yes, but they have to wait 40 years...

(anyhow...that link doesn't seem to be working but I would like to see this in context...do you have the correct link?)

For CCCA,
Your link is mal-formed (please check the html construction).

For everyone,
Am I the only one who cracks a smile when titles use words like "Modern" or "Today"?

I found this a most interesting and yet curious article... the priest is writing against the EF of the Mass... which he regularly celebrates. I was distressed also by his mocking a couple's request (to other guests, even!) for the "Requiem Mass" ordinary - hardly pastoral behavior.

And yet, I find much to learn in his described situations. The parishioners who deride the EF as a "museum piece". The college student describing a "layer of meaning entirely absent." His snark about the foolish benighted souls who would greet him in the plural - what a glaring howler!

If we filter this through a lens OTHER than negativity and despair, there's some interesting info there. To the people of his church, the EF is about "how it used to be," and indeed how many times do we read the more-orthodox-than-thou on the internet saying that what the church needs to do is go back to 1950? This isn't the EF I've experience though. I've always experienced the EF as being in the here-and-now, addressing the issues of today in the sermon, the music, the lectionary. My first experience though was in a choir loft at a Low Mass with Left-Foot-Lucy crooning out sentimental ditties from the St. Gregory on a 3 rank Moeller unit organ - yep, let's leave that mess in a museum! But the EF as it is among many today is a Mass of progress and of challenge, not reclaiming some imaginary better age, but building on it.

I agree, from my times attending the EF it can at first have a level of meaning entirely absent. It's something to be acclimated to, and no amount of reading or watching videos can prepare you for that - you just have to attend. But the meaning builds in with familiarity, and eventually the WORK that you have to put into it makes it take on a deeper meaning even than the OF. It's active participation - that's the level of meaning one needs, and that comes from the attendee, not from the Mass.

And the Latin. We know Latin is the biggest hangup, and there are mountains of projects, even from the staunchest supporters of Latin, to reinforce the Mass in English: SEP, Vatican II Hymnal, Missals, MR3, ICEL chants, Choral propers, metrical introits, etc.... I am VERY disturbed to hear someone say that one cannot participate in Mass, or is impaired, if one does not know Latin. Very disturbed. Because it isn't about the language, it's about recognition. The people that this priest mocked spoke a phrase which they heard hundred of times, and his reaction was that they suck at the language. No, they were not trying to show their fondness for the language, but for the MASS - and again, this priest mocked them. Latin in the Mass ISN'T about translating every word and clause - and shame on its promoters if it is - but it IS about "Hosanna in excelsis" "et cum spirtu tuo" "Gloria in excelsis" "Puer natus" "et cetera." I've yet to hear of a lawyer being reprimanded by a judge for speaking a foreign language, saying "habeas corpus", so why do people reprimand a priest who says "dominus vobiscum"?

We need to learn from this. People WILL resist tradition, but it's important to know and understand WHY they will. Liam is always redressing people on both sides of the aisle to ask questions, non-rhetorical, which don't have yes/no answers. If all you want is confirmation of your own Rightness, you aren't of much value in building up anything. Let's seek to understand legitimate difficulties people have, and how we can help them. That's what being "pastoral" is REALLY all about!

Excellent, Gavin.
Also, in addition to his totally-unhelpful negativity, I believe he made a negative comment about people "not understanding the readings." Well...I've been to more than a couple EFs, in different states, different dioceses, different churches, and if I remember correctly, at EVERY SINGLE ONE of them, not only was a printed translation made available, but the readings were read in the vernacular at the beginning of the homily! Good grief...if he is going to make a beef about it, can't it be something that's accurate?!

Nicely written Gavin. A well composed response.

Well, since the good father asked that "may we continue with faithfulness and good humor (and in all the languages of humankind)", here it is in my own:

I don’t get this business with the Tridentine Mass. I should get it.

...Yea, he should get it all right! He IS a Latin Rite priest, isn't he?

I was in ninth grade at Cathedral High School when the first English translations were introduced. As a boy, I learned the Latin responses to the prayers at the foot of the altar and the other parts proper to the altar server. I could sing the proper parts of the Mass with our St. Rose of Lima School schola, as well as the ordinary parts, and I could pronounce Latin far better than I ever understood it.

So what the h**l happened then?

I have but rarely presided at the liturgy in Latin. A couple times, as a pastor, I worked to convince parishioners that we should celebrate at least one Mass on Pentecost Sunday in the lingua antiqua and sing the Missa de Angelis, Mass VIII. Afterward, even daily-Mass Catholics would say, “Well that was a nice enough look at a museum piece, but I don’t need to do that again.”

Example of where shepherd listens to sheep. Wolves love these kind of leaders.

Still, I recently scheduled Mass in Latin for students at the college where I teach. They should know, or at least experience, that part of the tradition. At least that’s what I told them. One of the most rigorously orthodox of our students said sweetly, succinctly, and accurately the morning after: “It was nice to be in touch with our tradition and to experience the Mass as did our grandparents, but there was a layer of meaning entirely absent.”

And what is this mysterious layer of meaning? I am not getting the layer thingy.

Catholic folks born in the 1950s often assert that they know Latin. Few actually know it. Some will say, “I speak Latin.” Or “My mother speaks Latin.” Then they greet me: “Dominus vobiscum.” I may be large, but I do not take the plural.

I get really tired of hearing the 'understanding' Latin, bogus ruse.

Speaking or understanding Latin has nothing to do with praying with Latin at the 'extraodinary rite'... (correction... it's called the Extraordinary Form.) It is ecclesiastical (ritual) language. We read the translation to know what it means. I don't know how much Father understands that when music has been composed in Latin, it is very difficult to set a new translation to the original words. Like Jesus said, when you pour new wine in old skins, you break the skins. It is the music itself, that can communicate the mystery of the text because the music is inspired by the text, it intrinsically carries a "layer of meaning" that you cannot understand with your simple mind.

The church, in the wisdom of the ages, prompts us to pray in languages we understand. Those who sentimentalize another reality should not seek to press it on others among the people of God.

Wow... wow... wow... how local (synonymous with close) minded can you get! Well, ah, you, ah, are speaking with a New York accent... I resent you trying to press your language that I don't understand on my Western outlook! This is preposterous.

While we may sometimes celebrate the Novus Ordo in Latin when in Rome, or at home on Pentecost for old times’ sake, we tend to agree that there is a layer of meaning entirely missing when the church at prayer employs the lingua antiqua.

Still wondering what this mysterious layer is and who the 'we' is. I am just not getting the layer. Can someone enlighten me concerning the layer?

My earlier caution, I think, bears repeating. The priests I know who intuit a pastoral need for the old rite did not grow up with it. Because the Mass in any language can and should be celebrated with reverence, the need for the old rite seems unclear. Those who celebrate it cannot, on Monday morning, gather at the water cooler with other Catholics and a variety of other Christians and discuss the Scriptures they heard the day before; Trent’s missal is different from today’s lectionary, with fewer Scripture pericopes and scant attention to the Old Testament.

O... so the WATER COOLER is why we need vernacular. NOW I understand!

I am not celebrating my Mass at your watercooler... and I am NOT drinking your cool aid.

Clearly, the precedent seems to be set: those who may not approve of the new translation will be under no obligation to use it but can instead either petition for or presume permission to continue using the present books. Maybe I am incorrect. Let’s break into discussion groups on this idea, with both our canonists and liturgists as guides.

double wow... wow... wow...

WAIT! Where and who has set this new precedent! I never heard about the part that we can chuck the new translation if I do not approve of it.

MAYBE you are incorrect?!

Let's just decide for ourselves what is best for ourselves, because after all we, ourselves, are ourselves, the church by and for ourselves, and can decide for ourselves how best ourselves can be served.

Together in the big tent that is the church

I am NOT sleeping in your tent!

(dissection complete... you may now return to your regularly scheduled faith)

Noel... it is VERY DANGEROUS to follow an elephant... (and you don't want to be downwind.) Give yourself at least one elephant's length for every 10 years of Vatican II spin! That way you won't be 'stepping in it'.