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To: livius

"There's another aspect of the liturgical language, and that's political. I go to Spain a lot, and they have long been squabbling over two minority languages, Basque and Catalan, which were really revived for political reasons. When the Mass was in Latin, this wasn't a problem, and only the homily would be in the minority language (although it usually wasn't, at that time)."

25+ years ago I had a great deal of business in Spain, so much so that I became a virtual commuter to Madrid and Andalusia. One time I took my wife with me and one of her bags got sent to Palma instead of Malaga when we changed planes in Madrid. Iberia found the bags and got word to me that they would be on a certain bus to the village we were in. I went to the bus station and no bags. My Spanish at that point was virtually non-existent and no one there spoke French, Greek or English...but there was an old priest there who spoke very nice Latin. I had majored in Latin in college and had a misspent youth in part as an altarboy in the Latin Mass days (it was a very ecumenical time!) so we spoke Latin. The bags were in the next town down the road and were sent back within an hour. Without the Latin Mass, we'd have never found our bag! :)


12 posted on 02/24/2007 5:14:58 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: Kolokotronis
Without the Latin Mass, we'd have never found our bag! :)

What a great story! Thank you for sharing it.

15 posted on 02/24/2007 6:36:24 AM PST by NYer ("Where the bishop is present, there is the Catholic Church" - Ignatius of Antioch)
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To: Kolokotronis

Great story! Many people feared that once the Church dropped Latin in the liturgy, Latin would disappear; fortunately, it does not seem to have done so, but it has become the property of linguists and "specialists." Maybe its revival in the liturgy will bring back the days when any reasonably educated person could at least express a few basic things in it (such as, "where's my bag?"). One may hope...


17 posted on 02/24/2007 6:46:25 AM PST by livius
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To: Kolokotronis
Without the Latin Mass, we'd have never found our bag! :)

*************

What a wonderful story.

26 posted on 02/24/2007 10:25:56 AM PST by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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