PRESS HERE FOR A FASCINATING COMMENTARY FROM "THE CHANT CAFE" ON MULTI-CULTURAL PARISHES AND LITURGIES. THIS ARTICLE IS ABOUT A PARISH IN STONE MOUNTAIN, GA.
I'm half Italian, my better half, I might add, and when we came to America in 1957 when I was 3, my mother spoke almost no English and the English she spoke was not recognized as English.
My Canadian father, an immigrant turned naturalized American citizen, insisted that we not speak Italian in our new apartment outside Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Georgia so that my mother would be forced to speak English and that we children "in his eyes" wouldn't be marginalized in what at that time was a true southern town.
Over the course of the next 10 years, we children became very Americanized and southernized, but my mother never gave in to my father's demands that she speak English exclusively in the home, nor did we children reprimand our mother for speaking to us in Italian although we responded in English. My oldest sister is still very fluent in Italian, although I'm less so, but can get by in Italian.
But shouldn't the Church be the place where we come together in a common language especially here in America and in Stone Mountain of all places?
Wouldn't Latin for the Liturgy be the binding force and chant be the music rather than all kinds of ethnic music? Shouldn't the ethnic stuff be left for popular devotions and allow those to shine forth as cultural expressions and language choice rather than foisting this on the Mass itself?
What do you think?
23 comments:
Language can be a binding force. It can also be a dividing force. Latin can be a binding force - it can also be a dividing force.
There is nothing "sacred" about Latin, nor is there anything particularly "Catholic" about Latin, even in our liturgy. One can be as devout in Croatian, Pidgin English, or Afrikaans as one can in Latin.
Latin might "bind us" together in liturgy, but only artificially as an imposed or external construct. And liturgy is the place for authenticity, both in our liturgical norms, our language, and our music.
I personally would not have a problem with "ethnic" parishes or Masses where the language of the people is spoken but would hope that in this country that would be a transitional occurrence until English is learned.
What I dislike are Masses that try to have all the languages that are spoken incorporated into one Mass--no one like these types of Masses except for special occasions.
I have no easy answers but I do think the Church's liturgy so be a point of unity rather than a conglomeration or appeasing languages.
This just seems like another instance of a misdirected purpose that leads to pandering to us simpletons that form the Church's laity. If the prayers of the Mass are directed to God, why do the people need to understand them?
Anonymous: How does Latin not bind us together? Wouldn't it be nice to go to any Catholic Church in the world and know exactly what to expect? I know when I travel there is the anxiety about the local "norms" employed at any given parish - imagine the universality demonstrated by eliminating that (by reverting back to the Church's traditional liturgy, for example).
And who says Latin is not a manifestation of authenticity? The Tridentine Mass developed organically over centuries as an authentic expression of the Church's worship - that includes the language and music. On the other hand, the Ordinary Form is itself an imposed and external construct cobbled together by a relatively small number of liturgists over a period of just a few years.
I agree that one can be devout in any language. However, there is a difference when speaking about the public liturgy of the Church.
I would like to have the Mass in Latin as a communal tie, and devotions can be done anyway one chooses. There is a prescribed format to the Mass that is lost when trying to incorporate all sorts of things and I find it terribly distracting. Mass is to worship God and it's about God, not us.
There is nothing "sacred" about Latin, nor is there anything particularly "Catholic" about Latin, even in our liturgy.
My word! Could this person be unaware that the Bible was transmitted to the western Church in Latin, and read exclusively in Latin for a thousand years? That the liturgy of our rite developed exclusively in Latin, that the very mind and thought of the Church developed in Latin.
Nothing sacred? Where on earth are you coming from?
One can be as devout in Croatian, Pidgin English, or Afrikaans as one can in Latin.
Perhaps "one" can, but how many actually are? Check it out, Pater, go to a typical Sunday Mass celebrated in one of those languages, then go to one celebrated in in Latin, and see for yourself which language appears to best encourage devoutness.
I have attended Mass prayed in Japanese ... and although the missal included a "Roma-ji" (Roman Letter) transliteration and English (and, yes, LATIN!) translation .... how much easier it would be for me if Father prayed in Latin! How much easier would it be for any Catholic -- anywhere -- to hear Mass?
I'm all for going back to Latin -- whether or not it is the Extraordinary Form or Ordinary Form of the Mass.
父と子と聖霊の御名によって,アーメン
Chichi to Ko to Seirei no mina ni yotte, aamen.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen...
--Guy
This reminds me of a conversation I had many years ago. The other fellow was of the view that doctors used Latin to preserve their 'club'. I asked if it was of any use that if one fell ill in, say, Ghana, it would be helpful that the manual was in universal language that had the benefit of being relatively stable for almost 2000 years.
There appears to be a contradiction, upon initial review, that 'catholic' would mean universal and yet need to control diversification. This is the acolyte's view, I think. The Church does not rob of of our individuality until it tries to enforce it. God loves irony.
rcg
The comment about being being devout on Croatian, or Pidgin English..." caught my attention. I am not sure one can because Pidgin specifically is not precise by its nature. The other languages are problematic because they may not have the same conceptual sequences as Latin. That is the grounds for the translation kerfuffle and the new Missal. We can separately be 'just as good as' but we are not the same. Understanding that is important and to deny it can be a problem for teaching the faith.
rcg
Yes, the bible was transmitted to the West in Latin, but how does this make Latin a "sacred" language. Do the Hebrew and Greek precursors share this sacred character? If not, why not?
"The liturgy of our rite developed exclusively in Latin." Kyrie eleison...
"...that the very mind and thought of the Church developed in Latin." A few Fathers of the Church, such as Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Saint Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Maximus the Confessor, Saint John of Damascus, and the Cappadocian Father who participated mightily in the development of the mind and thought of the Church wrote in . . . Greek.
No, Latin is not sacred, neither is it an indespensible part of Catholicism.
Esperanto, anyone?
Anonymous,
In case you're serious .... Of course, Hebrew as used in Jewish liturgy, and (old) Greek in Orthodox liturgy, are sacral languages. As is old Church Slavonic in Russian Orthodox, etc etc etc. (I think "sacral" rather than "sacred" is what we're really talking about here.)
And -- I suspect you may actually think you are serious -- Esperanto is not a sacral language. Nor could the genius of Shakespeare be communicated in it.
Indeed, not even the very fine translations of Shakespeare in German and Spanish as fully penetrate his thought as the English in which his thought developed.
Which is akin to why Western religious thought cannot be fully communicated in Greek (even though it has some Greek antecedents), nor can Eastern religious thought be fully communicated in Latin; however sacral Latin may be, it is not the language in which Orthodox spirituality developed.
You've got a lot to learn about the relation between language and worship. These are just some starting points. (With respect, if due, it's my observation in blogdom that people named "Anonymous" are generally slow learners.)
Yes, I find people in blogdom are slow learners, too.
I am well aquainted with the connection between langauge and worship. My graduate degree is in systematic theology.
Some slow learners, however, seem to confuse what is "historical" with what is "Traditional." Latin was used historically in the Latin Rite of the Church, but this does not mean that it constitutes Tradition. It certainly does not mean that Latin is sacral - a good distinction.
And, to stand up for the Greek Fathers, referring to them as "some Greek antecedents" is entirely too facile, not to mention a tad dismissive.
I have attended very reverent liturgies now in, I think, 7 languages, none of which was Latin.
Anonymous Pater: "I have attended very reverent liturgies now in, I think, 7 languages, none of which was Latin."
Then I can only envy you, because the very best still awaits you, in your future (for which, my best wishes).
Anonymous: You still haven't responded to Marc's observation that the Novus Ordo is, in your words, an "imposed construct." Do you prefer the Novus Ordo to the Latin Mass? If so, then aren't you simply preferring one construct to another? And if so, then how can you object to the idea of an artificially imposed construct in liturgy? And if you can't logically do so, then why not accept the most universal of these constructs--a language that everyone from every culture must learn as a second language, whose meanings are set because that language no longer changes with use and whose theological meanings were worked out over more than a millennium? Isn't such a language less likely than any other to be a dividing force? Or, if you disagree with that last statement, is the divisiveness due to the language or to something that accompanies it, such as orthodoxy as opposed to heterodoxy and dissent?
Well, I don't agree at all that the NO is an "imposed external construct." Just becauise someone has claimed this does not make it so.
St. Juystin Martyr's description of the worship of the Christians of his day closely, very closely, matches the celebration we know as the Novus Ordo. This isn't something some small group cobbled together. The "Six Protestant Minister Conspiracy Theory" raises it's fallacious head I think.
"Second" languages aren't sufficient, in my estimation. And the idea that everyone in the good ol' days knew their Latin isn't factual. Or the idea that reading along in a missal is a good thing is not something with which I would agree.
Ummm . . . I'm sorry, Anonymous (I shall call myself Anonymous 2), but I just don't see how St Justin Martyr's description of the Mass (which I've just now re-read to make sure) is a description of the NO and not of the Latin Mass. (And I attend both.) Readings, Homily, Eucharistic Liturgy/Prayer--I don't think it is possible to say that this description applies only to the NO and not to the Latin Mass, which you seem to be saying at least by implication. Therefore, my question still stands: if one is a construct, then isn't the other? And if the NO isn't a construct, then how can the Latin Mass be one, as your very first post implies? But if both are constructs, then why not Latin? After all, even if people in the good old days didn't all know Latin, I bet that a poll of Catholics today would reveal that most don't know the meaning of Alleluia, Amen, or even Kyrie Eleison. Further, most wouldn't be able to identify the epiclesis or even relate the Eucharist to the Passover. And yet Latin-ignorant attendees at a Latin Mass probably knew as well as NO attendees today that the Mass is a participation in Christ's sacrifice, yes? So in the first case knowledge of language doesn't equate to knowledge of the Mass, while in the second case ignorance of language is no bar to understanding, right?
No, I did not say nor did I imply that the EF mass was an external construct. I said "Latin might 'bind us' together in liturgy, but only as an imposed or external construct."
Latin is the external construct.
External construct would be true of any of the sacramental aspects of the Mass, its order, its music, what is sung, what isn't, it's language, but external constructs are employed to bind us, whether that be only unleaven bread in the Latin Rite or the language of Latin in the Latin Rite or any of the other things we use, water, vesture, type of oil (we don't use motor oil, etc.
I'm also not saying that external constructs do not matter - they do. "Grace Builds on Nature."
Our liturgy is, rightly, sensual. This flows from the Truth of the Incarnation. It was in and through the divine/human person Jesus that salvation was made known in its fullness.
Anonymous, Isn't "systematic theology" some kind of oxymoron? It is, after all, a "construct" imposed upon the freedom of the Holy Spirit by those obsessed with philosophical categories. Congrats, I have a couple of graduate degrees in theology and Church history also. I try my best to forget about them...
No, Systematic Theology is not oxymoronic. Wikipedia defines it thus: a discipline of Christian theology that attempts to formulate and orderly, rational, and coherent account of the Christian faith and beliefs.
I treasure my education, all of it in Catholic schools. So, unlike you, I don't try to forget what so many priests, nuns, and lay teachers worked to help me understand.
Anon, I know the technical definition. I was pointing out that there is a presumption in the notion of "systematic theology..." But, never mind. I am glad that you treasure your theological education. My own was academically highly rated in some of the best (at the time) protestant Divinity Schools. Unfortunately, I began to realize where it would ultimately lead. My fears have been more than borne out.
I prefer the term "dogmatics" to "systematic theology." My comment on forgetting was tongue in cheek...a reflection of my disgust with neo-protestant theology.
Wow, Father Allan, thanks for the shoutout. I imagine that when I saw the word "fascinating" in the link, I had a similar tingle run up my leg, ala Chris Matthews' famous Obama fawn, "Honey, Father McDonald linked my article on his blog!" Aw, now I gotta go to confession...sigh
Next time, maybe, give me a warning or something, as I'm turning sixty and way too gravity bound (over hundred pounds or so.)
Sometimes I mull whether a few of us should start a new blog consortium, "The League of Centrist Catholic Gentlemen," with Fritz, Karl LS, you 'n' me....
Anyway, what fun. Thanks.
I can't understand the attachment to the Latin language. It's clear to me that the objective here is to glorify Christ by memorializing his death and resurrection at the mass in the best way possible. With the focus on Jesus of Nazareth, we know that Latin was not a requisite for communicating the message of faith that he gave us during his public life. It was merely a later(regional) step in the evolution of His Church.
Yes, the nature of the Church is universal but if one language were to be chosen to express that universality, and that unity, it seems today it should be the widely recognized English language.
But I am always reminded of, as a child, how far from Christ I felt when the mass was being said in a foreign tongue, i.e. Latin.
Yes, and later I got that feeling again when traveling to the Far East and elsewhere, but I was in the minority there and it became an incentive for me to learn that native language so I could understand, and communicate more intimately with those fellow Christians.
All that said, I think worshipping in one's native language is the best way to glorify Christ, to glorify God.
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