The Sacred Reason Why Latin Still Belongs in the Mass (Ep 4: Fr Dan)

Why does the Catholic Church still use Latin in the Mass? 
Discover the sacred reason this ancient language continues to unite, elevate, and sanctify our worship.

In this episode, Fr. Dan Yasinski and Ken Yasinski uncover the sacred reason Latin still belongs in the Catholic Mass—and how this ancient language continues to draw souls deeper into the mystery of God. 

Transcript

We've made life effortless.

But worship, it was never meant to be easy

because love always costs something.

Welcome back. This is episode 4 of our weekly series on the liturgy. Today, we're asking three big questions. Has our desire for convenience changed the way we worship God? Why did the church set Latin apart as something sacred? And is Latin a barrier or the language that unites us? First, you'll see a homaly delivered by Father Daniel Zinski. And then we sit down here for a further discussion. So, make sure you stay tuned to the end.

Last week in our homaly we explored Latin.

And this week in our fourth homaly on the liturgy we're going to explore, you guessed it, Latin. You might be thinking, Lord have mercy. Last week we talked about what the church teaches in regards to Latin. And today I'd like to explore one primary reason for this teaching and a little bit of the history of Latin in the church. I want to acknowledge that the use of Latin within the mass is sometimes a hot topic. Some can sometimes struggle with the thought of including more Latin in the mass.

I think one of the reasons we sometimes struggle with the use of Latin is because we might have what's called a utilitarian view of language. Utilitarian means practical or useful. And so if anything is not deemed useful or practical, we just get rid of it. We see that a lot in our culture and it's a big problem. A utilitarian view of language sees language solely as a means of communication. You say one thing, I get it. An exchange of ideas, practical, useful, immediate. And because Latin takes effort to understand and because it's not immediately useful, there's a tendency to want to get rid of it without considering the reasons why we had it in the first place. We can forget in our modern culture that language has higher goals than just communication. We see this in poetry and in song. If you hear a good poem, and I hope you do from time to time, our hearts can be moved by the beauty of it, by the joining, the phrasing of the words. In many instances, we may not even grasp the full meaning of the poem. A deeper research is needed, but we can still hold its beauty when we hear it. And so language besides communication has the ability to move our hearts to something higher to what we call transcendentals. Help us to contemplate the the beauty, the divine. Language can become something like art. Language is not just for practical communication. It has loftier goals. And it's in this context that Latin should be considered. It's why linguists, those who study languages, they they talk about registers of language or octaves of language, each one higher than the other. For example, that the lowest register of language is slang. The kind of language you might use at a restaurant or the conversation had between high school students. Half the time I don't know what you're saying, bro.

The next register of language, a little bit higher, is common communication or common conversation. the likes of which we might do after mass. It's a little more refined or it should be. The next register of language is more formal language, the language of presentation, of scientific endeavor, of academia, of poetry even. And in our culture, we we have to know what register we're in. We shouldn't be using slang at work. And moreover, we do not use academic language in common conversation. We have to know the register, the octave. But there is yet one higher register of language, one which our western utilitarian world has forgotten about. That's the language of worship, the sacred language. And for the western Roman Catholic Church for 1600 years that language was Latin. The worship of God is our highest endeavor. Nothing can top the worship of God. And what we do here it follows then we use the highest register of language. One that's different from our everyday life. When we include Latin in the mass, it automatically reminds us that this isn't the grocery store. It's not a presentation at the university. It reminds us what we're doing here is divine. It's holy. It's one of the primary reasons the church uses Latin, a sacred language set apart for God, the highest register, because God deserves our best. And we see this in the early church. There's a misconception out there that the Catholic Church adopted Latin only because it was the vernacular of the people at the time in the early church. There's some truth to this, but it's not the whole truth. In the early church, mass would have first been celebrated in Greek. Then in the fourth and the fifth centuries, it transitioned to Latin. But when Latin became the official language of the mass, what's interesting is this. Are you guys still with me? I hope so. Okay. When Latin was chosen by the church, they didn't use ordinary everyday Latin. It wasn't like the common vernacular. It was a higher register of Latin. The Latin chosen or created by the church was filled with old archaic words that people didn't use anymore and maybe didn't understand much like our old English words. Art, thou, we beseech thee, vouch safe. The Latin they use was also filled with a mixture of Hebrew words and Greek words. And so it's clear the Latin used in the early church was not a mere vernacular. It was meant to be something higher, something sacred, something set apart. Immediate comprehension was not the sole purpose of the church adopting Latin. The most important purpose was the sacred language. And this development of the sacred language was done not only by the church in the west but as the church spread to the east. Sacred languages developed there. In the east what is modernday Russia a church savonic developed. The Greek church used an ancient Greek. The Coptics developed their own Coptic lurggical language. Everyone knew and desired this sacred language set apart for God. Those languages are still used to this day by those churches. But we in the West adopted Latin. It's good for us to remember that sacred language has its role in salvation history in the Bible because you will recall that Jesus himself used the sacred language. His common tongue, his vernacular was Aramaic, but he knew all his prayers in Hebrew. For the longest time, Jewish children learned their prayers both in the vernacular and their sacred language of Hebrew. And the church adopted this practice by adopting sacred Latin. And so I hope we can see it. The importance of Latin as a sacred language, the highest register. It tells us something else is going on here, the highest endeavor. Therefore, we give a language to the worship of God. And like poetry, the use of Latin is an expression of art. It can move our hearts to contemplate the divine. There are many more reasons why the church uses Latin. Namely, the devil doesn't like it. I have a few stories on that. It's a great unifier and it saves us from theological error. In closing, I'd like to share with you the the words of the great Cardinal Lorenz from Nigeria. Our Nigerian family should be proud of him. When he was prefect of the discipline of the sacraments in 2007 under John Paul II, he wrote this published in the Vatican's newspaper. It seems no one remembers it. And I quote, "We should do our best to appreciate the Latin language which the church uses in her liturgy. All of us cannot be Latin speakers, but the lay faithful can at least learn their responses in Latin. Priests should give more attention so that they celebrate mass in Latin occasionally. Big churches where there are many masses celebrated on Sunday. Why can one of these masses not be celebrated in Latin? in rural parishes, a mass in Latin should possibly be said once a month. End quote. Seems like a sensible pastoral suggestion from the great cardinal from Nigeria and with proper catechism and preparation and resources. It's something that the universal church would do well to work towards for Latin is our sacred language. God bless you. God love you. Amen.

Okay, let's go beyond the homaly. Thank you for it, by the way. You're welcome. So, I got a question. I wanted to get this right. So, I'll just read it verbatim here. You said that we often see language today as only as a kind of a useful thing. So, how does this mindset affect the way Catholics approach the mass in a general way first, not just Latin? Do you think there's a creeping in of this mindset in different ways? I think this can be a big danger. Yeah. When it comes to our worship that we see worship as something a utilitarian views as something that's useful to me. We ask ourselves, what can I get out of worship? And so worship has to be immediate. It it has to be useful and it has to be fast, right? And so you have to sing songs that I like or else you know what I don't I'm not going to get much out of it. And and we have to use screens uh and post the responses and the words so people know everything right and that everything has to be explained and that everything is immediate and comprehensible right away. A utilitarian view of the mass is what can I get out of the mass? How can it be useful to me? If these things aren't useful, I can do without them. Uh but the mass isn't about me. This this the other thing. Uh the liturgy is fundamentally about God. It's about rendering right worship to God. And how do we render right worship? Well, how the church suggests that we do that with all the guidelines passed on to us right throughout the ages. So, oh yeah, it's a it's a very big danger. And you know, father, mass can't be too long. You know, distribution of holy communion can't take too long cuz I I got to get on to things, right? And so mass can't be demanding in in in that particular sense, right? If mass is a a useful thing to me, it can't be too long. So, I got to get out of here real fast. So, it's a big danger. So I think that most faithful Catholics would agree with what you just said in principle for example that it's not about me statement. Okay. I would guess most Catholics would agree who go regularly say yes of course mass is not about me. Yeah. But then you say okay but second Vatican council said you know we have to reserve Latin for part of our worship. Oh but I I don't understand that. That's how I would have responded. And I would have said then to myself, well, you just said it wasn't about you. You know, so there's this there's just a real disconnect. I feel like people say, "Yeah, okay. I get that. It's not about me." Then you say, "Okay, here let's How about introducing language of Latin back into the liturgy?" "Oh, well, I don't understand it. It's too hard." Well, well, you just said it wasn't about you. You just agreed with it. So there's like this in discontinuity in people's minds I think because I think in principle I think people will agree but in practice there's a hurdle that needs to get over and and I wonder if that hurdle is like why Latin right which is in these homaly series we've been trying like why and all these things it's good to ask why the church had these things in the first place because often we we've just kind have gotten rid of them or haven't practiced them as much and without asking these questions like why why did the church have Latin and and why is it a good thing? I think I think if people knew the answer to that question they'd be more open to it, right? I I I think so. I can speak that from for my case. Yeah. Yeah. Like Yeah. Look, I I I get it now. Yeah. I'm glad you and I would say because of you. Well, like you ignited this question and I think Father Jeff prior with the changes in the homal in the in the how he was celebrating mass but then your homalies and just discussions have caused me to reexamine my stance on this. Um you you've spoken the homaly about different octaves almost uh or equating language to different octaves like in music. Yeah. And so we have this octave, this octave, this octave. And so ma Latin is almost like a different octave in on the musical scale as an analogy. How does that change somebody's somebody's experience then in mass in prayer? We'll get back to talking to Father Dan in just a second. But first, if you've been blessed by this video, could you help us out in a few simple ways? Number one, like and share this video. YouTube's going to see that. Then push this video out to our larger audience. So, that's something you could do. Number two, could you pray for us? We're always in need of grace and we would greatly appreciate your prayers. And number three, if it is possible, supporting our mission at kenjanel.com. Your support makes it possible for us to keep on producing videos just like the one you're watching. You know, all our content is free, but it's not free to make. Every contribution really does make a difference on our side. So, back to Father Dan. How does that change somebody's somebody's experience then in mass in prayer? The change is almost immediate. We could we could say the change is both an objective thing and an subjective thing. What do I mean by that? Objectively, we I we can say that when Latin is used in the church's liturgy, the liturgy objectively becomes higher because we are now using the church's language which has a pride of place and we're using a language that is just set apart for God. And so objectively the liturgy just becomes higher. Uh and so we should just say hey this is a good thing. Yeah. But subjectively what I mean by someone's experience. So this is just my experience but I think it's the experience perhaps of yourself Ken I don't know you can speak to it but when Latin is used it it automatically tells us I'm not at the grocery store. I'm not at the movie theater. I'm not standing in line for something. This is different. And it immediately takes on this more sacred, solemn tone and atmosphere. And that changes your behavior. It It changes how you come to the mass. It it it changes uh objectively and subjectively if I'm making sense there. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. I think of the uh way I would speak to different people of according to the position in life. The language we use is different, right? So I I might speak to a friend differently than I would speak to a boss or I would speak to the pope differently than I would speak to, you know, you um especially if I'm going to the pope, let's say I've never met the pope, but imagine going to him, I would speak to him in with a different reverence. I won't go up to him and say, "Yo, yo, bro, how's it going?" Would he understand me? Yeah, he probably would understand me, but it would be disrespectful to his office. That just doesn't seem right to use slang when referring talking to the pope. Yeah. And I think that was kind of one of your points kind. You didn't say it exactly that way, but it's almost seems right to speak to God in official worship as the church differently y than we would speak to a buddy. Yeah. And so I would say this is ingrained in the human person. God God ingrained this in us because it's not only our faith that does this. It's almost every faith in the world that has a sacred language attempting to reach the divine that there's a language set apart for us to try and commune with our God. And it's and so it's ingrained in us as human beings in our longing to reach for the divine for God. We we use sacred languages uh all over the world. And the language that God has given us in the Catholic church in the Latin right is is Latin. There are others, right? Greek and and some of the Savonic languages are still used as a sacred language, but but it's ingrained in us, I would say. I heard you say long time ago in a homaly something like God is not your buddy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was a good homaly. I still remember that one. I ruffled some feathers on that one. I think I also made light of modern praise and worship music in that there's some good praise and worship too but it has its place right. Yeah. So what is what is what do you mean by and does that relate to this language because uh whole language thing because language is a sacred language but God is not your buddy so we shouldn't talk to him worship him like he's our buddy like is there a connection here with this so the question might be are yes can we have a a too casual or cavalier use of language when it comes to God uh of course in the liturgy we have be very careful what language we use as provided by the church, the words to use and whatnot. The question is in our own personal life, right? The language of respect is always needed, right? Um we want to be familiar with God and so like it's okay to we want to know God as a friend. Mhm. But that's not enough. We need to know also God as our maker and as our creator and as our savior and as our judge. And so there there's a always a balance to be had uh disrespect has no place in in our language with God. It must always be be reverent. And so I is there a danger to be too casual? Of course there's like this is where the use of God's name in vain comes from. a too casual use of the Lord's name which should be given the highest honor and respect, right? Yes. There has to be a balance between uh between a familiarity with God, right? Drawing close to him, wanting to be comfortable with him, but also of course knowing God as our maker, our judge, and our savior. a balance going to the experience of Latin in the mass. Someone might say, "But father, I I don't understand what I'm saying, so I can't pray." What would you say? There are many different ways in which we experience prayer in the liturgy. Uh the use of language is only one. Uh comprehensible language is only one. Silence is a prayer, right? When we just pray in silence, that's a prayer. And so we have to be very careful just to boil down prayer to something I understand when I hear and when I speak be very careful that prayers can also just be experience of listening to beautiful himnity even though we may not understand the words of the hymn. You can listen to a beautiful Latin hymn and not understand the song, the words, but be moved by the melody and you know something sacred is going on here, right? Mhm. Seeing the priest use incense at mass that itself can move a person, right? So prayer goes way beyond way beyond. The other thing I would say is Latin, the use of Latin is is not the barrier some people think it is. If we but developed and they used to have these Latin and English missiles with Latin on one side, English on the other. One Sunday you're doing the English, once a month you do the Latin. And I think people would be surprised at how fast first of all they pick up the Latin like in order to to speak it and do the responses at at church but then how quickly they'll start understanding some of it. Oh look this is what this word means over here and and they make those connections right so it's not the barrier I think people make it out to be. The only thing is we we haven't developed tools for people to make use of Latin. Uh which is why one of the things I want to do at the parish is to provide something like that. Right. Is that coming? It's coming. Okay. It's coming. So, so it's not the barrier people make it out to be. And I Yeah, I think. Okay. Yeah. So some people might think that introducing Latin into the liturgy creates this distance or this barrier between them and the priest and they object to that because they don't like that distance. It's not they don't feel close to what's going on. What would you say to that? Yeah, Latin creates this we could call it a layer of hiddenness. It takes effort to get to know it, right? And so this is a good thing. Our worship should take some effort. It it it shouldn't always be so easy. There there should be some effort in our worship. We want to give our best to God. And so if it takes a little bit of work, that's easy and that's a good thing. I think we should remember that. But Latin creates this this layer of hiddenness sometimes. A veil. Yeah. Like a little veil. And and this is a good thing in the liturgy. Distance is a good thing in the liturgy. Be it you know the language we're using a veil or distance. And it's a beautiful thing. If you think about our liturgy there are there there is distance. So different uses of distance in our liturgy. So for example the opening procession it represents the faithful's journey to heaven. uh with Jesus leading them. This is what the mass is. It's a pilgrimage to heaven. And so a as the mass is starting I and I know you're always paying attention when mass starts, Ken. And uh the opening song is being sung and the priest is walking down. This is Jesus Christ leading his people to heaven. And then when he gets to the gates, the steps of the sanctuary, this is Jesus opening the gates to heaven. and he walks in and we get to see it but we see it from a distance because are we in heaven yet? We're we're not there. And so we watch from a distance Jesus Christ in the sanctuary and there at mass he offers himself sac calvary is made present. But then what happens at communion? What happens? the distance closes and and we get a little closer to the Lord and in our church we come to the steps of the sanctuary and there Jesus the heavenly high priest feeds us to go back into the world and again that distance created and when we go back to the pews and so there's a beauty in that distance you know we draw near to God but then we depart a little bit because we're not there yet and we got work to do And it keeps us striving. So the priest shouldn't be popped right in the middle of the people, right in the middle of the congregation because we're not in heaven yet and we're not in total full communion with Jesus there. There's a little separation and that's what that the distance in the liturgy signifies. Uh we're not there yet. It's a beautiful thing. So, so you're saying that then the value of Latin enhances this experience. Yes. But, but moreover, it it creates this a veil, a hiddenness, a mystery. There needs to be mystery and hiddenenness in our liturgies because who are we worshiping? We're worshiping God the Almighty. It we do not know everything about God. God cannot be fully explained. There's a mystery about God. There's almost a hiddenness about him too. And so that has to be present in our liturgies. Uh because that's who we're worshiping. Yeah. And so Latin does impart that upon upon the liturgy. And even if we were to know even those who um know Latin and are I don't know very many fluent speakers in Latin, but even if you have a strong grasp in Latin, it still creates that hiddenness because it's a language not used in in everyday life. Right. Mhm. And so I only use it in worship and prayer of God. And that in itself creates this sacredness, this hiddenness, this mystery. Yeah. It's it's beautiful. So, continuing down that theme of objections, what what about this thought again? Latin excludes people because they can't understand it. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I would say we Latin isn't the barrier, right? We we make it out to be. But but Latin is the great includer. It's a the use of the Latin language in the church is inclusive because it's a universal language. Can you imagine if all of us grew up knowing a little bit of Latin and grew up knowing the mass parts in Latin, the responses in Latin, and then we go to a World Youth Day or we go to Rome and the glory is in tone in Latin and and everyone from around the world can join in. That would be a beautiful thing. When I was in seminary, uh, Bishop John Sherlock, God rest his soul. He's gone to his his rest. But he shared with me in the early 70s, he went to Rome as a priest. And this was would have been at a at a time when people were still familiar with the Latin chants, particularly of the mass. and he remembers going to Rome and hearing people from all over the world sing the Gloria together uh in the Latin language in the language of the church. And so it's the great unifier. It includes all all nations and all peoples and we've lost that. So when we go to World Youth Day, it's going to be in Korea next time in South Korea. I imagine the math mass is gonna I'm not sure what the mass is going to be said in but maybe someone will see this and it'll be in Latin. But wouldn't it be wonderful if we grew up with just a rudimentary, you know, knowledge of Latin? All the people, young people from out the world would be able to pray the mass together. And that that's one of the beautiful things about a universal language and and we've lost that cuz it's not universally known. And why is the unity matter? Well, we're a family, right? Yeah. And and there's something there's something about praying together in a common language. There's something even more beautiful about praying together in a sacred language. Uh a language set apart for God. So there's something beautiful about all of us praying in English. Yeah. Yeah. There's something even more beautiful about all of us praying in Latin. You paint a really interesting picture for World Youth Day. We were both in Toronto together. uh that was in English and I we went to Janelle and I went to Germany and if it's not in your language well then everyone picks up a little earbud puts it in the ear and then tunes the radio or I don't know how they do it now and they get they get the translation it's almost like this objection well it doesn't in it's exclusive it doesn't include everyone well actually having it in the vernacular is what it excludes solely in the vernacular solely in the vernacular and The having the mass more in Latin is the great unifier. Yes. Never thought of it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in your homaly you said that Cardinal Horenz was encouraging parishes to occasionally offered a Latin mass. Now if a parish wanted to do this, what do you think is the first step towards this? Yeah. So the first step is is almost always a catechis telling the parish or the dascese what we're doing and why explaining these things the the beauty and the treasure of Latin and why it's been such an important part of the church's tra her heritage and tradition. Mhm. And then once people got that, they're a little more ready to say, you know what, I'm going to give this a shot. Even though they may not have agreed with it or, you know, maybe it wasn't something they were looking forward to, they they might, okay, let's give this a shot. And then and begin slowly. So the first step after katakesus. So the second step would be a great thing is just start singing the the mass parts in Latin uh which father Jeff had instituted at the parish and and people picked them up. Yeah. Quite fast and then the step after that would be slowly just doing the simple responses like the greeting dominiscumo

and even doing them in chant form. People always seem to learn easier when they sing. Having the Latin English translation side by side I think is important and beneficial too. But these little things and and then after those uh those quick little responses people learn those fasts. Then you could even look like doing the our father in Latin and then the Gloria again fulfilling the desire of the fathers of the council the people knowing the ordinary parts of the mass in Latin. And before you know it, over a couple years, the faithful know the entire mass in Latin. We're doing it all along with the vernacular, right? But why couldn't a parish have a mass once a month where they do the the responses and the mass parts in Latin? I think it's quite obtainable. Uh again, yeah, kateesus, tell them what and why and then slow steps. All right. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome.