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“At the time of the traditional Latin Mass, Latin was taught in high schools. Most people understood some words, Catholics understood them all.”

But we have passed those times by. To pretend that high schools still teach latin and live your life in that fantasy seems ridiculous. It reminds me of a debate going on in my family right now. My wife of almost 3 months was raised in the Church of the Nazarene as was her mother and so forth. I was saved in 2005 and Baptized at a Pentacostal/Charismatic church. I’ve changed churches three or four times due to moving but always kind of stuck with the charismatic (fun, non-boring) churches. I’ve been to my wife’s church and it seems stuck in the 1950’s. The message is wonderful but the worship music is hymnals and 90% of the people there are 65 and older. They worry that younger people no longer come to services there. The place is dying. The words that come to mind are “old, slow, boring and sad.”

I believe the message should never change but perhaps the delivery, environment...atmosphere.....in America today if you bore “me” I’m out. Holding on to the past in terms of delivery, environment and atmosphere might be important to some but is it more important to watch one’s church die or to swallow some pride and modernize everything EXCEPT the message?

The church I currently attend is three years old next week. We have 500 at fellowship every Sunday. It is anything BUT old, sad, boring and slow but the message is straight out of the Bible, nothing watered down and nothing left out so as to not “offend.”

My wife wants us to go to her church and see if there is something that we can do to save it. Unfortunately the blue hairs that currently inhabit the place are so entrenched in the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality that I think they would rather die as a church than change enough to bring new and younger people in.

I started out by saying “But we have passed those times by. To pretend that high schools still teach latin and live your life in that fantasy seems ridiculous” I think that in some dying protestant churches, they don’t see that the times have passed the hymn books by. I believe that we can get so stuck in our little box that we cannot think outside of it.

>>To pretend that high schools still teach latin and live your life in that fantasy seems ridiculous”<<

LOLOL!!!!

Honey, you don’t know many homeschoolers, do you?

A Latin Mass is not for you, go where you are happy.

I don’t really care for the TLM but have attended. There are more young families than old people. Our Latin New Order (modern) mass is REALLY packed.

If you want happy fun, then it’s not for you. It’s that simple.

Your comments are correct for most non-Catholic Christian churches.

However, they do not really apply to Catholic Mass.

Unlike other Christian church services, the teachings of the Bible are not the central point of the Catholic Mass: the central part of the Catholic Mass is the commemmoration and actual re-creation of Christ’s Sacrifice, the central act of Christian Salvation.

While we do read Old and New Testament passages during each Mass, and the priest teaches us from the pulpit, the Sacrifice is why we attend Mass.

The bulk of Catholic instruction is done in many different settings: during formal preparation (these are actually the equivalent of “courses”) for the Sacraments of Baptism (for those baptized after infancy), Penance, Holy Communion, Confirmation, and Matrimony.

At each period of life, when preparing for the Sacraments, the Catholic is taught scripture, dogma, and doctrine, each time building on what has come before.

In contrast, at Mass, the “teaching” done by the priest is merely an ad hoc “refresher” using the day’s readings as a stepping-off point.

It reminds me of a debate going on in my family right now.
A couple days ago, my husband and I attended the funeral service of my Sunday school teacher's husband. He was in his 80s, and his wife, Caroline, has always remained an integral part of their Missouri-Synod Lutheran church. My husband, a Roman Catholic (and I now one too since my conversion 26 years ago), kidded Caroline a little as she had seven readings for her husband's service. She's a beautiful Christian woman with a splendid sense of humor as well, and she said, "I just couldn't narrow them down. I actually wanted so many more." So while we were all brought the Word of God quite sufficiently at Vic's service, none of us was able to leave the church *literally* with Christ.

I welcome you to look into the Catholic Church where we consume the "actual" Body of Christ through the Eucharist (the reception of the Host at communion).

Whether the Mass is said in Latin, or English, celebrated by a dynamic young priest or a stodgy old boring one, whether the parishioners are blue-haired ladies, or families, or teens, and so on, the end result "always" remains the same. We, as Catholics, receive both the Word and the Body of Jesus at Mass ... a "completeness" currently not received by you ...

Pictured is from a Latin Mass at St. John Cantius, Chicago. Click for more images.

“The church I currently attend is three years old next week. We have 500 at fellowship every Sunday. It is anything BUT old, sad, boring and slow but the message is straight out of the Bible, nothing watered down and nothing left out so as to not “offend.””

I guess the difference is going to the “original church” as founded by Jesus Christ and receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist and accepting the body and blood of Jesus.

I go to Mass to honor God and pray. My relationship with God is more important.

Latin's not a DEAD language - Latin is an IMMORTAL language.

The meaning doesn't change. And that's very important because language changes all the time, but the Latin doesn't.

The same thing is true of church. Church that is "with it" and "what's happening now" is at the mercy of the trends of the times. And as C.S. Lewis said, the stuff that tricks you and confuses you is the stuff that "everybody" accepts as "contemporary" and "exciting" and "fun", because it contains the unspoken assumptions that we all accept but that may be dead wrong. He said that the best cure was to read old books. Attending the Mass of the Ages is another method. It does not change and it is not boring.

A main-line Protestant church is not a good comparison, because that hymnal that you find so old and boring probably doesn't even date to the 1950s . . . at least 1000 years younger than the Mass. A mere blip on the time line by comparison.

Learning enough Latin to follow along is just not that hard for anybody with reasonable sense and the desire to study. They make lovely Missals with the English on one side and the Latin on the other, and EVERY Latin Mass church has lots of copies available for visitors. You just pick one up as you go in.

I came late to the Catholic Church - at the age of 45, so I had some catching up to do with the Latin. My parish only uses Latin on the first Sunday of the month, and then only for the Ordinary of the Mass (the parts of the Mass that don't change). Singing in the choir probably helps (it's easier to memorize stuff with music) but I've already got the Ordinary entirely committed to memory. And I've attended the Latin Mass at another local parish and have no difficulty following along.

Consider this: all those illiterate medieval peasants and the scaff and raff of Rome and Liverpool dockworkers and Irish famine survivors and guys in Hell's Kitchen and the Back Bay had no trouble at all understanding what was going on at Mass. And we're too stupid to get it?

It's not that we're stupid, it's that people don't want to go to Latin Mass, so they make the excuse that it can't be understood. It can be and is by completely uneducated people every day.