Latin Mass

[ChesterKhan]

*snip*.

And it's stuff like this that makes me cringe at the mention of TLM.

I went to one once. It was, admittedly, a Low Mass. Sorry, I just gave up following along. It's OK. I prefer the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom to it. The Ordinary Form is slightly better (compared to Low Mass) because you can understand it, and you can hear the priest, and follow along, even without music.

Someone above said they'd been to 4 different types of Masses including Eastern ones. I wonder if they have heard of the Anglican Use? My archdiocese is very fortunate to have one such parish. Their Mass is something like TLM, but in English, with English hymns, and added prayers from the Book of Common Prayer. I quite like it.

 

[Dylan Michael]

And it's stuff like this that makes me cringe at the mention of TLM.

I went to one once. It was, admittedly, a Low Mass. Sorry, I just gave up following along. It's OK. I prefer the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom to it. The Ordinary Form is slightly better (compared to Low Mass) because you can understand it, and you can hear the priest, and follow along, even without music.

Someone above said they'd been to 4 different types of Masses including Eastern ones. I wonder if they have heard of the Anglican Use? My archdiocese is very fortunate to have one such parish. Their Mass is something like TLM, but in English, with English hymns, and added prayers from the Book of Common Prayer. I quite like it.

Yes, I have, about half a dozen times.

What I said is I've been to 4 different Eastern Chrurches. (Ruthenian-Byzantine, Ukrainian, Melkite, and Maronite.) Plus my native Roman rite. Roman Rite. (OF, EF, (Solemn, Missa Cantata, and Low,) and Anglican Use.)

 

[Anhelyna]

Hmmm

Wonder if I can post a few thoughts here - for your consideration.

GoingByzantine actually touched on this but I want to say a bit more.

OK I'm in a Ukrainian language parish - and we use Ukrainian for everything except , if there are enough people there , for the readings.

OK you can learn the response to the petitions in the Litanies easily - there are only two Господи, помилуй and : Пода́й, Го́споди.

There are various other hymns etc that we sing regularly - but the Propers change weekly on an 8 week cycle and of course vary during the week according to which day it is.

It's relatively easy to learn the Lords Prayer - but the Creed ? and our Pre-Communion prayer [ which BTW is the ONLY thing that is ever recited in our Liturgies ]

Both the Creed and the Pre-Communion Prayer are actually statements of Faith and we have to be able to say/sing them believing every word we use . If you are struggling with pronunciation are you able to concentrate and actually MEAN everything you are reciting/singing ?

After I was Received my Spiritual Father made me promise one thing , and this promise is binding , I am to take the readings in English with me every time I go to Liturgy - as no matter how well I learn the language I will miss some of the nuances in the language .

Yes I now reckon that I am actually singing well over 75% of the service in Ukrainian - and I'm told I do it well . There are people in our parish , younger than me , of Ukrainian/Scottish parentage and they have less than perfect knowledge of the language - they 'sing' the Liturgy in Ukrainian but if you asks them to read something - it has to be put into what they call 'latinski' . This allows them to make the sounds , but they are very definitely reading without comprehension. They have actually been taught the Liturgy and are in fact parroting it .

OK now back to the use of Latin - you can learn to mechanically read it [ it's using the same alphabet after all - you don't have to learn a different alphabet ] but do you actually really understand each word or are you just 'getting the drift' of the prayers ?

It's not the language that you use every day - so are you fluent ? Are you missing the nuances in the language ?

I don't expect a response to this - and I do not intend to debate it - but please start thinking about it - really think .

Just because a particular language was used in the past does it mean it should be used now ?

 

[AXO]

Latin is the language listed in the CIC as the one appropriate for celebrating Mass:
–The eucharistic celebration is to be carried out in the Latin language or in another language provided that the liturgical texts have been legitimately approved.
Code of Canon Law, c. 928.

I would like to attend a Mass of the Anglicanorum coetibus churches (personal ordinariates, those coming from the Anglican Communion). Unfortunately there isn't anyone of them in Continental Europe.

 

[Anhelyna]

you missed this bit

in another language provided that the liturgical texts have been legitimately approved.

 

[Dylan Michael]

Hmmm

Wonder if I can post a few thoughts here - for your consideration.

GoingByzantine actually touched on this but I want to say a bit more.

OK I'm in a Ukrainian language parish - and we use Ukrainian for everything except , if there are enough people there , for the readings.

OK you can learn the response to the petitions in the Litanies easily - there are only two Господи, помилуй and : Пода́й, Го́споди.

There are various other hymns etc that we sing regularly - but the Propers change weekly on an 8 week cycle and of course vary during the week according to which day it is.

It's relatively easy to learn the Lords Prayer - but the Creed ? and our Pre-Communion prayer [ which BTW is the ONLY thing that is ever recited in our Liturgies ]

Both the Creed and the Pre-Communion Prayer are actually statements of Faith and we have to be able to say/sing them believing every word we use . If you are struggling with pronunciation are you able to concentrate and actually MEAN everything you are reciting/singing ?

After I was Received my Spiritual Father made me promise one thing , and this promise is binding , I am to take the readings in English with me every time I go to Liturgy - as no matter how well I learn the language I will miss some of the nuances in the language .

Yes I now reckon that I am actually singing well over 75% of the service in Ukrainian - and I'm told I do it well . There are people in our parish , younger than me , of Ukrainian/Scottish parentage and they have less than perfect knowledge of the language - they 'sing' the Liturgy in Ukrainian but if you asks them to read something - it has to be put into what they call 'latinski' . This allows them to make the sounds , but they are very definitely reading without comprehension. They have actually been taught the Liturgy and are in fact parroting it .

OK now back to the use of Latin - you can learn to mechanically read it [ it's using the same alphabet after all - you don't have to learn a different alphabet ] but do you actually really understand each word or are you just 'getting the drift' of the prayers ?

It's not the language that you use every day - so are you fluent ? Are you missing the nuances in the language ?

I don't expect a response to this - and I do not intend to debate it - but please start thinking about it - really think .

Just because a particular language was used in the past does it mean it should be used now ?

Interesting point of view, and I agree.

The prayers I know in Latin (and Spanish!) are the ones that I know already in English.
So when I pray the Domine, non sum dignus I know what I am saying and what it means, but when the priest reads the Collect, the Epistle, the Gospel, and whatnot, I read along in English.

 

[Anhelyna]

And you know what our Liturgy is like - so you know how much we actually do

 

[AXO]

you missed this bit

I know, but I wanted to emphasize how the Church has respected the Latin language in the Latin Rite as to include it in the Ordinary of the Mass and every official text.

 

[Dylan Michael]

And you know what our Liturgy is like - so you know how much we actually do

Yes.

 

[RKO]

I LOVE THE LATIN MASS!!! I wish there was a way to learn the prayers in Latin.

If you are male, volunteer to be a server. ( I don't THINK many parishes that do the Tridentine Mass have female servers, but I could be worng.)
I did this when I was in my thirties and learned almost all of the mass, I guess from osmosis. There are several parts in the Latin that the servers say, and I learned those the normal way, but just being up there and listening will go a long way.

 

[ChesterKhan]

Hmmm

Wonder if I can post a few thoughts here - for your consideration.


Just because a particular language was used in the past does it mean it should be used now ?

My thoughts exactly. We say the words because we mean them. But how can we mean words we hardly understand?

I know there are many people who would object. But I think, given we are one Church, given Latin was originally a lingua franca, and given a fair amount of the world knows English these days - take a guess.

Perhaps we should adopt English as the new "lingua franca" of the Church and of the Liturgy? I've kicked it around in my head...

 

[Anhelyna]

Now we hit the thorny problem of what is the vernacular - the language of the people OR the language of the country ?

At this point - I bow out

 

[judechild]

And it's stuff like this that makes me cringe at the mention of TLM.

What part of it made you cringe?

It's really only the theology of Sacred space (the sanctuary, the church, pilgrimage-sites, etc) and of Sacred time (Sunday, the set-up of the Liturgy of the Hours) applied to language - i.e. that contact with Christ effects a change in the fabric of creation, not just the individual.

Curiously, the responses I'm reading here for the reasons why Latin ought not to be considered more sacred are essentially the same as the objections evangelicals and other non-liturgical Christians have toward the liturgy in general, particularly what you said in post 31: that we say words because we mean them. The evangelical takes that and applies it to the liturgy in general: you don't mean words that have been written previously by someone else. The evangelicals also have a very weak understanding of Sacred Space and Sacred Time, which allows them to depreciate the liturgy. I think you've fallen into a similar error, in thinking that words themselves are not material for the sacred in the same way as space and time.

There's also a second theological distinction that's been glossed over, and that is the distinction between public and private prayer. Private prayer is my personal devotional life; its value depends on my existential relationship with God, the Saints, the Church, etc. Public prayer (the liturgy) is not my own: I do not say the words because I mean them - I say them because the Church means them. The failure on the part of many of the clergy to comprehend the difference between public and private prayer has led to the infamous liturgical abuses.

Latin in the liturgy (the public prayer of the Church) is a beautifully incarnational sign, with the same theological justification as Sacred Space and Sacred Time, as well as a counter to too heavy a reliance on existentialism in the spiritual life.

And just as a final note, I don't pray in Latin; I pray the Liturgy of the Hours in Italian. It is not my first language; I do not understand every nuance or, indeed, every word. But I don't worry, because the prayer is not my own, and it does not rely on me.

 

[Fantine]

In Jesus' time, and for several centuries following, Latin was the language of the oppressor. In the early Church, Latin was the language of genocidal emperors seeking to exterminate Christians by throwing them to the lions.

Yup, you can't get much more sacred than that.

 

[Dylan Michael]

In Jesus' time, and for several centuries following, Latin was the language of the oppressor. In the early Church, Latin was the language of genocidal emperors seeking to exterminate Christians by throwing them to the lions.

Yup, you can't get much more sacred than that.

English was too.
And Spanish.
And French.
Et c.

 

[GoingByzantine]

I echo the thoughts of Anhelyna, though I have never had to know Ukrainian only, there are a number of parishes in my Eparchy that use next to no English. Yes I can pronounce Cyrillic characters, but I don't think I would get the same value out of it, as I do English.

Latin likewise is a very special language, rich and historical. However, if one does not know what is being said, is there really honor to God present in the liturgy?

 

[Anhelyna]

Latin likewise is a very special language, rich and historical. However, if one does not know what is being said, is there really honor to God present in the liturgy?

quoted for truth

 

[judechild]

Yup, you can't get much more sacred than that.

Also during Jesus' time, the Cross was a torture-device used to kill criminals, but you can't get much more sacred than the Cross. Or, for another example, the ancient Hebrews (i.e. right after the Exodus) were genocides; are you going to tell me that that means that they could not become sacred because of the sins of the past?

I already said that the language has undergone a change after centuries of contact with the liturgy. The concept of Sacred Language is an incarnational sign because it takes a previously unremarkable Language - or even one used to put to death the savior, and allows it to become holy. It's the same thing with human beings. Before he was St. Francis, he was a party-boy.

As for honor given to God being dependent on the comprehension of the congregation; I think we run into very significant problems. If it were so, then more honor is given to God by the ones who understand the Mass more (language does not equal understanding). People today do not understand the Mass at all; if we took a survey of the congregation at select parts of the Mass, I'd be willing to place a bet that almost all of them would have an erroneous idea - even of what the Eucharist is (that has been documented time and time again). If the Mass' sanctity were dependent on the number of people really comprehending what's going on, it would quantify peoples' spiritual-worth according to their study and intelligence.

I'm not saying that there's no argument that vernacular in the liturgy is a good idea, only that the argument that honor being given to God is a factor of comprehension is very thorny.

 

[Anhelyna]

I repeat - what is the vernacular ?

 

[Ave Maria]

I have never been to a Latin Mass which is also called the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. I would love to go to one someday but the nearest one to me is about an hour's drive away and so I have not yet gone.