Latin Mass

 I have written about the Latin Mass before, but it bears thinking about again in light of the Pope's recent recall of the Latin Mass.  Some people are up in arms about it.  I am not one of them.  I don't enjoy Latin in the Mass.  To me it creates a distance from the love of God, from the message of the Gospel.  I know that is not true for everyone, but it is my truth.

I received First Holy Communion at a Communion rail in a Latin Mass.  The nuns told us that if the host touched our teeth we were doomed to spend eternity in hell.  Imagine that?  Christ says--Gnaw on me, but the nuns told us that the host couldn't touch our teeth.  I remember that I had a method of sticking the host to the roof of my mouth and trying to dissolve it with my spit. At some later point I heard that the teeth thing wasn't real and I was relieved. 

I think Confirmation for me a few years later was the Latin Mass as well, but rumors of change were in the air.  The Mass would soon be in English.  I felt like God had given me a special gift.  It was hard for me as a child to pay attention in the Mass when it was in a different language.  It was hard for me to explain the Mass to cousins or friends who asked me questions about the Mass and they did ask me questions.

For me the first English Masses I went to were like a light had turned on.  It was to me as if God was talking just to me.  It listened and I participated in Mass.  I came to love the Mass in English, my language.

Then, sometime in my adult years Latin started to creep back in.  During Lent some of the responses were Latin and some of the songs.  It felt old and tired to me, but I offered it up.  I could tell that some people enjoyed it.

But, I totally understand what the Pope is saying about divisions in the church caused by the Latin Mass.  In recent years I have met some Catholics who attend or belong to Latin churches.  Most of them are rather superior about it, as though they were attending the real church or the more sacred church.  Church is church.  The Mass should be assessible and friendly to all people. The Mass in Latin is okay, but it is not better than the regular Mass that one might find in any Catholic church.  If we don't strive for that kind of unity, then we are in trouble.  Strive for unity with love.