More About Mass in Latin

Dear Editor: Cardinal Martini I revere as one of the great bishops of our time. However, unlike the former Milan archbishop, I do not rue the pastoral pluralism introduced into the Latin Rite by the pope with his universalizing the Tridentine Mass as an alternative. Rather, I think he should be encouraged and prodded along the pluralist path by legitimizing a number of sub-rites, especially and perhaps solely in regard to the Liturgy of the Word.

Pentecostal/Charismatic Liturgy of the Word, Asianizing modifications developed by Dom Bede Griffiths, adaptations of Eastern Rites rituals and experiments by Newman Club groups for the university setting can each be different methods of celebrating the Liturgy of the Word.

At the same time, I’d advise strict adherence to rubrics for the Liturgy of the Lord’s Supper with a reduction in the number of anaphoras allowed. For the Liturgy of the Word, priests and deacons should wear albs and stoles, whereas for the Eucharist they should be clothed in chasubles.

Thus our central and most important action will manifest a core unity amid variety, Word and Sacrament both emphasized, free-wheeling expression and disciplined ritual nourishing of our prayer lives. At the same time, the legitimizing a variety of liturgical approaches will help to prevent Tridentine celebrators adopting a crypto-Gnostic posture reminiscent of Port Royal Jansenism.

Frank C. Arricale
Flushing

Dear Editor: I have been keeping a distant eye on the “controversy” surrounding the Holy Father’s instruction to allow more access to the Mass in Latin. I am, I must admit, missing the point of how the idea is to be conceived as controversial.

We in Brooklyn pride ourselves on being a diocese of immigrants, peoples who have traveled from foreign lands with foreign languages and ideas and have taken up residence beside each other to form a new community and adopt (and create) a new national identity. Are we so ignorant as to be unable to see that religiously, since Vatican II, we are also immigrants, that we have traveled from the motherland of our Latin Mass to our present worship in languages that, until now, have been foreign to us in prayer?

I am of Polish descent and do not know a word of the language, am only vaguely acquainted with the customs and have only a shadowy notion of that country’s great history, but if someone offered me the chance to journey back to the land where my grandfather was born, I would not hesitate, I would go. Mind you, I would not, and I could not stay, for while it is my heritage it is not my present reality, but I would see the place where my grandfather and I, in a sense, had come from and gone. The same people so perturbed about the idea of the Latin Mass being more available would be the first to call me a fool for not going back to a place that had helped to form me. They would criticize me for not expanding my horizons by examining my past and they would be right.

Why do people fear the Mass in Latin? I went to a Latin Mass about 10 years ago and I would go again, even though I didn’t and still wouldn’t understand a word of it. Why not? I have also gone to operas ad plays performed in languages that I could not understand, but I did not need a translation to understand the drama, excitement or passion contained in those either. When the priest raises the cup, it does not matter what language it is in, I know whose blood fills it, whose body the bread has become, I know it in English, Spanish, German, Polish, and yes, even in Latin and as long as our Mother the Church says the Mass is valid and sacred, why should I limit myself? In the end, it does not matter in what language we speak to God. It only matters in what language He answers us. The pity is that too many of us are so worried about languages, we never seem to hear His Word.

Adam Szczepanski
Brooklyn

Dear Editor: I love the Latin Tridentine Mass. As a boy, I worked hard to learn the Latin responses from a folded card with the help of my German Shepherd, Smokey, as an attentive sounding board. I remember having to take a test at the rectory which I failed once or twice. This only fueled my pride when, at last, I was issued a cassock and surplice. This was a rite of passage for a boy of nine or 10.

I recall the thrill of seeing my name posted in one of the Church vestibules, first as an observer who knelt in front of the Sisters’ chapel, my only contribution to the liturgy was holding a gold plate under the chins of the communicants at the altar rail, and that great day when I first served as an acolyte at low Mass. Fr. McKenna was the celebrant. I was nervous and dropped the Missal as I switched it from the Epistle side to the Gospel side. I was humiliated and traumatized but with the saintly encouragement of Sister Cecilia Ernest, my second-grade teacher in Our Lady of Angels, Bay Ridge, I endured. It was a profound lesson. I went on to serve several hundred Tridentine Masses, though we didn’t refer to the liturgy that way back then. Weddings, funerals, Easters, Christmases, breaking in new guys.

It all seemed like a blessed and ordained way for a young man to grow. We never needed to understand a mystery beyond our minds but we loved the sacrament with our hearts, especially at Sunday night benediction.

I rejoice that this Mass is made available today. You never appreciate something until it’s been lost and found again. Like my soul.

The sooner this Mass is offered, the sooner young men will again fall in love with the priesthood through the excellent experience of serving the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Michael Crowley
Bay Ridge

The Falling Asleep of Mary

Dear Sir: “As The Tablet Sees It” (Aug. 11) contains the editorial “Mid-Summer’s Great Feasts.” Thank you for drawing our attention to these two significant mysteries and feast days which may be easily overlooked, first by being held in a month nationally considered as vacation time, but also, secondly, in the Liturgical ‘Ordinary’ time.

In the editorial, the word “Assumption” is given a translation as meaning “Falling Asleep of Mary.” After consulting the “Catechism of the Catholic Church” and the Modern Catholic Encyclopedia” may I offer some information.

“Falling asleep” in Latin is the verb ‘dormire.’ In the Eastern Churches there is on Aug. 15 the feast of “The Dormition of Mary” the “Falling Asleep of Mary.” In Jerusalem there is the Basilica of “The Dormition,” on the spot where tradition says was the tomb of Our Lady. This mystery has no reference in the New Testament Scriptures. It comes from the development of doctrine and spirituality in the developmental years of the Church.

The feast began in honor of Our Lady as “Theotokos,” the “bearer of God”, and then the “Mother of God.” The Latin Rite accepted this feast in the seventh century becoming known as the “Assumption of Our Lady.” The word ‘assumption’ is from the Latin verb ‘assumere.’ This means to ‘take up’ as one would take up the office of Senator, or Army General. We might use today “Judge Roberts assumed the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”

We also know the phrase ‘to make an assumption,’ which is to make a conclusion from whatever evidence one perceives. When applied to the mystery of Our Lady’s “Assumption” it uses the meaning of being “taken up into to a position close to the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.” While this had been held very dear by devout people for centuries, the Church did not declare this as a Mystery of Faith until the Encyclical “Munificentissimus Deus” of Pius XII, in the Holy Year of 1950.

           Brother James Loxham FSC
Brooklyn

Not Proud of Democrats

Dear Editor: Regarding Joseph Seminara’s letter (Aug. 11), he states how proud he is in having helped every Democrat who was elected president since Harry Truman. Well, let’s take a look at each of these men and see, if, in fact, these were men to be proud of.

Starting with Truman who took warfare against non-combatants to a new level by killing tens of thousands of women and children by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when a military blockade of this island nation would have ended the war as Japan had no military offensive capabilities left. John Kennedy in his brief time in office got us involved in a ground war in Asia that military people had warned against for years. Lyndon Johnson then proceeded to put 600,000 troops into this losing cause leaving Republicans to clean up his mess. Jimmy Carter had economic policies which just about bankrupted the working and middle class burdening them with high unemployment, interest rates, and inflation. He was also responsible for the beginning of present day Islamic terrorism by sitting by and doing nothing while Iran held American hostages. And, last but not least, Bill Clinton, whose term in office was scandal plagued from the beginning, did nothing when Osama bin Laden bombed the World Trade Center and our African embassies. 

Boy, that’s some group to be proud of. 

Jim Lundrigan
New Haven, CT