Sunday, December 4, 2011

Ite, Missa Est

Today is the second Sunday of Advent. Two weeks in a row we have used the new Litergical changes in the language of the Mass. In the days leading up to the beginning of the changes, I was amused by the media coverage. They interviewed 'the man on the street' and others to see what the reaction was to the changes. If you knew nothing of the nature of the changes you might have been led to think that they were radical and worth being stirred up about. I was surprised by the reactions of some of the people that responded in negative ways.

For the most part, if you go back to some of the missals that were used in the past, you would see the same words used that we are being asked to use today.None of the changes in the language of the Mass in any way change the meaning of the prayers. When the priest says, "The Lord be with you", the response is "and with your Spirit".

They tried to return to the literal translation of the Latin. Any old time Catholic remembers, "Dominus vobiscum" and the responce "Et cum spiritu tuo." (The Lord be with you. And with thy spirit.)Big deal? Hardly.

We are becoming more and more willing to let our language erode in every day life. I am sometimes appalled at the lack of ability to express or use our beautiful language to communicate with others. We are becomming more and more inarticulate. If we took 'Oh my God' out of the language some people would be struck dumb when it comes to expressing feelings and thoughts. Ex."Were you surprized when you felt the earth tremble?" "Oh, my God" " Was your holiday nice?" 'Oh, my God" " Did you like the lunch?""Oh my God."

I saw a snippet of news on TV one day that recorded the meeting between two twins that had been separated at birth by adoption. They were grown up and had just been told that they were actually sisters and they greeted each other by saying over and over, "OH, my God" "Oh, my God". Not once did either one of them express the joy of meeting their blood sister. They were speechless except for the "oh, my Gods".

We speak in sentence fragments at best. Anything beyond that is alian to us. The texting and e-mails are filled with examples of the limited usage of literate speech. When Silicon Valley ushered in the computer chip and the era of technology, our language fell by the wayside. The young teenagers of that area developed a unique way of speaking. We referred to the female teens as 'Valley Girls' At first they were mocked but before too long, more and more kids spoke 'Valley Talk'. The phrase,'you know' and 'like' became standards of expression. Ex. "Ya know, like, my dad was like, really mad when he like,saw the dent, I put in the,like, fender! If one would ask that they speak an entire sentence without using the word 'like' they were unable to speak.

So many people have the habit of using a vulger word in each and every sentence. Conversations are very hard to follow when you mix 'like,' and foul words with 'ya know' thrown in. "Like' the 'friggin' (sic) car was 'like' out of friggin gas, ya know, I was like stranded." A man came up to me and,like, he goes," Can I like, help you?" I go, like, Dude, do you like, have any friggin gas, like ya know, in a friggin can?

Some of the people that were interviewed by the media voiced their concerns about some of the multi-syllabic words that our children would have to deal with in the prayers at Mass. It may well be that Mass will be the only place that they hear conversational English spoken.
(aside)
When I was growing up, all of the prayers at Mass were in Latin. Near the end of the "Lord's Prayer" were the Latin words' Et ne nos inducas in... (pronounced et nay nose in du kas)..the boys in my class would swear up and down that the priest was saying, 'It ain't no sin to cuss..' They considered that their go ahead!

I think the kids are very capable of learning the multisyllabic words and will quickly adapt to them. Much ado about nothing as W.S. would say. I didn't see any people run from the church schreeking at the few changes. Those that expressed so much concern must be 'like' freakin' out 'ya know?'

Dominus vobiscum. Ciao!

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