The Human Touch: Latin in the Liturgy 

 The Human Touch 

The human touch. That’s one of the key things the Latin language brings to the Catholic Church. Let me explain. A few years ago, our pastor began reintroducing some Latin into the mass on certain Sundays. As part of that effort, he asked me to give a series of talks on the role of the Latin language in the Catholic Church. There are, of course, a number of things I can say (and given time and opportunity, I will). But I thought that a good place to start would be to discuss  the human touch. And what does that have to do, you may wonder, with the survival of the tongue of the ancient Romans in Catholicism? Read on to find out.

 Laying on of Hands 

But first, let me start with something that seems to partake more of the divine than of the human, the ordination of bishops. Catholic bishops are the successors of the Apostles.The Church doesn’t mean that in an abstract way. Consider the ordination rite of Catholic bishops. The presiding bishop intones: “Gladly and gratefully, therefore, receive our brother whom we are about to receive into the college of bishops by the laying on of hands.” By the laying on of hands. He means that literally. It has always been part of the rite that, just before the consecration itself, the presiding bishop places his hands on the head of the bishop-elect.

That same presiding bishop became a bishop when he felt the hands of another bishop on his own head when he was ordained, the hands of a bishop who himself experienced the laying on of hands from yet another bishop. That continuous series of touches goes on all the way back to the original Apostles, who were touched bodily by Jesus Christ himself. A true bishop must be part of that unbroken chain of physical contact starting with the hands of the Word Made Flesh. It’s an essential part of the Apostolic succession.

 The Word Became Flesh 

The understanding that God transmits Grace through physical means permeates the entire Catholic understanding. In fact, it permeates the entire traditional Christian understanding of God’s relationship to his creation.  It’s the underlying rationale for all the sacraments, and for sacramentals like holy water, holy, medals, etc.  It’s why every Mass used to end with the reading of the “Last Gospel.” This is the opening chapter of the Gospel of John: “And the Word became Flesh.”  (John 1:14) The Incarnation is mirrored in all sorts of lesser things.

As we saw above, those physical connections include not only things, but people. And not just the physical touch of bishops over the centuries. Catholics believe that they can draw closer to God through their relationship with their older brothers and sisters in the faith, the saints. This is not a purely spiritual connection, either. Physical reminders of the saints called relics have always played a large part in Catholic Christianity. These include not only belongings and pieces of clothing, but even the very bones of the saints, to make that connection as tangible as possible. Pilgrimages and visits to holy places also help us feel connected to the people and events associated with those places.

 The Language of Vatican II 

Latin fills an analogous role in the Church. I’m not saying that it’s a sacramental, strictly speaking. Here we’re speaking more of the human than the divine. It is, however, a tangible connection to, and a direct sharing in, the liturgical experience of countless prior generations of Christians. That’s one reason why the Second Vatican Council decreed that Latin should remain the liturgical language for Roman Catholics.

Yes, you read that correctly. Vatican II mandated the continuation of Latin in the Mass. Now, it’s true that the council did permit the use of local (vernacular) languages in the liturgy:

. . . since the use of the vernacular whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or in other parts of the liturgy, may frequently be of great advantage to the people, a wider use may be made of it, especially in readings, directives and in some prayers and chants.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium  36)

This was certainly a big change, but notice the word may. The same section of the same the decree Sacrosanctum Concilium goes to great pains to make it clear that the council is not mandating, or even recommending, removing the Latin language from the Mass: “The use of the Latin language, with due respect to particular law, is to be preserved in the Latin rites.” (SC 36) It returns to this point later on:

“Nevertheless care must be taken to ensure that the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.” (SC 54)

 Around the World and Through Time 

It may look as though the council’s directive to preserve Latin as the language of the Mass has not been observed. Sadly, that is true, to a great extent. But not as completely as it may seem. For one thing, Latin is still the official language of the Mass.  And no, I’m not talking about the Pre-Vatican II Tridentine Mass, which is often called the Traditional Latin Mass. The English liturgy that you hear in your local parish is just a translation of the same Latin liturgy that also underlies all the Spanish, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Korean, Swahili, and every-other-language-you-can-think-of masses throughout the world. You might recall the changes to the wording of the English liturgy in 2011. That was to bring the English into closer correspondence with the definitive text, the Latin text. In reality, every mass is a Latin mass.

By the way, here’s that tangible connection again, the human touch. When Catholics attend mass, they are praying the same prayers, saying the same words, as their fellow Catholics around the world, even if the language isn’t the same. How much more immediate a connection to say the exact same words in the same language, to make the same sounds, to pronounce the same syllables?  Now think of sharing that experience with fellow worshippers not only around the world, but through time. You can pray, word-for-word and syllable-for-syllable, with Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Francis of Assissi, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine, and so on. That’s the power of the human touch.  That’s the power of Latin in the liturgy of the Catholic Church.

 The Communion of Saints 

We can see this same principle in all sorts of things outside of a religious context. Why do millions of people each year visit historic sites? Why do we keep mementos of friends and loved ones? The human touch brings us closer. It’s the closest we can come to being physically present with those people and events. That touch, by the way, is one of the attractions of learning Latin even in a secular context. Reading the exact words Julius Caesar wrote, letter for letter, is the closest we can come to actually hearing him speak.

In the same way, Latin brings Catholics closer to their fellow believers, past and present. We call that gathering of believers throughout time The Communion of Saints. Christian believers hope to participate in that communion in a more profound way in the next world. In this physical world, however, we rely on our corporeal senses. Latin has endured in the Church for such a long time because it gives us that human touch.

At the beginning of this discussion I said that the human touch is one of the key things the Latin language brings to the Church. In fact, it’s just the beginning. We’ll take a look at another aspect of Latin in the liturgy in my next talk, “Holy Ground.”  Valete!

Featured image top of page: “The Communion of Saints,” baptistry, Padua, Italy. (public domain via Wikimedia Commons)