Restoring a Church tradition

National Post ^ | 2007-07-10 | Michael Coren

[Mrs. Don-o]

1) There is no document of the Second Vatican Council that "banned" the older Latin Mass.

(I like referring to it as "The Mass of Blessed John XXIII" and not "The 1962 Missal" or even "The Tridentine Mass." To the ignorant ear, "1962" sounds like "Poodle Skirts" and "Tridentine" sounds like "Inquisition! Counter-Reformation! BWA-hahahaha" if not some kind of chewing gum. But "Blessed John XXIII" --- even someone who knows very little, would still get the impression that that's a wonderful thing.)

But it was thrown out later by Liturgical Wreckovationists (may they be forced to listen to "Gather Us In" for eternity -- a tune, by the way, that was ripped off from the "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald")

Many would not want to attend a Mass of Blessed John XXIII every week, yet value it so highly that they would travel, say, 50 miles each way to go once a month. I'm in that category.

Otherwise, I would like to have the Kyrie (Greek), Gloria, Credo, Sanctus/Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and Pater Noster sung regularly by the congregation, that is to say, at English Masses. A big plus in beauty and dignity, and it makes things truly universal, i.e. Catholic.

How is that? Because it is no one's national language anymore, it can all the more be all Catholics' universal language. Even a little parish like mine in Upper East Tennessee has parishioners whose language-in-the-home is Spanish, Vietnamese, Tagalog, or one of the many languages of Africa. In Latin we are all speaking the same language, a sacral language, which has an immense treasure of exquisite music, and a library of patristic scholarship and spirituality which are our patrimony.

Let the Scripture readings and the sermon be in English (and Spanish, Vietnamese and/or Tagalog, when the occasion requires it.) That's excellent: the best of both words.