Hooked on the Latin Mass.
I HAVE always been impatient, and so it was I suppose surprising
that I came so quickly to feel at ease with the daily Mass, becoming
progressively more engrossed in the words and the ritual. The liturgy
took hold of me, and I suppose that this means nothing more than that
liturgy has theatrical properties. Yes, but something more, I reasonably
supposed, and suppose so now. Thirty years later I would write a
scorching denunciation of the changes authorized by Vatican II and of
the heartbreakingly awful English translations that accompanied the
jettisoning of the Latin. The Mass, in Latin, had got to me. They say
about alcoholics that they are never "cured." I am a senior
citizen and my faith has never left me, and I must suppose that Fr.
Sharkey and Fr. Paine and Fr. Manning had something to do with it. They,
and the closeness I felt, every morning, to the mystical things that
were taking place at the altar.
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