QUICUMQUE VULT:
For me Latin is a sacred language, It was one of the languages written on the placard affixed above the Cross of Our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ. That IMHO would infuse it with A sense of sacredness. (I am also aware of the Hebrew and Greek) It was used in the Churches Liturgical life for centuries. That for me makes it Sacred, And the profound sense of Mystery it imparts to the Faithful during the Mass.
This is what makes Latin Sacred for me.
I’ve been pondering this and how to respond. First, I can see how Latin would be sacred for you, Quicumque Vult. When my grandfather, who only has a high school diploma, prays, he addresses God with “thee” and “thy” and “thine,” so I see also the point of sacral language. I just don’t happen to believe that Latin is sacred in and of itself, nor made sacred by the task for which it is used. It is certainly IMPORTANT and it would be a very wrong if we discontinued it’s use entirely (our theologians and biblical scholars, lay and clerical, study Hebrew and Greek for the purpose of understanding the Bible and Latin has played far too large a role in the history and development of the Church and Her thought to be dismissed). I think, however, that it is important, though not absolutely essential, for the Mass to be in the language understood by the congregation. Your example of the Holy Titulus is apt.
Why did Pilate put that sign there? Presumably to notify the passersby as to why Our Lord was crucified (I suppose it was a common practice, to describe the crime or indictment of the person being punished, though I don’t know). In order for them to understand, he published it in the three languages he knew the majority of people would understand: Hebrew (according to Catholic Encylopedia, really a form of Aramaic derived from Hebrew at this point), Greek (Koine Greek, the language of trade), and Latin (the language of the masters of the Empire). He clearly wanted anyone who saw the sign, who saw the Savior on the Cross, to* understand, *to *comprehend *what was done or why (as an aside, I wonder if Pilate was not frankly terrified of Jesus, if he had not an inkling of Who stood before Him, and though he capitulated to the Jewish leadership in consenting to crucify Jesus, he stubbornly refused to write “
He said he was the King of the Jews” because of that nagging little inkling). If he’d written it in Sanskrit or Mandarin or Tagalog, no one would have understood what was posted there at all.
And that’s what brings me to part of my point: language is meant to be understood. Language (and the words/sounds/spellings that make language) is a symbolic. Words are symbols. The linguistic symbol for a four legged creature with fur and whiskers and a long tail, a creature who is fastidious and carefully licks its fur clean, who makes a sound that is, approximately, “meow,” is, in English, “cat.” In Spanish, it’s “gato.” In Latin, it’s “felix.” In Arabic, it’s “qit.” In Basque, it’s “katu,” and in Bengali, it’s “biral.”
None of those words encompass “cat” in its ontological fullness (ie, none of them describe “catness”), but each of them conveys to the native who says the word and the native who hears the word a certain meaning, ie, his or her mind flashes on “cat.” This is the best way I can go about describing the purely symbolic nature of language. Words are just symbols intended to convey (or carry) meaning. If the words aren’t understood, there is no meaning, no comprehension.
This, to me at least, is why it’s particularly important that the Mass be offered in the vernacular: so it can be comprehended, so that meaning can be conveyed. Now there are those who think that it doesn’t and shouldn’t matter that we be able to understand it. After all, it’s addressed to God, isn’t it?
Well, consider this. Who is the Mass for, precisely? Is it for God? Certainly it is our worship of God. But does HE need the Mass? It seems to me that the Church teaches that God is perfect, absolutely perfect in and of Himself, needing nothing to complete or perfect Him. It seems to me that the Mass is like the Sabbath. Jesus stated categorically that the Sabbath was made for man and NOT man for the Sabbath. Mass, in my humble opinion, would seem to have been PROVIDED by God FOR us, for the propitiation of our sins, to satisfy, by the extension into time from eternity, the Sacrifice of Calvary, making It present for us and, by our rightly rec. communions, causing Its salvific effects to take root in our lives (if we truly allow them to do so). If, then, the Mass is not for God, but for us, then who needs to understand it? This is, for me, particularly noticeable in the readings, offered the first time in Latin, then in the local language, in the TLM. For whom do we read the scriptures? God or the congregation? With respect, God wrote them and I seriously doubt that He needs to be reminded of what they say. (continued latter)
Why not just chuck out half of the Gospel of St. John because what’s recorded there isn’t in the other Gospels?
I noticed several things about it. First of all, I didn’t find that the priest had his back to me so much as he was facing the Lord. Because of this, my focus was never on the priest (except for maybe the homily), but my focus was on what he was focusing on, and that was the Lord. Secondly, I was able to understand what it means when we say that the priest acts *in persona Christi. *While he was praying at the altar, I had the image of Moses in the Holy of Holies communicating to Yahweh for the Israelites, and that only led me to see Jesus interceding and communicating with the Father in heaven for those of us on earth…Jesus presenting our petitions to the Father as our great High Priest. That was what the priest was doing. He was offering prayers to the Lord on behalf of the community gathered there. Sure, you can see this in the Pauline Mass done in the vernacular, but it was more effective in the TLM because much of the prayers were done in such a way that they were inaudible, yet I knew that the priest was offering prayers for me and all those gathered. Third, the chanting was just ethereal. It did not distract me and draw attention to itself, but helped to lift my thoughts to Christ. Fourth, I thought that the distribution of Holy Communion by kneeling at the altar rail would take forever, but it didn’t. It was very organized in a haphazard kind of way, if that makes sense. And finally, I probably most appreciated that there was lots of sacred silence there. The Pauline Mass could use more of it. All in all, I will not abandon my parish for this Mass in New Orleans 30 miles from me, but if the universal indult is granted and the TLM is offered in my parish, I will attend.
