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petronus
Guest
That referred to in the OP .
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anixx
Guest
Actually there are two languages of the Church, Latin and Greek. For Roman-Catholics, Latin is the preferred one, as for the Greek-Catholics, you guessed it, Greek is. While in essence we profess the same Faith, the underlying languages, Latin and Greek, heavily influenced the interpretation of the Faith and it’s external forms of expression, such as Liturgy and Prayer life.
Our theology, liturgy and prayer life is best expressed in Latin, for most of the prayers, hymns, texts and documents of the Church were initially written in Latin, and translated in other languages afterwards. It is a sign of unity. And isn’t it amazing when you go 5000 km from home, go into a Catholic Church and the people sing the same hymn, that your hear and sing in your parish? It does make one feel…Catholic.
Our theology, liturgy and prayer life is best expressed in Latin, for most of the prayers, hymns, texts and documents of the Church were initially written in Latin, and translated in other languages afterwards. It is a sign of unity. And isn’t it amazing when you go 5000 km from home, go into a Catholic Church and the people sing the same hymn, that your hear and sing in your parish? It does make one feel…Catholic.
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Brendan
Guest
One of the Catholic awards available to the Boy Scouts is the Ad Altare Dei award.
While I was running a class for that award, I explained to the boys the importance of this name. When the award was created, Latin was the primary liturgical language in the US, and most of the boys studying to achieve this award would have been altar boys.
So, for them, hearing the words “Ad Altarae Dei” would have immediately brought to mind the response “To God, who give joy to my youth”, and that that is the purpose of studying our Faith, to recognize that it is God who give joy to you.
Several of the adults present, including those who have been in Scouting for years, were totally unaware of the connection.
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Tom_Baum
Guest
Check out Eucharistic Prayer II.not to nit pick, but “and Lord have mercy on us all” isn’t found in exactly those words anywhere in the Mass. I mean, the priest doesn’t say those words in that order, the people don’t say them. . .in the penitential rite one option has “have mercy on us” or “Lord Have Mercy” but not “and Lord have mercy on us all”. . . at least, that’s what the GIRM says. Lord knows I’m familiar with Masses where the GIRM is not followed to the letter, or even much at all, and that could be a problem.
I don’t know where you’re going with the mercy and justice idea. You’re entitled to your opinions but they are just that. .your opinion, your feeling. . .and they aren’t necessarily what posters said, or meant. Why not address what is actually said, or even ask (PM if necessary) if a person meant to say X as that’s what you garnered from the post, so that the person can either say “Yes it was” or “no it wasn’t”. If it wasn’t, then you’d have made yourself feel miserable and unhappy and even judgmental over something that never even existed in the first place.
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ProVobis
Guest
Yes, you are right on that one.
catholicliturgy.com/index.cfm/FuseAction/Text/Index/4/SubIndex/67/ContentIndex/23/Start/9
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petronus
Guest
Not for me and most of the Roman Catholics I know .
English is the preferred one without a doubt .
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ProVobis
Guest
I bet most people don’t see the connection between “Annuit coeptis” and God on our $1 US bill, as well as the seal of the U.S… I’ve read that the forefathers specifically wrote in Latin (“Novus Ordo Seclorum,” “E Pluribus Unum”) so that everyone in the world (or at least the scholars) would recognize the seriousness of the undertaking. Many times a U.S. politician speaks in front of the flags written in Latin and it is sad that most see or hear more Latin that way than from the Mass.
Reference: wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_are_there_Latin_words_on_US_money
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Tom_Baum
Guest
Thank you and I am thankful that the Church at Mass, at least at some of them, pray for Mercy for ALL.
One of the reasons why I, personally, like the Mass in the vernacular is that sometimes, even tho we may hear something many, many times, we actually do hear it for the first time and if it is in the vernacular, instead of just a pretty sound, a beautiful thought can take root in one’s heart.
And one of those “beautiful thoughts” could be that there are some around the whole earth praying for, MERCY FOR ALL, conceivably, continuously, throughout the day.
I remember once at Mass at the prayers after the homily where the congregation joins in with “Lord, hear our prayer”, the prayer was, “For the person on earth who most needs our prayer” or something to that effect and I, for one, thought that was a fantastic prayer.
If we can’t ultimately pray for ALL than why pray at all.
Like it or not, we are all in this together and we are all brothers and sisters by virtue of our humanity and since God became One of us in the Incarnation that makes God-Incarnate the Brother of ALL of us.
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Elizium23
Guest
Actually, you do seem to suffer from the problem in the OP. That problem being that you do not understand why Latin is the preferred language of the Latin Church.
The laity like you do not run the Church. The Church has spoken clearly in her documents issued from the Holy See. Latin is the preferred language. You seem very Angocentric. The Church is larger than the United States.
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Tantum_ergo
Guest
Thank you; you’re right in that the words are there, it’s a very small point that they are not in the order you gave so that when I searched in that order, I did not see. I am very glad you provided them for me. Thank you. You will have to forgive me because (it’s a sore point) in my parish the Eucharistic prayers are ad libbed to begin with, and so I do tend to want even more than ‘normal’ to have things ‘right’, plus I (sadly) do NOT hear those words at Mass, not even in a slightly different order! Again, thank you. I do need to hear those words. . and apply them more.
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InNomineDomini
Guest
I think the instinct should be – in this absolutely information-drenched age of ours – to *find information *if we are ignorant of something.
In the case of the Mass: there are parts that are in English which, if a person never bothered to look up, they would have difficulty understanding, let alone repeating on demand, let alone memorizing.
The information is so widely and freely available to anyone with an internet connection or with access to a library, why should a person not simply put in some effort, rather than asking others to make accommodations? Not knowing a few Latin prayers is not a disability: it is something anyone of almost any level of intelligence or educational background could accomplish.
We are here but for a handful of decades, and the Church is not our possession, and the Mass is not our plaything, and sometimes, we do have to put in an effort to live up to these facts in practice. If that means looking up a Latin prayer and reading its English translation, then this is certainly but a small price to pay on our road to sanctity. THIS is how it can bring us closer to God: by proving to be an opportunity to sacrifice some time for Him and for His Church.
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ProVobis
Guest
Yes, but how can one not understand OMNES or OMNIBUS in the same way as ALL or EVERYONE? Is there some law which I’m not aware of that prohibits the Latin from “taking roots in one’s heart,” as you put it? What if we all learned Latin before we learned the language of a country? We as Catholics (meaning universal) probably should, even with only a few words and without the strict grammar rules.
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ProVobis
Guest
I remembered they were in EPII because one priest would pause for a minute right after he carefully enunciated “HAVE MERCY ON US ALL.”
Interestingly enough the English translation leaves out the “quaesumus” (we beseech, ask) part. I have absolutely no idea why. It destroys the proper flow.
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Vico
Guest
EP II
Have mercy on us all, we pray,
that with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God,
with blessed Joseph, her Spouse,
with the blessed Apostles,
and all the Saints who have pleased you throughout the ages,
we may merit to be coheirs to eternal life,
and may praise and glorify you
through your Son, Jesus Christ.
EP I
Through whom you continue to make all these good things, O Lord; you sanctify them, fill them with life, bless them, and bestow them upon us.
EP III
There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory through Christ our Lord through whom you** bestow on the world all that is good**.
EP IV
There, with the whole of creation, freed from the corruption of sin and death, may we glorify you through Christ our Lord, through whom you** bestow on the world all that is good.**
Have mercy on us all, we pray,
that with the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God,
with blessed Joseph, her Spouse,
with the blessed Apostles,
and all the Saints who have pleased you throughout the ages,
we may merit to be coheirs to eternal life,
and may praise and glorify you
through your Son, Jesus Christ.
EP I
Through whom you continue to make all these good things, O Lord; you sanctify them, fill them with life, bless them, and bestow them upon us.
EP III
There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory through Christ our Lord through whom you** bestow on the world all that is good**.
EP IV
There, with the whole of creation, freed from the corruption of sin and death, may we glorify you through Christ our Lord, through whom you** bestow on the world all that is good.**
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ProVobis
Guest
The Latin is
Although there is a consensus of opinion making it a command, Miserere is actually an infinitive, also used as second person passive. (Misere is the imperative) It’s probably better translated into other languages. The translation of Agnus Dei, incidentally, has the same problem.
As someone has already hinted, these subtle changes in prayer can add up to faulty theology.
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Tom_Baum
Guest
You wrote, “You seem very Angocentric. The Church is larger than the United States.”
I am not petronus and I can not speak for petronus but when petronus wrote, “Not for me and most of the Roman Catholics I know . English is the preferred one without a doubt .”, I think that he/she was speaking more of the vernacular than English just that English is his/her vernacular so as far as “You seem very Angocentric”, I do not think that this “term” applies at all, maybe he/she is “vernacularcentric”.
I do not know whether or not I know petronus but I also prefer the vernacular and one of the reasons is that I understand the vernacular and I happen to think that understanding the words at Mass can be quite enlightening.
As far as “The Church has spoken clearly in her documents issued from the Holy See. Latin is the preferred language.”, seems to me that the documents are also translated so that people can understand them if they wish to look at them, aren’t they?
And as far as “you do seem to suffer from the problem in the OP”, didn’t Jesus speak to people in the vernacular when He was here?
Also concerning “The laity like you do not run the Church”, the “laity like you” are the Church and not just the laity and it is JESUS’S CHURCH, isn’t it?
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Tom_Baum
Guest
They are not at every Mass and I would think that it might be at weekday Masses that one might have a better chance of hearing them.
It was the “thought”, not the wording, that I was trying to get across, I thought I had the wording right but apparently I didn’t, I am grateful that ProVobis supplied the link.
And as far as “You will have to forgive me”, there is nothing to forgive, I am grateful that you brought up the fact that you hadn’t heard it, that means there probably are others that have never heard it.
These “words” make me think of one of the things that Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished”, I was reading an article in an archeological magazine a while back which wasn’t even about a religious archeological dig and it was written that they came upon the words Jesus spoke on the cross and the identical words were written in some “tax thing” about someone paying someone’s taxes with the meaning, “Paid in full”.
Seems to me that when God speaks, we sometimes put quite a limit on things when we think that there might be only one thing that God is trying to get thru to us.
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ProVobis
Guest
I think the point was that sooner or later we will all be exposed to a vernacular we won’t understand at all. Mass is said in hundreds of vernaculars and for someone who generalizes that vernacular is more understandable overlooks that fact. One also has to understand that no translation is perfect and that even if he thinks he understands the Mass better, it still be not be the right understanding.
As far as translations go, let’s not forget it took a lady journalist outside the Vatican to realize when Pope Benedict announced “declaro …ministerio Episcopi Romae…renunciare” he was resigning the Papacy. Is Latin that much removed from the Church that we have to resort for translations from elsewhere? I would hate to see the situation 500 years from now.
As far as documents go, I understand the Vatican is to release some 82,000 of them in the near future. I’m afraid translations won’t do much good if there is no one to translate it.
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