The ingenious zeal of pious men has provided helps for all in manuals of various kinds, and each one will select what he finds best suited for himself. He will use it or interrupt its use, or drop it altogether as experience will show him to be most useful in his own case. When it is not done through apathy or listlessness, he may find it better to dispense with them all, being satisfied with a look, with vivid faith, and such other interior acts as a faithful soul will soon learn to perform with alacrity. Knowing what he himself is, and who is before him, he will not be at a loss what to say. At one time he will weep over his sins; at another he will give thanks to God; at another he will lay open his wants, or ask pardon for his transgressions. Where can he do any of these things more effectually than in the presence of him who died for our sins, and to procure for us every blessing.
And many, in fact, thus assist in silent prayer, but with more intelligent and true devotion, though they neither use a book nor hear a word, than others who are pondering over most beautiful manuals.
The danger of cold formality from the steady use of prescribed forms, and nothing else, is so thoroughly realized by the church, and this fear is so fully justified by her experience that the priest himself is warned over and over against it. The remedy that is given him, is the practice of what might be called private individual prayer. All spiritual writers tell him that if he be not fond of this, if especially he be not careful to renew his spirit by it, in immediate preparation for the exercise of his sacred functions, they will degenerate into mere formalism. With this private preparation he will prepare and carry into them a proper spirit and will then find them a heavenly manna, having every sweet taste; without this, he will be but as the conduit pipe, carrying to others the refreshing waters, but retaining himself' none of the effects of their invigorating powers.
These remarks apply to the most sacred and most important part of' the mass. If the church do not wish us even to hear them, much less require us to understand them, if she be right in believing that we may thus assist most advantageously, it is a matter of no consequence what language the priest uses in addressing the Almighty [{733}] God, for he understands him, and that is enough. The rites he performs give all the instruction of admonition that is useful at that moment, and this instruction does not disturb our individual devotion. On the contrary, whatever turn it may take, it enlivens, supports, and directs it.
As to the first parts of the mass, to which these remarks are not so applicable, the "Gospels," which vary at every festival, are required to be read at least on festivals in their own language, and explained by each pastor to his people. The "Collects," are known to be all substantially supplications for grace, to which, therefore, we may heartily answer, Amen, though we do not understand each word. Little else remains but the "Kyrie," the "Gloria," and the "Credo," and these like the "Pater Noster," and a few other things sung by the priest, might be easily learned, so as to be understood by any diligent person. Indeed, I may say it is the wish of the church that all should learn them. She would be glad that all would take a part in singing them, as the people do in many countries. The study of Latin required for this is not much; for all that I have referred to might be contained in two or three pages, and is not beyond the reach of anyone, not even of those who cannot read. Many such learn it by heart, and understand what they have learned. Doing so would be but a light task in view of the many advantages gained. All might then join in the public chants of the church and be gainers in spiritual life, even if they did not discourse equally elegant music; or, if our apathy compels the church to let our parts be discharged, as it were, by deputies in the choir, we would assist and join in the beautiful sentiments which are expressed, and not merely sit inactive to receive the sweet impressions of their melodies.
But though this would better accord with the spirit of the church, if these parts also through our own apathy are unintelligible, the intrinsic character of the act for which we are preparing will suggest pious sentiments that will enable us to pass the time with substantial profit to our souls.
But, be it that there is some little disadvantage in having the mass in a dead language, what I have said, I think, abundantly proves at least that it is not very great. Look, on the other hand, at the immense advantages gained by keeping it uniform and without change, which implies keeping it in the language in which it was first established. By this, uniformity and steadiness is secured in the faith. The faith of every nation embalmed, as I said before, in the liturgy, is before the eyes of the universal church; it is transmitted untarnished from generation to generation. This uniform and steady liturgy becomes as an anchor to which every church is moored. As long as it clings to this, it is safe. And can anyone who knows the value of faith, of that faith for which legions of martyrs shed their blood, deem the little loss that is sustained, if any, by our Latin liturgy, not well compensated by the stability of faith which it secures. For this reason, though the world in the apostolic days was even more divided in language than it is now, yet in those times, as we know from all antiquity, the liturgy was celebrated only in three languages—the three languages of the cross. These are, the Hebrew, in its cognate dialects, which are but branches of the one Semitic tongue, as a homage to the ancient dispensation; the Greek, which was the language of the civilization of that age, and that adopted in the New Testament; and the Latin, which was the language of the people whose capital was to be the seat of the government of the Church of the New Dispensation. In these three languages was written the inscription over the bloody sacrifice on Calvary; in these, and in no others from the beginning, was the unbloody one offered to God by the church. No others having been adopted was a clear proof that in the apostolic [{734}] view it was not deemed necessary that all should understand the language used in the sacred mysteries; and, when even these ceased to be popular languages anywhere, what had always been the condition of the great number became the condition of all.
In after ages a few exceptions, and only a few, were permitted or rather tolerated. The liturgy was allowed to be celebrated in one other language in Asia, the Armenian; in two in Africa, the Coptic and the Ethiopic; and in one in Europe, the Slavonic. No others were used. But these were exceptional cases—they occurred at a later period, and under peculiar circumstances, showing rather the sufferance than the genuine spirit of the church, while she cordially adopted from the beginning, and ever clung to the three languages of the cross.
It is both beautiful and useful to the Catholic to assist at the divine offices in the same language, and in the main, with the same rites, in which they have been performed for eighteen hundred years. They seem like the voice of the martyrs, the confessors, the saints who have lived through these eighteen centuries. They echo their faith and their devotion. We feel that in them we are breathing the life of a church now and ever spread throughout the whole world, everywhere offering to God one sacrifice of praise.
A dignitary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country has lately written an angry letter against those of his brethren who are called "Ritualists," because they are anxious to introduce into their church many Catholic, or, as he calls them, "Romish" ceremonies. His ground of complaint is that behind these ceremonies stand the doctrines of the Catholic Church. "Their course," he says, "means return to what the reformation cast out with indignation." "It means Romanism in all its strength and substance," and he enumerates the various doctrines which it implies, which he considers abominations. I do not wish to pronounce an opinion on the extent to which his remarks are justifiable in their application to the parties against whom he writes; but he is certainly right in believing that behind the Catholic ritual stands Catholic doctrine, which is nothing else but Christian doctrine; and as the reformation "cast out" many of the rites in use in the Christian family from the beginning, with them it "cast out" a great portion of the Christian dogma. The good man's charge will only make those who preserve the dogma see more clearly the value of the rites in which it is enshrined, and cling more tenaciously to dogmas thus shown to be coeval with Christianity.