Out of the mouths of babes ...

[Gedackt flute]

Saw this on Pray Tell

http://ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/16 ... ge-lacking

[Peter Jones]

Very interesting. I wonder what this young man will do in future years.
Send him my article on the Gloria in the current M & L, GF. It should help him to clarify the meaning of the opening sentence, which, as he states, can be taken in entirely the wrong way.

[Nick Baty]

And then there's his sentence, "The first major change is to the Confiteor, the prayer used in most forms of the Penitential Rite." I thought it was only used in one of the forms!

[Peter Jones]

And then there's his sentence, "The first major change is to the Confiteor, the prayer used in most forms of the Penitential Rite."

to err is human……

[Calum Cille]

I should think he's well on his way to becoming a Protestant, no offence intended. I wonder what his influences have been at such a tender age. "Are you coming to the egalitarian mass later on?" "No, I'm going to the codified mass of the millenium of communal destruction." "Oh, that'll be the Latin rite usage, will it ..."

[oopsorganist]

I thought it was an interesting coherent piece of writing.

Those Protestants, them what translated the bible into the Vernacular and then got into bother......ended up throwing out the baby with the bath water... but who now would think it sensible to preserveor serve the Word only in a language that no one understands - a dead language in fact? (Only in other major faiths it seems to me).

Protestants are just catholics that argue a lot.

When Latin was the majority language it made sense for it to hold sway. Dead sensible in fact. But at some point it became just dead. English, French and Chinese are pretty useful language in our times.

It's all about the Tower of Babel isn't it? Or is that Babble. Spelling is not my strong point.

I think the young man was saying that the translation needs to be closer to the meanings of the Greek or Aramaic rather that the Latin. Which seems a really good point to be making.

[Calum Cille]

... but who now would think it sensible to preserve or serve the Word only in a language that no one understands - a dead language in fact? (Only in other major faiths it seems to me).

The folks who approved that in the Vatican II documents. And me. For reasons of mutual comprehensibility and relative politico-cultural neutrality between different cultures. It facilitates visiting groups of people who would otherwise feel a bit lost or excluded should the local community normally recite this kind of thing at mass: Zèzus aymàta uskitchinwàk uneyotiwàl k'tèmanguèlminè.

[Nick Baty]

It facilitates visiting groups of people who would otherwise feel a bit lost or excluded should the local community normally recite this kind of thing at mass: Zèzus aymàta uskitchinwàk uneyotiwàl k'tèmanguèlminè.

Are you suggesting we should all become conversant with Mass in Latin to make life easier for the few who might occasionally attend in foreign climes?

[oopsorganist]

Zèzus aymàta uskitchinwàk uneyotiwàl k'tèmanguèlminè.

So we preserve Latin in case we get visitors at Mass? I see.

But Zèzus aymàta uskitchinwàk uneyotiwàl k'tèmanguèlminè is as incomprehensible to me as well, Latin.

What I have in common with the 16 year old, and a mountain farmer in Pakistan, and a child in Sumatra, is that I have never been taught Latin. I think if you are a Latin scholar you would find the argument that Latin is an inclusive language more persuasive than I do.

[contrabordun]

Are you suggesting we should all become conversant with Mass in Latin to make life easier for the few who might occasionally attend in foreign climes?

My reading of Sacrosanctum Concilium is that Vatican II had no intention whatsoever that the Church would ever cease to be conversant with Mass in Latin.

It made, and still makes, a lot of sense for all members of the Universal Church to be able to celebrate together. You can make good arguments that today it would be more sensible for that lingua franca to be English or (even better) Spanish, but I don't think there's anything wrong with the concept itself.

[alan29]

This reminds me of a Mass I attended in Alsace nearly 30 years ago. The priest realised that there all sorts of Europeans present, so he decided that the celebration should be in Latin, thereby silencing everyone. Not me, though..... oh no. I "gave it beans", thereby causing "Oh no Dad" expressions on my offsprings' faces.

[keitha]

Unfortunately, when I sing at Mass that expressions doesn't just stay on my offsprings' faces!

[Nick Baty]

It made, and still makes, a lot of sense for all members of the Universal Church to be able to celebrate together.

But how many of us will ever need to celebrate in a foreign language?

[Peter Jones]

Parish Primary School - last count, 23 different first languages among the children - truly!
English is a second language for many (most?) of the adults at the principal Sunday Mass.

It's English that is the "lingua franca" - if that's not a contradiction in terms. I do wonder how those to whom English is a second language, and who are now hearing the new translation in its fullness, are coping. I think the "Latinization" of the translation is enough and we won't be celebrating using Latin throughout at all. (But I could do if asked. I possess a full 2002, Latin Altar Missal ...... even the EPs for Children in Latin are bound in. )

[Calum Cille]

But Zèzus aymàta uskitchinwàk uneyotiwàl k'tèmanguèlminè is as incomprehensible to me as well, Latin.

I apologise for not being completely clear in my point.

It facilitates visiting groups of people who would otherwise feel a bit lost or excluded should the local community normally recite this kind of thing at mass: Zèzus aymàta uskitchinwàk uneyotiwàl k'tèmanguèlminè.

Are you suggesting we should all become conversant with Mass in Latin to make life easier for the few who might occasionally attend in foreign climes?

Yes. Isn't that an ecclesiastical equivalent of why we learn a foreign language at school? This is primarily a cultural question, which includes the keeping near of that which should be culturally near for the self-evident reason of religious heritage. The idea that learning the Latin of the mass is unhelpful to Catholics is absurd in a Harry Potter age when we're more interconnected globally than we ever were. The culture of the Church and our experience of it cannot merely be limited to that of one's modern, local culture. An ecclesiastical linguistic culture is helpful in fostering a sense of unity both in place and time.

To discourage (by not engaging with) the (re-)learning of the mass in Latin, is to engage in cultural intolerance and disenfranchisement. Latin is the language of the Church in western Europe. English isn't the language of the Church. The mass is a Latin mass, not an English mass. The vernacular translations of the mass are just that - translations. At any point, theoretically, any local variation can be suppressed in favour of a Latin standard.

Refusing Latin its place in the liturgy is an intolerance of one's own culture, ie, one's own Catholic culture, which is not limited to the contemporary. As a Gaelic speaker, I'm crystal clear about this phenomenon. You may have an antipathy to praying in a language which you regard as dead or foreign or unhelpful, but it is actually helpful if you choose to see it in that way. If I visit a monastery which uses Latin, I will be able to follow the mass very closely. I can sing the Sanctus in Latin. I can therefore understand what the composer is doing verbo-musically in the music in the following clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8zC8--Zu7o

A listener who doesn't know the words of the Sanctus in Latin is cut off from the subtle verbo-musical aspects of such music, experiencing it more as a wash of notes. He can't follow the mass so closely when he visits a monastery which uses Latin. I can pray in Latin. This practice reminds me that my prayers are united with centuries of prayer. I know that the very words I use were used by most of my (western European) Catholic ancestors. I suspect that, like a lot of matters, many reject Latin in the mass not for the allegedly noble and rational reasons they project, but for deeper, personal reactions like an excessive need to feel in control (a feeling strongly associated with linguistic fluency in certain situations), sheer apathy, even fear. The list is endless of such reactions which have no merit in themselves and are rather limitations of the person to be overcome. It is not for me to judge the deep causes of any such individual's antipathy to the idea of Latin in the mass (I naturally lack their self-knowledge) but my own self-knowledge would not justify any such deep, powerful but ultimately unreasonable motives in myself. I think the Church is long overdue a rigorous public reassessment of the alleged benefits of having jettisoned, at parish level, centuries of international linguistic and musical culture as if it had never existed.