Introduction to the Latin Mass

Back in 2016 I was asked to speak at a parish Soup Supper hosted by Una Voce Quad Cities, a local lay apostolate dedicated to promoting the Traditional Latin Mass.

In those days, under legislation carried over from the pontificate of Benedict XVI of beloved memory, Church law clearly upheld the dignity of the classical Roman Rite, and the rights of those drawn to it.

The primary challenge our group faced was that of public relations, much of which consisted in clarifying confusions, many stemming from decades of propaganda directed against the traditions of Holy Mother Church.

My talk focused on three basic questions: 1) What is the Traditional Latin Mass? 2) What are the key features that differentiate the Traditional Latin Mass from other forms of worship? 3) What are the spiritual benefits that attract people to the Traditional Latin Mass?

I: What is the Traditional Latin Mass?

As we know, after Vatican II changes were made to the liturgy; in fact a new Missal for the Roman Rite was issued by Paul VI in 1969. It was widely believed at the time, though not by all, that the “old Mass” had been abolished and replaced by this new form.

In 2007 Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI officially corrected this misunderstanding, declaring that the older form of the Roman Rite was never abolished and providing regulations by which the old Mass—what is now in legal terms called the extraordinary form—can be used almost as freely as the ordinary or newer form. In fact, the Pope says, this classical form of liturgy “must be given due honor” in the Church today “for its venerable and ancient usage.”

In explaining his actions, Pope Benedict makes clear that he is not merely concerned about those who “remained strongly attached to this usage of the Roman rite, which had been familiar to them from childhood.” The Pope emphasizes that “young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them.”

For example, I grew up in the 1980s attending the newer form of the Mass in English. In high school and college I drifted away from my Catholic faith. Later on as a young adult I heard about the Traditional Latin Mass and decided to try it out. I found the experience so moving that it inspired me to study the faith from a fresh perspective, and to come back to the Church.

No matter what our personal story, Pope Benedict teaches that as Catholics “it behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer.” “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too.”

II: What Are the Key Features of the Traditional Latin Mass?

Several things stand out about the Traditional Latin Mass. First of all, it’s in Latin. Second, in the Traditional Latin Mass the priest and the people usually face the same direction—towards the altar—rather than facing one another. Third, the Traditional Latin Mass contains many prayers and gestures identical to or similar to prayers retained in the Ordinary Form, but also many that are different.

Each of these elements, and their combination, can pose a challenge to people who attend the Traditional Latin Mass for the first time. The truth is though that each of these elements serves one or more important purposes, and if understood and approached in the proper way, each can be a powerful means of sanctification.

III: What are the Spiritual Benefits of the Traditional Latin Mass?

1) Why does the Extraordinary Form require us to use Latin? Latin is often referred to as a “dead language” because long ago it ceased to be the mother tongue of any nation. But for almost two thousand years Latin has never gone out of use because it is the official language of our Holy Mother the Church. This is something that can play a positive role in our spiritual life.

My mother is from New Brunswick, Canada, and French is her first language. She likes to tell this joke: If someone who speaks three languages is trilingual, and someone who speaks two languages is bilingual, what do you call someone who speaks just one language? American!

Unfortunately I’m no great exception to the punchline of this joke. Though I grew up hearing French and studied it in school, though I studied German, know a few philosophical terms in ancient Greek, and live with five people who speak Russian, and though I often worship and pray in Latin, I’m not really fluent in any tongue but English. Even so, the partial familiarity I have with other languages has enriched my life. It has made me realize, to paraphrase Shakespeare, that there are more things in life than are dreamt of in my philology. It reminds me that I’m part of a much bigger picture that is beyond my easy comprehension.

This in itself is a crucial lesson in the spiritual life. As a bishop St. Augustine was often asked by his flock: why does the Scripture contain so many passages that are so difficult to understand?

His answer was that the Bible contains many passages that are simple and straightforward and many that are complex and mysterious. The simple passages help us to see that the Gospel is for everyone and that God is ready to meet us where we are right now. The difficult passages remind us that God is always beyond our comprehension and that our faith, like our relationship to God, is never complete: there is always more to learn and more to accomplish on our spiritual path.

The same can be said about the challenges of following Mass in Latin, though I would stress that with a little bit of practice it’s actually not that difficult. With a Latin-English or Latin-Spanish Missal we can read the texts of the Mass in our own language, both during Mass and outside of it.

During Mass, it’s important to remember that the essence of prayer is lifting our hearts and minds to God, and the essence of participation is uniting our hearts and minds to the Holy Sacrifice that is being offered by Jesus Christ during the Sacred Liturgy. There is nothing wrong with any form of participation that helps us to unite our hearts and minds with this action of Jesus Christ in the liturgy.

Another important benefit of the Latin language is the connection it forges not only with our Mother the Church and our fellow Catholics across the globe, but also with the many generations of our ancestors in the faith who worshipped in this way. Every week we profess our faith in the sanctorum communionum, the communion of saints. Communion signifies a relationship, which in turn requires specific actions connecting us to others.

When we read the lives of the saints or look at our own predecessors and recognize their spiritual practices as similar to our own, we experience this communion in a powerful way.

2) Why do the priest and people face the same way in the Traditional Latin Mass? The basic reason has to do with the nature of the Mass itself, which as mentioned is essentially a sacrifice offered by our High Priest Jesus Christ to God the Father through the Holy Spirit. Since the sacrifice is offered to God, the prayers and gestures of the Mass are addressed to God, and this is signified both verbally and physically.

Since it is offered for each and every one of us as a unique human being, the Mass gives us ample opportunity to cultivate our personal relationship with God from which our union with one another flows. At the same time, the physicality of the Mass reminds us that God chose to save us by taking on our flesh, becoming one of us, so that His humanity could serve as a bridge or mediation between our humanity and God’s divinity.

Our Lord taught us to seek first His kingdom, and He will give us all things, and so the Traditional Latin Mass reminds us to place God front and center in our lives. Our Lord told us to love one another as He loves us, and taught that the greatest love is to give one’s life for one’s friends, and so the Traditional Latin Mass reminds us to unite ourselves with Christ’s greatest act of love. In this way it gives us the training as well as the graces we need to go out into the world and seek the Kingdom of God by loving one another with the love of Christ.

3) I want to close by pointing out a few of the unique prayers you will find in the Traditional Latin Mass. One pattern you will notice is how many of them are direct quotations from or close paraphrases of Scripture—a great many of them are from the Old Testament, especially from the Psalms.

This integration of Scripture into the Mass is in itself of tremendous spiritual significance. Not only is the Old Testament meant to foretell and foreshadow the coming of the Messiah, Christ, but Christ Himself is the eternal Word of God made flesh. What better way to understand the action of Christ the Word in the Mass than by using the Word of Scripture that He gave us?

For example, after the sign of the cross the priest and servers recite the prayers at the foot of the altar, taken from psalm 42: Priest. I will go in unto the altar of God. Server. To God who giveth joy to my youth. P. Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation which is not holy: deliver me from the unjust and deceitful man. S. For Thou, O God, art my strength: why hast Thou cast me off? and why go I sorrowful whilst the enemy afflicteth me? P. Send forth Thy light and Thy truth: they have conducted me and brought me unto Thy holy mount, and into Thy tabernacles.

Here we are reminded that the liturgy, like our faith, is a holy mountain which we must climb, but which we can never climb without the assistance of God. So we humble ourselves before Him and ask him for the strength to climb.

Before the priest reads the Gospel he prays: Cleanse my heart and my lips, O almighty God, who didst cleanse the lips of the prophet Isaias with a burning coal [Isaiah 6:6-7], and vouchsafe, through Thy gracious mercy, so to purify me, that I may worthily announce Thy holy Gospel.

Each of us is called to proclaim the Gospel each day in our thoughts, words, and deeds, but, like the prophet Isiah, none of us is able to do so without the help that comes from almighty God.

I’ll close with one my favorite prayers, part of the preparation of our souls as the priest prepares the gifts which will soon become the body and blood of Christ:

O God, who, in creating human nature, didst wonderfully dignify it, and still more wonderfully hast restored it, grant that, by the Mystery of this water and wine, we may be made partakers of His divine nature, who deigned to become partaker of our human nature, even Jesus Christ our Lord.

My closing thought is simply this: in the Holy Mass, Christ offers us nothing less than a participation in His divine nature. The awesomeness of that offer helps to explain why Holy Mass has been called “the highest prayer that exists,” and “the most beautiful thing this side of heaven,” “the source and summit of the Christian life.”

If you enjoyed these reflections, please forward to a friend!