Liturgical Latin: Its Origins and Character: Three Lectures

Description

A great little book that gives a short but detailed explanation of Liturgical Latin in three chapters. Chapter One- Sacred and Hieratic Languages, Two- Early Christian Latin and the Origin of Liturgical Latin, Three- General Characteristics of Liturgical Latin. Written in an easy to read format so you don't have to be a historian or scholar to understand what is contained therein. A nice companion to a grammatical Latin course which rarely give any background to the development of the language.

cited in:

• Daniel G. Van Slyke, “ Despicere Mundum et Terrena : A Spiritual and Liturgical Motif in the Missale Romanum,” Usus Antiquior 1, no. 1 (January 2010): 59–81,

which goes into more detail than Fr. Cekada did in his Work of Human Hands regarding the orations with the word dispicere that Concilium cut when fabricating the Novus Disordo.

Lecture 3 compares the older Latin liturgical texts with the newer, more sacred constructions now in use.

pp. 60-1:

The advocates of the use of the vernacular in the liturgy who maintain that even in Christian Antiquity the current speech of everyday life, “the Latin of the common man,” was employed, are far off the mark. Liturgical Latin is not Classical Latin, but neither is it, as is so often said, the Latin which was considered decadent by educated people.

p. 87

If the liturgy were to be celebrated entirely in the vernaculars of the various countries, and the prayers of the Breviary said by each one in his own tongue, the Latin of the Church would automatically die out and our last links with the ancient sources would be irrevocably severed.

p. 41 (PDF p. 46) mentions St. Jerome's Ep. 106, which seems to be where he discussions his translation philosophy/methodology.