Hello, friends. Steve has been posting alot about Latin Mass and I wanted to frame a discussion.
Latin Masses are popping up all over the place and there’s a sizable chunk of Catholics who think that’s great. There’s another sizable chunk of folks who think that’s very bad. And there’s a large chunk of people who don’t care what language the Mass is celebrated in as long as the priest doesn’t ask for money.
I have mixed feelings about the re-emergence of entire liturgies in Latin, but wanted to open the floor to discussion. Truth be known, I have mixed feelings about the entire liturgy in English, but it has more to do with the character of the liturgy than with the language. Let’s discuss, shall we? E-mail me and I’ll post comments here. This should be fun.
Here’s my first tidbit for the discussion: I see many people attracted to Latin Mass because by its nature it can’t have the clap-trap and cacophony associated with many litugies in the US. You can’t have 7 guitars piped through the sound system at a Latin Mass. No one is going to be banging a tambourine for half the Mass. There’s actually some still, quiet times for mediation instead of 30 minute homilities on mediation. And you won’t find a priest rewording the Eucharistic prayer for “pastoral” reasons during a Latin Mass.
And I think those are valid problems with the liturgy today. But I don’t think Mass in Latin is the uber-solution to the problem.
Feel free to drop da bombs here.
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I too have experienced for some time mixed feelings about the Liturgy. Since the 70s, and for that matter, post Vatican II in the US, the liturgy has under gone such “experimentation” that I wonder how can anyone in the last 30 years, “feel” comfortable in the liturgy–especially considering that the liturgy is to be an expression of the faith as a “work of the people.” So do we now belong to a pluralistic Church, since the liturgy has turned pluralistic in its rite–yes predominantly in its language. Yet do not words have meaning?
My last quick question is this: explain to me how is it that our US version of the Mass has not been officially approved by the Vatican due to numerous reasons and seems to be the most dominant form–even to the degree of being translated into other languages, for example, Spanish–YET the Latin version of the Roman Rite is an approved Rite, but you’d be hard pressed to find a parish who offers it regularly, if ever….?