What is the allure of a Mass you cannot understand?

[HeartnSoulMan]

The effort necessary to learn latin at least enough to participate at a Tridentine mass is in my opinion worth the effort.

The second part is based on these questions. Do people who attend the Novus Ordo celebrated in their own language understand better or participate better then those who attend a Tridentine mass? also Do most of the people understand the infinite sacrifice taking place in front of their eyes?

In my opinion you will find the people who have chosen to attend a Tridentine Mass have done their homework as Catholic lay person much better then the average Catholic who attends mass in the vernacular. People who understand the mass better who have made more sacrifice to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass probably walk away having accomplished more and take away more action of grace then those who do nothing but attend mass occasionally, who often don’t understand what is really going on and care little for the concept of reverence. This is commonly because their personal knowledge and relationship with God is lukewarm. This to me describes the average Catholic.

I cannot say that the change in the people is a result of the Novus Ordo or just a result of the decline in all of our society. I attend regularly the Novus Ordo because where I live we have no option to attend Latin Mass.

I have lived in areas where I could attend both and did. I find more depth of faith in those who attend the personally more difficult and quantitatively more reverent and sublime rite called the Tridentine.

 

[Thomas_White]

Good day to all, and may all have a happy week.

I understand that some are attracted to the Tridentine or Extraordinary Masses because of the beauty and reverence they can find in them. What I want to ask though is, how does one get pass the Latin prayers or chants if they cannot understand them?

During the Tridentine Mass (prior to EF Mass), only the altar servers gave the Latin responses. During elementary school and beginning in the first grade, we attended a Tridentine Mass before the beginning of every school day. I knew no Latin and don’t believe any of us did until later. There is non-verbal communication and periods of silence that create a sense of mystery as well as providing a time for silent prayer and contemplation, and it was not necessary to know any Latin at all for the Mass to be a spiritual experience. I was an altar server during the pre-Vatican II era and later studied Latin in both high school and college, but I would not say that knowledge of Latin alone made the later EF Mass any more of a spiritual experience for me.

 

[bobballen_18]

The second part is based on these questions. Do people who attend the Novus Ordo celebrated in their own language understand better or participate better then those who attend a Tridentine mass? also Do most of the people understand the infinite sacrifice taking place in front of their eyes?

This, I believe, is the real question at hand! So many people are hung up over really any Latin at all, simply because they say they can’t understand it. OK, fine. I can’t understand most of the Latin either. But I think it is really a legitimate question - I think it is very painfully obvious that many Catholics today have no idea what is really going on up there on the altar or at the Mass in general, for so many reasons that I can’t bring up in one comment on one thread - so the question becomes, has vernacular Liturgy really helped us “modern” Catholics? I can give you my opinion on that - I would answer a resounding “no” to that question. Sure, I think it can be argued that vernacular in the Liturgy has its merits, but let’s not avoid reality here either - belief in the Real Presence as actually taught by the Catholic Church is a little too rare among even Catholics these days.

No matter what side one falls on with regards to Latin in the Liturgy, I really believe it is a legitimate question. I think we should also ask ourselves what our motivations really are for so strongly desiring a vernacular Liturgy, especially when VII itself said Latin in the Liturgy is to be retained. No matter what side one falls on, one must be aware that the Church had a non-vernacular Liturgy for centuries, and I believe all Catholics must be aware of the reasons it was that way for so long.

 

[HeartnSoulMan]

To try to support your observations I would present two short stories about the change to the vernacular.

These happened during the changes. One friend had come to Canada during the second world war as a refugee. He understood when he landed in London Ont that there was only one other person from his country currently living in Canada but that person lived in western Canada. He could not speak any English at all and it took him many years to be able to get around and feel comfortable here and finally find work where there was no longer a language barrier.

He said to me that through the many years of transition he had only one place that he could go and feel at home. At mass it was in Latin the same at it had been in His country and all the countries that he had gone through on his pilgrimage to become a refugee headed to Canada.

The second is this I was an altar server. I learned Latin to support the mass and other devotions like benediction, We were not permitted to use missals while serving mass so that the Latin responses had to be memorized completely My missal had Latin on the left page and the English translation on the right. Some of us took it upon ourselves to study both so that we knew approximately what we were saying as we learned about the various parts of the mass.

Much of the Holy Mass is beyond our comprehension. For centuries countless saints were produced by the Catholic Church. All of these began their journey to Heaven in the Tridentine Mass so its credibility can never be in question. In time we will clearly see if Mass in the vernacular has been successful if it produces an even greater number of saints.

I do not doubt that the Novus Ordo said with due care and attention as well as the correct intention by the priest is valid. Personally I have seen it produce far more negative results then positive ones in my travels.

As a senior citizen I have witnessed the moral and spiritual decline throughout the Church as well as through society. Once people loved their neighbors now they refuse to recognize them.

At the same time we must not forget that the Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. The Church is Jesus alive among His children and his people helping them work out their salvation.

I am of the opinion that the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ has been reliving the life of Jesus Christ in a mystical way stretched out through Catholic History beginning day one at Pentecost.

The first 400 years saw the persecution of the Church which was the reliving of the persecution of Christ at the slaughter of the innocent in Bethlehem and the six year flight into Egypt before the true Messiah’s enemies settled down from their murderous intent allowing the Holy Family to return. Every event in Our Blessed Lord’s life was repeated through history.

More significant moment were enshrined in history by ear marking them by allowing members of his church to symbolically play out these moments. An example would be St Francis represented in his life the casting of the theives from the temple by Christ by his reforming of the Church into a greater love of poverty of spirit or detachment from worldly desires. Other saints other moments.

These last fifty years we have seen the separation of the sheep and the goats which began at least 100 years ago. Each social problem has divided us. Abortion, Euthanasia, Fetal Stem Cells, Humane Vitae etc. We all have had to choose sides. Are we on God’s side or on our own side. This has always been the great test. It began with the angels and we carry on today.

God as the Trinity from all eternity choose Holiness and His infinite nature conformed to infinite holiness. We are here to figure out that he wants us of our own free will to choose holiness for our lives. Then we will either live for God’s Holy Will or our own.

I am not a theologian though I know our faith very well. I am not a religious though I have lived as a religious for many years. I am a mystic and miracle worker. I normally know the right answers to every important question but most people don’t care to hear the truth. Often it hurts.

I think that the final manifestation of the separation of the sheep and the goats shall be part of this synod. Then we can move on to the next stage toward the second coming of Christ.

This last thirty we have seen the passion, death and resurrection of the Mystical body of Christ. We have seen the Church publicly scourged, and watched as it carried its cross through our streets. The Church was crowned with thorns mocked ridiculed and spat upon. It has been crucified, died and has been buried to its former existence.

Soon I pray it shall rise again in glory before the return of Christ come to judge us all. I seems to see life here and there returning to its body and I praise God that we are witnesses to all of this and all has done and accomplished when almost all the world was blind to his life which has passed before their eyes. This was true even the first time.

The Dawn is coming and from the east a light begins to shine for us.

Though the bible does not state it I believe He first appeared to His mother before any of the disciples on the road. But what happened must happen again for Our Church is Jesus Christ alive among His people.

 

[Saints_Alive]

The effort necessary to learn latin at least enough to participate at a Tridentine mass is in my opinion worth the effort. …

Exactly.

Considering what Christ endured for us, the effort required to use a missal is quite minimal.

 

[corsair]

HeartnSoulMan, you have summed this up nicely. Thank you and God Bless.

 

[otjm]

I don’t know where they put it but here it is in parts:

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-part-1.html

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-part-2.html

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-part-3.html

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-4-novus.html

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-5-1965.html

Some interesting comments; a bit of it somewhat overstated. But then, something which tends a bit to the polemical is to be. Interesting, nonetheless.

 

[HeartnSoulMan]

To try to support your observations I would present two short stories about the change to the vernacular.

These happened during the changes. One friend had come to Canada during the second world war as a refugee. He understood when he landed in London Ont that there was only one other person from his country currently living in Canada but that person lived in western Canada. He could not speak any English at all and it took him many years to be able to get around and feel comfortable here and finally find work where there was no longer a language barrier.

He said to me that through the many years of transition he had only one place that he could go and feel at home. At mass it was in Latin the same at it had been in His country and all the countries that he had gone through on his pilgrimage to become a refugee headed to Canada.

The second is this I was an altar server. I learned Latin to support the mass and other devotions like benediction, We were not permitted to use missals while serving mass so that the Latin responses had to be memorized completely My missal had Latin on the left page and the English translation on the right. Some of us took it upon ourselves to study both so that we knew approximately what we were saying as we learned about the various parts of the mass.

Much of the Holy Mass is beyond our comprehension. For centuries countless saints were produced by the Catholic Church. All of these began their journey to Heaven in the Tridentine Mass so its credibility can never be in question. In time we will clearly see if Mass in the vernacular has been successful if it produces an even greater number of saints.

I do not doubt that the Novus Ordo said with due care and attention as well as the correct intention by the priest is valid. Personally I have seen it produce far more negative results then positive ones in my travels.

As a senior citizen I have witnessed the moral and spiritual decline throughout the Church as well as through society. Once people loved their neighbors now they refuse to recognize them.

At the same time we must not forget that the Catholic Church is the Mystical Body of Christ. The Church is Jesus alive among His children and his people helping them work out their salvation.

I am of the opinion that the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ has been reliving the life of Jesus Christ in a mystical way stretched out through Catholic History beginning day one at Pentecost.

The first 400 years saw the persecution of the Church which was the reliving of the persecution of Christ at the slaughter of the innocent in Bethlehem and the six year flight into Egypt before the true Messiah’s enemies settled down from their murderous intent allowing the Holy Family to return. Every event in Our Blessed Lord’s life was repeated through history.

More significant moment were enshrined in history by ear marking them by allowing members of his church to symbolically play out these moments. An example would be St Francis represented in his life the casting of the theives from the temple by Christ by his reforming of the Church into a greater love of poverty of spirit or detachment from worldly desires. Other saints other moments.

These last fifty years we have seen the separation of the sheep and the goats which began at least 100 years ago. Each social problem has divided us. Abortion, Euthanasia, Fetal Stem Cells, Humane Vitae etc. We all have had to choose sides. Are we on God’s side or on our own side. This has always been the great test. It began with the angels and we carry on today.

God as the Trinity from all eternity choose Holiness and His infinite nature conformed to infinite holiness. We are here to figure out that he wants us of our own free will to choose holiness for our lives. Then we will either live for God’s Holy Will or our own.

I am not a theologian though I know our faith very well. I am not a religious though I have lived as a religious for many years. I am a mystic and miracle worker. I normally know the right answers to every important question but most people don’t care to hear the truth. Often it hurts.

I think that the final manifestation of the separation of the sheep and the goats shall be part of this synod. Then we can move on to the next stage toward the second coming of Christ.

This last thirty we have seen the passion, death and resurrection of the Mystical body of Christ. We have seen the Church publicly scourged, and watched as it carried its cross through our streets. The Church was crowned with thorns mocked ridiculed and spat upon. It has been crucified, died and has been buried to its former existence.

Soon I pray it shall rise again in glory before the return of Christ come to judge us all. I seems to see life here and there returning to its body and I praise God that we are witnesses to all of this and all has done and accomplished when almost all the world was blind to his life which has passed before their eyes. This was true even the first time.

The Dawn is coming and from the east a light begins to shine for us.

Though the bible does not state it I believe He first appeared to His mother before any of the disciples on the road. But what happened must happen again for Our Church is Jesus Christ alive among His people.

 

[R_H_Benson]

On my facebook feed today, I unexpectedly came across the following excerpts (which admittedly were 19th century but of course still offer wonderful insights to the subject of this thread):

“A Variety of languages is a punishment, a consequence of sin; it was inflicted by God that that human race might be dispersed over the face of the earth. The Holy Church, the Immaculate Spouse of Jesus Christ, has been established for the express purpose of destroying sin and uniting all mankind; consequently she must everywhere speak the same language. The Catholic Church is the same in every clime, in every nation, and consequently its language must be always and everywhere the same, to secure uniformity in Her service.”

-The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, ch. 37, Fr. Michael Muller, C.SS.R. 1825-1899

And this:

“Hatred for the Latin language is inborn in the hearts of all the enemies of Rome. They recognize it as the bond among Catholics throughout the universe, as the arsenal of orthodoxy against all the subtleties of the sectarian spirit. . . . The spirit of rebellion which drives them to confide the universal prayer to the idiom of each people, of each province, of each century, has for the rest produced its fruits, and the reformed themselves constantly perceive that the Catholic people, in spite of their Latin prayers, relish better and accomplish with more zeal the duties of the cult than most do the Protestant people. At every hour of the day, divine worship takes place in Catholic churches. The faithful Catholic, who assists, leaves his mother tongue at the door. Apart form the sermons, he hears nothing but mysterious words which, even so, are not heard in the most solemn moment of the Canon of the Mass. Nevertheless, this mystery charms him in such a way that he is not jealous of the lot of the Protestant, even though the ear of the latter doesn’t hear a single sound without perceiving its meaning .… . . . We must admit it is a master blow of Protestantism to have declared war on the sacred language. If it should ever succeed in ever destroying it, it would be well on the way to victory. Exposed to profane gaze, like a virgin who has been violated, from that moment on the Liturgy has lost much of its sacred character, and very soon people find that it is not worthwhile putting aside one’s work or pleasure in order to go and listen to what is being said in the way one speaks on the marketplace. . . .”

-Dom Prosper Gueranger, Liturgical Institutions (1840)

Thank you for this wonderful post. There is great wisdom in these words!

 

[outremer]

Good day to all, and may all have a happy week.

I understand that some are attracted to the Tridentine or Extraordinary Masses because of the beauty and reverence they can find in them. What I want to ask though is, how does one get pass the Latin prayers or chants if they cannot understand them? Does one diligently look up them up beforehand or even learn the Latin language? Could things such as a small placards in the pews that translate the prayers from Latin to English or whatever local language help draw people in?

Have a wonderful October.

There are Masses in English that I fail to comprehend due to the accent of the priest (often foreign born, sometimes deeply Southern). I’m not being sarcastic or dismissive of your point.

I believe there are practical reasons to have one language in the global Church again. For one, given the diverse multicultural nature of the Church, there should be one sacred tongue for divine worship so as to not “favor” one language over another. The grand benefit of a “dead language” is that it does not play favorites with any living culture or ethnicity. Thanks to mass immigration and globalization, I would assume that the majority of American parishes have at least two ethnic language Masses, most often English or Spanish. In other areas, you can add French, Tagalog, Vietnamese, whatever and so forth.

Modern Roman Catholicism is deeply ethnically divided like the Orthodox now, in my humble opinion. Latin is a way to unite our disparate groups. In my old parish in NC, it really felt like there were two different parishes within the one church- the “Spanish” congregation and the “English” congregation. Just my own personal opinion: I am certainly not a skilled, trained liturgist.

 

[bobballen_18]

Thank you for this wonderful post. There is great wisdom in these words!

Oh you can thank some poster in the “FSSP supporters” facebook forum for that. I just thought it was funny that I had just read what I shared, then came on CAF and saw this thread. I was extremely happy to share.

 

[bobballen_18]

I don’t know where they put it but here it is in parts:

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-part-1.html

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-part-2.html

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-part-3.html

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-4-novus.html

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-5-1965.html

Also wanted to throw this out there: I didn’t read this article upon first read-through of this thread. But I read through it last night, and I think the above article series is great - very thought-provoking, in any case. As someone both very spiritually involved and in terms of my work (I am an organist/choir director for a “traditional” diocesan priest who loves the EF and would like to say it more often) it put many things into words which I have not been able to articulate for myself. I am not sure that I 100% agreed with everything but it was a good read.

At the very, very least - one must acknowledge that the EF and OF are two very different experiences, though of the same Roman Rite as Benedict XVI articulated. And I think it is a very legitimate question on both sides to debate whether it is right that the type of participation intended through the OF of the Mass is the norm as compared to the type of participation intended through the EF of the Mass (the type of participation intended for the majority of the existence of the Catholic Church).