What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

Some of the readers of this blog have blogs of their own.  I am grateful when you link to me.  (Feel free to add WDTPRS to your list.)

I always enjoy looking at the different blogs that give me referrals.  Here is a great reference over at Ad Mentem Sancti Thomae Aquinatis! 

Zelfs de krant Palm Beach Post, niet meteen een katholieke krant, kan zinnige dingen zeggen over de H. Mis. Waar blijven onze katholieke bladen?
Lees hier de tekst met commentaar van Fr. Z.!

It is a Solemnity in the Sacrosanct Basilica of St. Peter today, for today is the anniversary of its dedication in 1626.

The Basilica has its own Proper for various days of the year. Here is the Collect for today’s Solemnity:

COLLECT:
Deus, qui beati Petri Apostoli dignitatem
praecipue in nostra sacrosancta basilica facis esse gloriosam,
praesta, quaesumus,
ut et doctrina semper ipsius foveamur et meritis.

Dignitas, is "dignity", of course, but also "moral importance" in liturgical prayers. For Apostles, this word is used to underscore their role in the Church precisely as Apostles.

LITERAL VERSION:
O God, who are now making glorious
the dignity of the the blessed Apostle Peter,
especially in our most holy basilica,
grant, we beseech You,
that we may be supported both by his teaching and by his merits.

An old photo for this blog, but a good one.

There is an audio clip of an NPR show (National Public Radio) about the issue of new Mass and old Mass, English and Latin. There are some howler errors in the piece, but it worth listening to. Biretta tip to BC for the link: o{]:¬)

The person who put this together (by Rachel Martin) clearly had not a clue about the fact that Latin is the language of the Church. They claim more than once that Vatican II decreed that Mass had to be celebrated in the vernacular, etc., and confuse the issue of language. They interview the execrable Richard McBrien with predictable results.

I am curious to hear your reactions.

Over at the Shrine I saw this.  It is too funny.

The Palm Beach Post has a very sensible editorial today on the issue of Latin as the language for Holy Mass.  Here it is (my emphasis and comments):

Latin Mass would restore mystery

By Steve Gushee

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Friday, November 17, 2006

The Mass in the vernacular was a noble experiment that didn’t quite work. The Latin Mass might soon be back, and that could be a good thing for the Roman Catholic Church.

Pope Benedict XVI plans to make it much easier for churches to use the 16th-century Latin Mass. That could help deepen faith and unite an American church whose members speak a veritable babel of languages. 

The Catholic faith is, at its heart, a mystery. The Christian religion is best known in community. The Latin Mass enhanced mystery and created community for more than a thousand years and might again. The Mass in English has done neither.

The Roman Catholic Church only began to use English in worship in the mid-1960s following the Second Vatican Council.

English might have helped the English-speaking faithful understand what worship was about, but explaining a mystery in any language is an oxymoron. The use of English in the church’s central act of worship turned a profoundly moving and, yes, mysterious experience into a dull, pedestrian meeting with little power to stir the spirit or motivate the faithful.

St. Paul argued that the people should be taught in a language they understood. Sermons, instructions and teaching should be in such a language, but worship is another matter.

The faithful offer worship to God who is not bound by any language. The soaring majesty of the Latin Mass served the church well long after few if any of the faithful understood the words. They knew the liturgy, the rhythm and the power of the service.  [People who are blind or deaf or cannot speak or carry stuff around can participate far more actively, in the best sense, then those who can hear everything or say everything.]

Latin words accompanied the action of worship but were essentially unnecessary. Everyone knew what was happening. With English, however, the words demand attention. [Yes!  Years ago I did an interview with Augustine Card. Mayer, who made this same point, adding that the use of the vernacular tends to turn Mass into a "didactic moment" rather than an encounter with the God who is veiled in mystery.  Vernacular underscores the human rather than the divine.] The faithful attend the language rather than the mystery of redemption unfolding before them. Latin creates and preserves mystery. English dilutes it.

Latin also creates and preserves community. Any unfamiliar language will tend to bind together those who use is as a kind of tribal glue.

One of the most important tools Charlemagne used to unite his dispirited empire in the early ninth century was the Latin Mass. Alcuin, the emperor’s liturgical genius, enforced the same worship everywhere in Charlemagne’s vast realm, imposing a religious conformity that served to hold the empire together.

Catholics in America today speak countless different languages, including English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Polish, Portuguese and many more. The Mass in Latin might once again serve to create community even as it hallows mystery.

Why the heck do they get these things … at the Palm Beach Post and NOT at the Corriere della Sera (or the Osservatore for that matter)??

I had this question in the ASK FATHER Question Box recently.  Here it is with my response.

Classical Latin Mass: Follow-up to Kissing Hands/Objects

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By Anonymous on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 – 2:45 am

Fr. Zuhlsdorf,

In a previous thread about the "Tridentine" Mass, you said that servers should not kiss objects or the hands of priests during Mass because the practice was ended before the 1962 missal was promulgated. I’m wondering, specifically, what documents (if any) ended this practice.

Thank you for your response and all of your good work.

(I have been told to perform this rubric, and, to be honest, think it is a nice one, but need some clarification as to its legitimacy.)

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By Fr. Zuhlsdorf on Saturday, November 18, 2006 – 8:55 am:

The 1962 edition of Fortesque’s book (p. 88) says this about a server at Low Mass:

Whenever he hands anything to the celebrant, may kiss first the hand, then the thing. These are the so-called "solita oscula".[1] They are omitted in Masses for the dead and when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed.

[1]By custom these oscula are frequently omitted altogether by laymen and should be nowadays."