OK, but then it wouldn't matter WHAT language it's said in in that case--a tongue one doesn't understand is a tongue one doesn't understand, and whatever is being said, whether a mass or, say, a screening of a film one has already seen in one's native tongue many times, it doesn't matter.
(DW)but that's the same sitation as one going into a mass in English or one in French--someone who speaks Japanese doesn't need to understand either to know he's hearing the same mass.
"Sure, but I don't know the words in Japanese. I do know many of them in Latin."
Well, that's fine for you, but the mass isn't just for you, now is it? ;)
Huh? My point is that it's not a "tongue one doesn't understand," at that point. Catholics who grew up in the Latin Mass know what "Deo gratias" means, they know what "Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus" means, they know what "Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi" means, etc.
Well, that's fine for you, but the mass isn't just for you, now is it? ;)
See above. But, strictly speaking, the Mass is addressed to God the Father, it isn't "for me" at all.
I think the most beautiful and profound liturgical experience I've ever had was at an Easter morning Ukrainian Catholic Divine Liturgy ... it was sung in Ukrainian.
I don't speak Ukrainian, but by the time the liturgy was over, I knew what "Hospodi, pomiluj", "Podai, Hospodi", and "Christos voskrese" meant.