Silence is golden… so is Latin

More from the aforementioned book.  Again, italics are original, bolding is mine. 

I think this first little section should be posted in large letters in every Catholic Church in America:

Conversation in Church

With Catholics the purpose of attending Church is to worship God.  The Catholic Church is more than a meeting house.  It is a holy place where God dwells in the Blessed Sacrament.  Out of reverence for the sacred surroundings, without intending incivility or discourtesy, the faithful avoid conversations with their neighbors in order to preserve a recollected state of mind and to show due regard for the Sacred Presence.

I have actually met people (even other Catholics) who were turned off from Catholicism because they found the churches and the people therein to be cold, unfriendly, unwelcoming.  I don’t doubt that might be genuinely true in some ways and in some cases, but I wonder how much of it is simply based on misconceptions and on divergent opinions about what Church and worship should be like and what they really mean. 

I think back to my childhood, when Dad would take my sister and me to Mass and CCD on Sunday morning, and then Mom and our Granny would take us to their Baptist church on Sunday evening.  I guarantee you, we had more fun at the Baptist church–it was loud and energetic and sociable, and we were allowed to goof off and chew gum and eat mints during the service, and nobody seemed to take note or mind.  It didn’t seem as much like, well, Church. 

I’m not at all saying this to belittle or demean the folks in that Baptist church–least of all my saint of a grandmother.  Those people were sincere, they were on fire, and they were worshiping God the best way they knew how.  But I knew even as a child that the Mass was something very sacred and very holy… and it was something I needed, something that would have been deeply missing from my life had we stopped going.  I knew that God was in the Catholic Church in a way that He is not in other places… and that He deserves more attention than anybody or anything else.

This next section is very instructive–and I think the modern Church, and modern America in general, would do well to take heed:

The Use of Latin

In sermons and instructions the Church uses whatever language is suited for imparting knowledge.  It may be a sign language or any spoken language.  In ritual intercourse it uses the Latin because this plan is apostolic and useful for the following reasons:

First.–A world wide religion needs a common language for convenience in intercommunication.

Second.–The Latin language is fixed; it does not change.  Modern languages do; they undergo modifications which permit confusion in the sense of many words and phrases as understood by successive generations.  The Church safeguards her doctrines from the danger of being misunderstood by the use of Latin.

Third.–All scholars know that the Latin language is lucid and precise, that it has power and grandeur; and the experience of many ages is that it aptly serves the purposes of ceremonial worship.

Fourth.–A common language employed in religious worship gives a character to the act which makes all men brothers.  Entering a house of God in a strange land the Catholic is at home, for he finds a sameness in the mode of worshipping.  The experience anchors him to home memories, and not less it exemplifies for him in a practical manner the common fatherhood of God.

Fifth.–The primate of the apostolic college, Peter, fixed his See finally at Rome, the centre of ancient civilization, which, in consequence, became the principal seat of Christianity.  From this historical fact springs the use of Latin in the Church. 

Basically, Latin works.  It has worked for a very long time, and it could continue to work if we would let it.  Contrary to popular belief, the Second Vatican Council reaffirmed this.  The current efforts at re-translating the English liturgical texts to be more faithful to, and expressive of, the original Latin reaffirm this as well.  Having read over some drafts of this re-translation in the past, I can say that it makes an enormous difference.  It gives a much more solemn, rich, and (again) sacred character to the liturgical texts. 

And frankly, in many cases, it grants greater clarity.  One Latin word can shed more light on a concept than a clunky, multi-word English approximation can every hope to.  Just one example: that Christ is consubstantial with the Father makes a lot more sense than that Christ is “one in being” with the Father.  Frankly, I think “one in being” has a rather cheesy New Age feel about it.  Gosh, I just hope that the new translations come out soon–and that the final forms are as good as the drafts I have read.  Dear Holy Spirit, please!

I found the fourth point to be a very poignant wake-up call for white, English-speaking Catholic Americans such as myself: not so long ago, white Catholic America consisted of people from numerous faraway lands who spoke only the languages of those lands.  Catholic immigrants left Catholic nations to find themselves in strange new regions, often on the frontiers of civilization, and often marginalized by a predominantly non-Catholic society.  They left ancient parishes for mission churches often feverishly attended to by single, overworked priests, often immigrants themselves. 

I think that many white, English-speaking Americans today have lost sight of this immigrant past and lost any concept of what a difficult and frightening experience it must have been for many of our ancestors.  So, naturally, we don’t realize how important it was for those people to be able to enter a Church and find something familiar and comforting and to be able to understand the language, and perhaps to be drawn into greater fellowship with fellow immigrants from different lands, to be able to start to form a new American community with them.  An American community that we, their descendents, usually take for granted. 

And in our multiculturalism-crazed culture, we have forgotten about how hard our ancestors worked to become one, one America, one great culture built upon the best characteristics of a variety of cultures.  Not in order to deny those cultures, but to mutually buy in to and build up what was held and valued in common.

So much we have lost… so much to learn!

Who founded the Catholic Church?

This is a section from the aforementioned book.  It is a nice bit of apologetics defending the divine origins of the Catholic Church–using Scripture, no less!  I’m guessing this was written by Fr. Huebsch, who seems to have been an very erudite man.  It said somewhere that he fluently spoke eight languages, and delivered his sermons in English, Bohemian, German, and Polish–which gives you an idea of the cultural make-up of Gonzales, Texas and its environs.  The second paragraph made me ROFLMAO.  Italics are original; bolding is mine.

Who Founded the Catholic Church?

Macaulay, Channing and Bancroft* recognize the greatness, the permanence, and the Christian character of the Catholic Church, but attribute this to “human skill and sagacity in religion,” and regard her as “a monument of human genius.”  These men are like those Jews who looked upon Christ as Elias, or Jeremias, or one of the prophets.

 

What truth is there in this theory?  Let us see:  Here is a Church that possesses unity of faith and an unchangeable code of morals, which counts three hundred millions of men as her children, which has lasted for nineteen centuries, and bids fair to last until the end of all time.  Now, to tell us that this is all due to the sagacity and genius of Catholics is much too flattering to be true, and we honestly cannot so accept it.  Without any claim to an unusual degree of humility, we may, on the part of Catholics, venture to express the opinion that they are not endowed with any more skill, sagacity, or genius than other folk.  We disclaim all natural superiority, as Catholics, over our fellow-men.  The defenders of this theory hardly believe it themselves, but they put it forth in order to avoid the necessity of acknowledging the true character of the Catholic Church.  For there is no other way of giving a rational account of the Catholic Church, except by recognizing that she was founded by Christ, and is guided and upheld by the Holy Spirit of God.

 

The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ.  That Christ intended to found a Church there can be no question.  Here are His words:  “And I say to thee, that thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my Church” (Matt. xvi. 18).  No Christian will venture to doubt that Christ fulfilled this promise.

 

He promised that His Church should never fail; for, after having made the promise, He added, “And the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. Xvi. 18).  Hence the truth of the saying, “Once the Church, always the Church.”

 

Christ gave to His Church the commission and command to preach His Gospel to the whole world: “All power is given to me in heaven and upon earth.  Going, therefore, teach ye all nations” (Matt. xxviii. 18).  A command which the Catholic Church alone has fulfilled.  He promised to remain with His Church always.  “And behold, I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.”  Hence the Church is always holy, for Christ always dwells in her.

 

Be not deceived, sincere reader; it is not human sagacity or genius that has founded the holy Catholic Church, but the word of Jesus Christ, the God-man, who has said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away” (Matt. xxiv. 35).

 

Be no longer misled; it is not ignorance or superstition which so strongly attaches Catholics to the Church.  It is nothing of this sort; but it is their firm faith, grounded upon the express words and promises of Jesus Christ.

 

Do you, reader, believe firmly in the divinity of Christ?  If so, be a consistent follower of Him, and believe, also, firmly in His word, and acknowledge the Catholic Church, “which is the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. iii. 15).

____________________________

* I think he is referring to prominent 19th-century historians, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Edward Channing, and George Bancroft.

Beautifully said, I think!  I know I would be greatly flattered if someone were to attribute the Church’s greatness to human ingenuity!  But we don’t hear that these days.  Instead of polite gentlemen like Macaulay, Channing, and Bancroft, we get Dawkins, Hitchens, Pullman, et al., snotty TV and radio personalities, batty non-Catholic church leaders, etc., etc., etc.  Some of them seemingly sincere, while others are merely surfing the currents of fashionable anti-Catholicism.  Today, Catholicism is all lunacy, ignorance, diabolical possession, oppressive socio-econo-political tyranny, lust for power, mass hypocrisy, ancient conspiracy, organized crime, and/or shoddy rip-offs of other traditions.  Blah blah blah blah blah. 

Never mind the actual evidence to the contrary, to be found in history, science, art, philosophy, theology, education, and social work, not to mention the parish church down the street!  Never mind the very real, genuine, reasoned, passionate, and unshakable faith and devotion of Catholics great and small, past and present, rich and poor, sophisticated and simple, old and young.  Never mind the holiness that pervades the Church and is bravely carried into the secular world by ordinary people like you and me.  Never mind any of that, because guess what–there’s no way for our critics to explain any of it!  And these days, when you can’t explain something it simply mustn’t be real.  Can’t explain why the Catholic Church is so great?  It mustn’t be great at all, then!  Case closed.

I wonder what Fr. Huebsch would have to say to today’s critics… 

A bit of Texas Catholic history

One of the things I love about my job is that I often get to see, and catalog, some really fascinating things.  Naturally, I get especially excited when I come across something Catholic-related.  A while back, there was this gem: 

Year Book

of the St. James Catholic Church of Gonzales, Texas,

and the Missions of Ottine and Monthalia

Rev. Dr. A. A. Huebsch, Rector

1915

It was a very small book, but it had some really interesting things in it!  As luck would have it, I came across some parts of it that I had retyped.  I’m telling you this, of course, because I plan to share it with you!  :D

There’s a lot, so I will break it up into manageable portions.

Stay tuned!

OH, and should you ever wish to see the original, you can find it at Southern Methodist University’s DeGolyer Library!