Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Bilingual liturgies: the agony and the ecstasy!

In New York City, the Christmas Midnight Mass, the Holy Thursday liturgy, and the Easter Vigil are de riguer bilingual liturgies in parishes with other-than-English parishioners. Generally the other language is Spanish, but other possibilities are Tagalog, Polish, French/Creole. Holidays with special significance, e.g., the patrimonial feast of the parish, holy days of quasi-obligation, etc., will have a bilingual celebration.

The Easter Vigil just passed brings to mind some of the virtues, and otherwise, of the practice. Bilingualism--English and Spanish--says everyone is welcome. That's a positive.
When they are well done and with the handy missalette available for the alternation in readings, the practice creates a sense of community and equality.

But....there are downsides..
1. the same sermon, given in two languages, especially if the homilist goes full bore;
2. switching back and forth between languages especially in the Eucharistic prayer;
3. the musical cacophony that comes with two very different musical tradiitons;
4. bilingual liturgies can be twice as long as single language liturgies--(3 hours at our parish last Saturday; 1.5 downtown at my friend's parish);
5. spending the downtime at the liturgy thinking about what's wrong with it.

What to do?
1. When a parish has flipped, make the non-English and now dominant language the language of worship.
2. Bilingual liturgies need careful preparation and planning, understanding both linguistic and cultural differences.
3. A reversion to Latin might pop into people's minds, but by now, only older generations would have any facility.
4......yes, let's hear it about what else to do.

24 comments:

  1. 1. The dominant language of the parish should be the dominant language of the parish's liturgy. As long as there is a significant minority, though, they should get at least one Mass per weekend in their own language Occasional bilingual liturgies should attempt to pull both groups together occasionally.

    2. Although some folks at Pray Tell will burn their albs when I say it, showing the translation on the AV makes being bilingual a lot easier. It would also help if musicians would write more songs to be sung in both languages, as Jaime Cortez and Bob Hurd did with "Somos el Cuerpo de Christo/We Are the Body of Christ." I've never seen someone refuse on language grounds to join in on that.

    3, A reversion to Latin would give us what Max Bailystock said his Theater-in-the-Square gave us -- "Nobody has a good seat."

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    1. A good Spanglish hymn we use a lot is Pan de Vida.

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  2. The Orthodox have a beautiful custom of singing the Paschal Antiphon "Christ is risen.." in many languages to emphasize the Pentecostal dimension of the Gospel. Multiplicity of languages rather than Latin uniformity is the true marker of Catholicity.

    There are many parts to the Mass that we know well enough that we could easily learn the prayer in another language, especially if it is set to music. For example I have a recording of the Lord's Prayer in French using a setting of a Russian composer. It is my favorite setting of the Lord's prayer. I don't see why a parish could not sing this setting for a year, perhaps accompanied by prayer for the many French speaking parts of the globe. Our high school students would be natural leaders in such efforts to raise our consciousness about languages and cultures.

    I think we need to expand the thinking on languages from the categories of dominant, majority, minority, bi-.

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  3. In some parishes children are invited to a separate liturgy of the Word. Why not have separate bi-lingual liturgies of the Word. If the minority is small we could use the dismissal format. For equal communities, perhaps begin the Liturgy of the Word in two separate locations perhaps each led by a deacon, coming together in the Church at the offertory procession.

    Once we get to the Eucharist most of the settings are the same (or can be the same) they could easily be made available in both languages on a handout card.

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  4. Tom, Jack, et al: What about flipping a parish to the new "other" language when that is the language of say 80% of the parishioners. In a place like NYC where parishes are more or less a mile apart, we English-speakers could just go to the nearest English language liturgy. I give this serious thought certainly on the big feasts when bilingualism comes into play.

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    1. When my almost 90 year old aunt moved to California to be near her daughter, the parish nearest the retirement community had the Mass mostly in Tagalog. She still drove but not very far. The parish was well aware of the retirement community. It was too much for my aunt to try to adapt to their liturgy.

      I do think the elderly are just as important as the children. We need to create a space for them in our parish liturgies, especially if that space is the liturgy that has been with them most of their lives.

      When I lived in Toledo I went to a parish that was once mostly Polish. The young organist learned some of the traditional Polish carols. At Christmas and on some of the Marian feasts she sang them after communion, and for the old people it became their parish once again.

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    2. Margaret, That solution works for New York City and for West Palm Beach, where I can get to five churches in less than 15 minutes of fairly easy driving. I am not sure what it does for St. Cloud, Minn., or What Cheer, Iowa.

      I also don't think it's the end of the world to have two language groups inhabiting the same church. Our Anglos don't. for the most part, show up for the Posadas at Christmas or the Santo Entierro (sacred burial) last week, but they are invited. I suspect all of our Latinos will worship as Anglos in the next generation. You can almost see it happening now.

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  5. I agree with Tom's comment, especially his first point. It works better when the minority community has a Mass in their language, with the occasional bilingual celebration. We have 3 parishes in our town. The largest one hosts the Spanish language Mass at 2:00 pm on Sunday. They have around 300 in attendance. It's also known as the bartender's Mass for Anglos who overslept Sunday morning. Our parish is the smallest of the three and has a few Latino families, but not that many. My husband got some negative pushback when he read a gospel acclamation in Spanish in an effort to be inclusive. The parish still has a strong Polish identity. Which brings me to Margaret's comment at 3:39. I see no reason why people can't change parishes if they want to. We aren't bound by geography as much as we used to be. Of course there are areas where choice isn't an option, including my hometown, where the nearest other parish would be 30 miles away.

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  6. I can remember when the priest used to read the Epistle and Gospel in Latin on Sunday, and he then read them in English. For daily Mass it was just in Latin, and we school kids had the big daily missals with the English translation. I'm not at all a "rad trad" but I can see situations where there are several different ethnic groups in a parish where the Latin novus ordo Mass might be a good option.

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    1. I have an extensive collection of Latin Chant CDs. Most of the people who have listened to them are liberals but they all love chant. When Benedict became Pope, I was hoping he would promote more Latin and English chant in the novo ordo Mass. However the EF changed everything. I would not promote Latin at all in the parish less we get some young priest who would want the EF.

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    2. I am told that when younger priests (who couldn't translate "veni vidi, vinci" if they tried) decide to do the EF, older priests advise them that it includes the Communion fast after midnight and veils on the women.

      Of course, if someone decides Latin is God's first language he won't be open to discussion.

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    3. I never disliked the Latin Mass. But the problem I have with the EF is the baggage and mentality that seems to go with it; that Vatican II was all a big mistake and if we just turned the clock back things would be great. Which is why I would prefer the N.O. Mass if they're going to do Latin.

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    4. I listen to the Litany of the Saints in Latin. I personally have no problem with Latin, but I think that it has "baggage" for older cradle Catholics, and I think it's a strange solution for bilingualism: use a language that no one knows ...

      I went to Mass several times in Montreal. Nobody's going to throw Anglophones a bone there. I had no trouble following anything but the homily.

      However, whatever parishes can do to be inclusive shows the universality of the Church. I was happy to see Our Lady of Guadalupe shrine added to the local parish. Our Lady of Czestowacha is on the other side of the altar.

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    5. Margaret: EF = Extraordinary Form. In which "extraordinary" means in Vatican Latin "what we don't usually do," which they never bother to translate into English. Because they are anointed. So they don't have to. But it leaves some Americans, who don't know Latin, lusting for Mass in Latin because they think it means "super special."

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  7. For the record: Our parish has English and Spanish Masses all the time, everyday. Bilingual only occurs on the major feasts noted above. I think our parish is now majority Hispanic (mostly Dominican), hence my question: Should major feast Masses just be in Spanish?

    I do see the generational future that Tom Blackburn points to, the third generation. Kids at Mass with their parents and grandparents; they probably speak English to their parents and Spanglish to their grandparents. But in the meantime...

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  8. A guy I work with told me that the parish where The Boy went to school was originally an "ethnic parish." I'd never heard of such a thing. They were supposed to have at least one mass a week in Czech, but now that everybody is third or fourth generation, nobody speaks Czech, and the priest is from Africa.

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    1. Yeah, back in the day there were a lot of ethnic parishes. A little town down the road from us had a German parish and an Irish parish. There couldn't have been more than 500 people total at that time. People got bent out of shape if you didn't go to your "right" parish. Now there's a big meat packing plant there and the town is two thirds Hispanic. The two parishes were merged into one, and both the Germans and Irish are minorities.

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    2. Priests from Africa and India; there's a translation issue even when they speak English.

      Dioceses that "import" them should be obliged to support them with an orientation period to include introduction to the culture and the intonations of American English with follow-ups to let them ask what's going on. Some are super; the parish loves them and they fit right in. Others not so much; bishops have a special responsibility here. Many pastors and most parishioners aren't equipped to provide direction and support.

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    3. I agree. The folks in the parish above seem to really love the priest who is good at pastoral duties (unlike the last one who was just arrested for embezzling church funds). But his English needs work.

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  9. Our parish (to go on about it) has a side altar filled with pictures and statues of the Madonna (aka, Mary, the Mother of Jesus). I am told they represent the patronesses of Latin and Central American countries, plus Our Lady of Guadeloupe. Given the number, it appears some regional patronesses have been included.

    Probably after VII, the parish faithfully removed all the usual statues. But on the principle that nothing is ever lost or forgotten, these Madonnas have come in through the side door and have a whole altar to themselves. At home, I refer to it as the "Altar of the Goddesses," steeped as I am in the belief that deep within Catholicism beats a sturdy pagan pulse. And except for aesthetics is there any reasonable objection to them. No.

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    1. The parish that hosts the Spanish Mass in our town has an altar in the back of the church with a large picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is quite colorfully decorated with flowers and an embroidered cloth. The rest of the church is German gothic, but this altar doesn't look out of place.
      There was a bit of iconoclasm after VII here also, and a lot of statues were removed. But the parishes here were full of people who never throw anything away. And the statues, etc. were stashed away for another day. They are mostly back now. Some of them which were a little dinged up were restored. And it was found that some of the artwork was original and rather valuable, so we owe some thanks to the savers (I won't say hoarders!) who lived through the Depression.

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    2. I love churches with a mish mash of statuary, glass, and other accoutrements from times past. The teensy rural Anglican parish churches in England are full of surprises. When I was in Cambridgeshire, I found: a Roman altar being used in a shed as a gardening table, an Anglo-Saxon carved angel lurking in the shadows high up over an altar, medieval stained glass that had been whisked away by the locals during the Dissolution and later repaired and reinstalled, grafitti from an anchorite who lived in a bell tower, and any number of brass plates marking the tombs of local worthies. These churches were always open,and usually inhabited by church ladies of a certain age who were invariably welcoming and willing to stop everything and show us through the place and brag about the communion rail pillows their mothers and grannies had needlepointed in the time of Queen Victoria. Some of them had had American sweethearts in WWII and wanted to re!e!Ber that. Good memories!

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    3. Pillows...I have been struck in Anglican churches and some U.S. Protestant churches that "soft kneeling" requires a pillow because there are no kneelers.

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