The Language of the Mass

During the first two centuries the liturgical language at Rome was Greek. During the next two centuries Greek and Latin were used side by side. Then Latin supplanted Greek altogether. Since most of the west-nations were evangelized from Rome, Latin became the liturgical language of the whole Western Church.

The advantages of having one liturgical language, and that an unchangeable one, are obvious:

a) The use of the same language throughout the Church pro­motes the unity and union of its members.

b) The liturgy would have lost much of its sublime and ven­erable character if, in the course of time, as often as the words of living language would change their meaning or become obsolete or trivial, the Church would have to substitute new ones. (Com­pare the language of Chaucer, and even of Shakespeare and Mil­ton, with our present English.)

c) Wherever a Catholic goes, the language of the Church makes him feel at home, whereas non-Catholics are strangers as they leave their own country.*

d) If the Mass were said in every country in the vernacular, priests traveling in foreign lands would either have to know many languages or carry their own Missals with them if they wished to say Mass.

e) The Mass being a sacrifice, and not merely a form of prayer or a sermon, it is not necessary to understand all the words said by the priest in order to take part in the service. Even though the Mass were said in the vernacular, most of our churches are ­so large that the people could hardly understand the words spoken by the priest at the altar.

f) We never hear the faithful complain that the use of the Latin tongue detracts in any way from their devotion.

g) Not only the Roman Catholic Church, but the Russian, Greek, Armenian, Chaldean, and other Eastern Churches celebrate the liturgy in a tongue distinct from the vernacular. In Egypt, for example, the Christians speak Arabic, while the liturgical language is partly Greek, partly Coptic. To this day the Jews use Hebrew in their synagogue service, although it is a dead language. Even the pagan Romans retained in their public religious rites the old Latin words and forms after they had become unintelligible to the majority of the people.

* This was the case until the 1960's when the vernacular was introduced, for Latin was still in universal use at the time Fr. Laux wrote, and the Latin Rite "is found throughout the world. -Editor, 1990.
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From Mass and the Sacraments
by Fr. John Laux, M.A. (c-1934 Benziger, 1990-Tan Books)