t difficult to sing and we would retain more of our heritage.

 

[Lhhs]

He brought up the whole idea that getting something out of the mass is important and too pointed out that he gets nothing out of the Latin mass

I thought the purpose was sacrifice, join ourselves to offering to God.

I hear the protestant folks say they go where they can “get something” out of the Sunday church meetings.
So it could be just a different paradigm.

Around here, it seems Catholics go to Mass “to give” and protestants to go sunday church “to get”

 

[una_fides]

The original liturgies were probably in Aramaic, as this was the common, vernacular language that the Apostles spoke. It is likely that some of them spoke only Aramaic, with a little Hebrew, and even less Greek.

As the Church expanded throughout southwest Asia, I suspect Greek was implemented because it was accessible to more people than Aramaic.

Later, the Churches in the west adopted Latin for the Liturgy because, you guessed it, it was more accessible to the people than Greek. However, the Eastern Churches preserved the Greek Liturgy, because that was the common language of the people there.

Then at the Second Vatican Council, the bishops of the world collectively agreed that the people of the west should be able to assist in the Liturgy in their native tongue, just as the people in the East do, in their own language.

I’m sorry but it seems in your historical recollection you have left out about–oh I don’t know, let’s say–1400+ years of Catholic history and Tradition!
I am not opposed to having parts of Mass in the vernacular, as Vatican II recommended. Nevertheless, we must look at history and see why the Catholic Church preserved the Latin language?
The primary reason for preserving the Latin language is UNITY. We have a universal Church which requires a universal language. How amazing is it when people from around the world are saying the exact same prayers in the exact same languages. They can attend any Mass anywhere in the world and it be the exact same. Moreover, you could transport a Catholic from one point in history to one thousand years later, and he or she would be able to understand and follow the same basic Mass in the same language! How amazing is that!?

And please don’t reply that nobody understands the Latin. If the Latin language was preserved in the liturgy as Vatican II demanded, then we would easily understand and remember the prayers. I have spoken to so many old Catholics who grew up with the Latin Mass, and they still know the Latin prayers, and they know what they mean in English.

Indifference is indifference and it will show its ugly face regardless of the language in which the people are praying. Go to a TLM today, and be assured that you will likely find more people internally participating in the Mass and serious about God and having Faith in His Real Presence, than at the vast majority of NO masses. In my area the NO masses are so irreverent and remind me of the Protestant services I left in order to become Catholic. Let’s be Catholic, and let’s pray in the Catholic language, united in faith as one body of Christ.