QUIBUSCUMQUE MISA LATINA PRAEDILIGENT OFFERTUR
THE pre-eminent college drinking song of all time. The authorities of a pre-eminent Roman Catholic university in Germany where it was composed by a Dominican monk were not amused. He lost his job. But the spirit of his song remains after more than 225 years.
If you can't enjoy this, you have no business at a Latin Language Mass.
Would you have fired him?
Gaudeamus igitur
Juvenes dum sumus
Post jucundum juventutem
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus.
Ubi sunt qui ante nos
In mundo fuere?
Vadite ad superos
Transite in infernos
Hos si vis videre.
Vita nostra brevis est
Brevi finietur.
Venit mors velociter
Rapit nos atrociter
Nemini parcetur.
Vivat academia
Vivant professores
Vivat membrum quodlibet
Vivat membra quaelibet
Semper sint in flore.
Vivant omnes virgines
Faciles, formosae.
Vivant et mulieres
Tenerae amabiles
Bonae laboriosae.
Vivant et republica
et qui illam regit.
Vivat nostra civitas,
Maecenatum caritas
Quae nos hic protegit.
Pereat tristitia,
Pereant osores.
Pereat diabolus,
Quivis antiburschius
Atque irrisores.
(vers. C. W. Kindeleben 1781)
Istum judicium Benedicti decimi sexti pressionem sanguinem meum augmentare causat. Lex orandi, lex credendi per ipso violetur.
8 comments:
It isn't the Latin that attracts me. When I go TLM I take a English/Latin missal. What attracts me is the reverence, vertical emphasis, people of God (including the priest) all facing the same direction to worship God rather than facing eachother, the lack of Haugen Haas hideous music, people respecting the presence of the sacred with silence, proper dress, and reverent reception of the sacrament. Every time I've gone to a TLM I have experienced this (all 15 times or so), and only a few times (<10) have I experienced this in the mass of Paul VI in English in all the years of attending mass thus far (I attend the NO almost exclusively because I have to drive 2 hours each way for the TLM). I'm too young to have experienced the transitional mass of the mid 1960's but from what I have read in an old missal from that era, that vernacular mass would have been perfect. So the issue of wanting the latin mass, for me anyway, has very little to do with the language itself and everything to do with worshiping God in with the spirit of holiness.
My blood pressure went up, as well, but from excitement at the thought that the extraordinary form of the liturgy has now returned to stay as the provisions of the motu proprio carry the force of law.
No one is going to be forced to attend the Latin liturgy, but one has to be aware, from a purely historical persepctive (if nothing else), that this is the Mass that fostered the sanctity of the Church's greatest saints (the literate AND the illiterate) and also of Her most humble members, for more than a millenium.
In my own English parish we have substantial minorities of Italians, Poles and Indians. Previous to the introduction of the vernacular Mass we all could have worshipped together in the same language. Now they have their own special Masses, served by circuit priests.
In an age of increasing multiculturism is a universal language for worship really such a bad idea? The question is increasingly going to be if we have Mass in the vernacular, whose vernacular do we choose?
I enjoy reading the comments that my opinion has elicited. They are polite, kind and well put. They also deserve a response, or at least a reaction from the author of the blog.
Many, and I mean, many say that it is not the Latin that they seek, but the spirit of sacredness and holiness that they get from the ritual. They are elevated by the quiet, the silence, the ability to pray and to prepare for communion. The atmosphere is so much more mystical.
I don't deny that, no one does. To be perfectly honest, I do have a corner in my heart that says that there is room for that in the church. It is a small corner, but it is there. I also know that it is not what the Fathers of Vatican Council II intended. They intended that the Mass should be a participatory celebration of the mystery of salvation, not a personal, mystical preparation to the reception of communion. They intended the entire Mass to be Eucharist, priest and laity celebrating together. More community singing, more bible stories, mandatory homily, etc. That's why they put the priest as close to the crowd as they could, face to face, joy to joy. That is why we have what we have in this day and age.
Starting on September 14, 2007, those who want the peace and quiet of preparing themselves for communion while the priest turns his back to them, consecrates the bread and wine and prays in whispers in a foreign language will have more opportunities to do so. It is Benedict XVI's opinion that this is good for the church.
I still like him a lot. I remember him from when he was a young expert at the Council. I was in Rome then. He is good for the church. Let us hope and pray that God gives him health, strength and energy, physical and spiritual for some years to come.
Paul Dion, STL
Theology Editor
ParishWorld.net
Si Fractus Fortis:
Your comment about whose vernacular is this anyway? is a good one. It is a problem these days when there are fewer ordained priests around than when I was a child. I was brought up in New England in a family that believed "if you lose your mother language, you lose your faith." Yes, that is a directly translated quote of the general attitude, expressed often in the parochial schools, the homes and eventually, the parish church. So we went to the French language parochial school, and the adjacent church, of course. The same was true for the Polish, Italian and Portuguese children. What makes this all the more interesting is that the only vernacular that we ever heard was the sermon and the announcements! Oh, and of course we could confess in our mother tongue on Saturday afternoon. You're free to check out the veracity of this statement.
I don't know what the answer to your dilemma is, because unless you eliminate the sermon and the announcements, you still have the same question. I'm glad that I am too old to have to try to solve this one. And for that reason, you are not allowed to cry at my funeral.
Paul Dion, STL
Theology Editor
ParishWorld.net
Anonymous:
Now it is your turn.
"No one is going to be forced to attend the Latin liturgy, but one has to be aware, from a purely historical persepctive (if nothing else), that this is the Mass that fostered the sanctity of the Church's greatest saints (the literate AND the illiterate) and also of Her most humble members, for more than a millenium."
We don't really want to get serious here, do we? More than a millenium takes us to 1006, at a minimum. That was when the language of the liturgy and the form of the ritual was the least of the church's problems. The patriarchs of the East and the Pope in the West had been at one another's throats for close to 200 years! BXVI has just drawn the line in the sand with John XXIII's missal of 1962, a mere 45 years ago. In 1006 the rites were in Greek, Russian, Aramaic, Latin and who knows what else? The real explosion was still 48 years away and the Hagia Sophia was still area franca, even for the Latin Popes and their legates.
This was the time of the "Filioque" discussions and the date of Easter.
I will also grant you that it was the time of thriving monasticism and there were saintly luminaries on both "sides of the aisle" so to speak.
Like I said, we don't want to get too serious here, for surely you said "millenium" in jest.
Paul Dion, STL
Theology Editor
ParishWorld.net
Sir,
I read your comments on the mass desired by Vatican II. I too have read all the Vatican II documents at one time or another (most of them aobut 15 years ago), and I didn't get those things from any of them. Perhaps, if you are willing, one of your future articles could be on this subject, and you could demonstrate the thesis outlined in your response. I know you're busy (we all are), so please don't take this as a demand, just a request.
Thank you
Taliesin:
I will comply with your request. I am grateful that you offer me some time to get it done.
By the way, Vatican II did not expect some of the hideous music to which we are often subjected
(:-)
Paul Dion, STL
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