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To: Claud

Besides nostalgia, you failed to note any positives for conducting the Mass in Latin.

At the time Latin was first used, it was for the sole reason that it was the vernacular in Rome. It continued to be used because it was universally understood by the educated class throughout Christiandom. Neither of those are now the case. English has replaced Latin in that respect.


8 posted on 06/26/2014 3:38:18 AM PDT by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: SampleMan

Not nostalgia actually. But alright I’ll give you three positives.

Continuity. By St. Augustine’s time around 400 the Mass was already in Latin—it had been in Greek for the first few centuries. Now he was a brilliant theologian, but he was not very well connected to the Greek Scriptures and Fathers, which he himself recognized and lamented. When you lose a liturgical language, you are losing contact with an entire living heritage of exegesis and liturgy.

Mystery. What happens at the Christian altar is mysterious and sacred, isn’t it? When you use ordinary, plain language, what are you are telling the congregation? That what is happening is ordinary and plain. But when you use a designated sacred language, or at least a sacred variation of a vernacular language (like King James English), you are drawing a little bit of a veil over it.

Universality. Go to a Christian Church in another country. Do you understand what’s going on? Can you participate? I can. Latin forms a bridge over vastly different cultures and draws Christian communities closer together.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the widespread abandonment of a sacred language has made Christian congregations more modern and trendy rather than timeless, more vulgar and cheap rather than sacred, and more insulated and provincial rather than unified.


14 posted on 06/26/2014 4:42:41 AM PDT by Claud
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To: SampleMan
>> you failed to note any positives for conducting the Mass in Latin. It continued to be used because it was universally understood by the educated class throughout Christiandom. Neither of those are now the case. English has replaced Latin in that respect. <<

So English becoming universally understood by the educated class throughout Christiandom is a "negative" development?

35 posted on 06/26/2014 6:46:30 AM PDT by BillyBoy (Looking at the weather lately, I could really use some 'global warming' right now!)
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