What's the Big Deal with Latin?

My mother gave me a book of beginning Christian Latin to study in 7th grade. I loved languages, and she felt that knowledge of basic Latin would help me understand the roots, meanings and forms of words in English. She was right; I gained a greater understanding of English (and, coincidentally, Spanish) through studying Latin vocab and grammar than I ever could have from English spelling and grammar workbooks.

But something else happened that my mother did not expect.

In studying Latin for its application to English, I came to enjoy the Lingua Latina for its own sake. It is precise, concise, and transcendent of place and time--basically everything a body could ask for in a spoken and written language. I liked it so much that I started learning songs and chants in Latin, and even occasionally attending the Latin Mass. And then, when my Best Beloved and I were planning our wedding Mass and including a lot of Latin in it, my mother started to protest. 

"Nobody will understand it! Nobody will get anything out of it. It's basically useless. It's a dead language. What's the big deal about Latin, anyway?"

But looking at history, it's fairly obvious that Latin is a pretty big deal. In the way that everyone learns English now for political, social and economic reasons, once upon a time, every educated person learned to read, write and speak Latin. Latin was the language of communication between different cultures of the Western World for several hundred years. Even after the Roman Empire died out, it was still used as the universal language of the Catholic Church, and continues in that capacity to this day. Why is that?

Let us lay aside the political reasons of Rome having expanded its empire over almost the entire Western world; after all, if the Church found that Latin was not well suited to its purposes, she could very easily have thrown it off when the Empire collapsed. I don't believe that she held onto it out of fear of change either, for the Church is not marked by fear, but by boldness. There must have been something about Latin that made it worth keeping around, even after being called by most of the world a "dead language."

 Unlike English, Latin is incredibly precise. English was once a Germanic language, which was over the centuries merged and mixed up with Norse, Celtic, Latin and French, and is in a constant state of flux and evolution. It is in constant, everyday use by people who have grown increasingly lazy, and (probably as a result) is slowly becoming less exact, less descriptive, and more confusing. Latin, however, grew to maturity as the language of a dominant world power--it did not bow to other languages, and did not need to alter itself significantly to accommodate them. It remained pretty much the same from the days of St. Jerome (who compiled the Latin Vulgate) until now. The grammar, spelling and pronunciation are very mathematical, with few (if any) exceptions. If you want the words to say exactly what you mean, and as efficiently as possible, use Latin. The Church, in her wisdom, has done for centuries. 

Latin is also concise. When I was studying Latin, I marveled at how much less space on the page the Latin phrase took than the English translation beneath it. Relying on context and subtle changes in the endings of words, the Latin language found that it did not need most of the little connector words that we necessarily have to use in English--words like "the" and "a" and "of." This is how the Latin versions of some of my favorite hymns pack way more meaning into the same number of syllables than their English counterparts. And as a side benefit, if you happen to be crunched for time, Latin prayers are faster to say. (Though I don't recommend speed-prayer as a rule, unless perhaps you are being chased by lions...)

And it is a transcendent language. Latin may be a "dead" language today, in the sense that no one would use it conversationally, but I think its very deadness gives it attributes that no other language has. It it no longer the language of any one culture or country, yet the whole world still feels its influence, and uses it to connect to the great intellects and wisdom of our past. Thus it transcends place. 

Since Latin is not regularly spoken anymore, it is no longer in a state of flux, ever-changing and evolving, like English, Spanish, or any other language commonly spoken today. Yet it has been used through the years, primarily by the Catholic Church, to an extent far greater than any other dead language in the world's history. I think this is because, throughout the last two-thousand or so years, Latin has liked us to Christ in ways that even more obvious languages, like Hebrew and Aramaic have not. Whenever we pray a prayer or sing a song in Latin, it is like praying or singing alongside all the Christians throughout time who used this same language to worship Christ, transcending the boundaries of time.     

Unfortunately, I had no luck communicating this to my mother. She still professes not to see the point of Latin, but my Best Beloved and I did not give in, and she was forced to sit through an hour-and-a-quarter Mass which, although mostly in English, was sprinkled generously with gems from the past in the language of our spiritual forefathers. Maybe when she gets to Heaven she'll figure it out.  

You Never Grow Up…

Some kids never want to grow up. Others spend their entire childhood looking forward to the day when they will be considered grown-ups, and in their long-awaited early twenties are disappointed to discover that “being grown-up” is not as clear-cut a line as they thought it was.

That was me. I’m still looking forward to being grown up. But now I’m not as sure just how much longer that will take.

Once upon a time, my mother in her wisdom (I’m convinced God gives mothers a particular motherly grace that manifests itself as wisdom. They know things just by virtue of being mothers) said that when you are a little child, you think the world revolves around you, and everyone else is there to take care of you or amuse you. As you get older you come to realize this is not the case, and that there are other people in the world that are possibly of more importance than yourself. But the true mark of being grown up is learning to put others first and yourself last, giving yourself to the service of others.

Hearing that, I was afraid I’d never make it. My fantasies of magically being grown-up at eighteen or twenty-one were now completely shattered. “How old were you when you learned that?” I asked.

“I’m still learning it,” she replied.

I cannot describe how simultaneously reassuring and disappointing that revelation was to me. If my mother, having had roughly thirty more years than I in which to grow up, had not yet made it, I would probably be very old and gray before I could ever claim to be completely grown up. On the other hand, I didn’t have to.

If being grown up is, as in my mother’s definition, a perfection in selflessness, it is something none of us can attain in this life. I am not asked to be perfect. I am simply asked to strive for perfection. In that same way, I am not asked to reach a point where I can consider myself grown up. All I am asked to do is to continue to grow up, to continue striving, all my life.

Am I Feminine Enough?

I have a small confession to make. My Twin cousin and my Best Friend will both probably laugh out loud when they hear this, but it needs to be said anyway. There are some times when I don’t feel very feminine, when, in fact, I feel like I’ve failed at being a good woman. Those are times when I think of the following:

I don’t like to sew and I don’t like to cook.

Oh, I can do both enough to get by just fine on my own, but really, there are other things I’d rather be doing with my time. Like knitting, crocheting, writing letters, making lace, spinning yarn, reading, singing, playing my instruments, and other similar pursuits. Those are interesting. And I do like the kind of sewing that can be done with a needle and thread; it’s just the sewing machine that really bothers me.

But the image of the ideal woman I have before my mind (an image formed, I suppose, through reading books mostly a century old or older), is one who sews and cooks and cleans. And while spinning and lacemaking might be traditionally feminine pursuits, there is very little need for them nowadays, and thus I am wont to consider them unimportant.

I can darn a sock, knit a cable stitch or pick a G lick with ease and tranquility, but ask me to sew a collar or make a meal for a family of seven, half of whom can’t eat gluten, and I will instantly get all stressed out.

So if I’m not good at cooking or sewing, the question is, does that make me a failure as a woman?

Answer 1: Yes. You have definitely failed. You need to immediately get your act together and practice these essential feminine arts. Otherwise how are you going to take care of the family you are going to have someday? If you can’t cook, how will you please your husband? If you can’t sew, how are your daughters going to be able to find anything modest to wear? You need to leave off doing the things you like, because those aren’t important, and get very good at the things you don’t like, because those are the important ones.

Answer 2: No, you haven’t failed. Cooking and sewing are good things to know, but your femininity does not depend on those skills. Besides, it’s not like you can’t do those things at all, but you just don’t like doing them. Look at all those other very feminine things you can do. Most of all, look at who you are—a daughter of God. He doesn’t fault you for not having certain talents or skills. He just cares what you do with the ones you do have. Consider the lilies of the field…

Will you believe it, when I ask myself this question, I answer myself the first answer most of the time, even though I’m fairly sure answer 2 is much closer to the truth.

But then, once upon a time, my mother handed me a sport coat of my dad’s, and two leather elbow patches, and asked if I could sew them on. “It drives me nuts doing that,” she said. “I always poke myself, and it goes so slow—you have to do it by hand, and I can’t even see the holes.”

I was going to tell her I’d do it, when she added,

“I’m dreading it so much that I’d even be willing to trade you some other sewing if you’ll do it.”

Great bonus feature, I thought. My mother agreed to finish two shirts for me (which had already been cut out and partially assembled, minus the hard parts), and in return I would put the patches on Dad’s coat.

And then I thought to myself, “Gee. There are things even Mother doesn’t like to do. I guess you don’t have to be good at everything in order to be a good wife and mother, or even a good woman.”

Advice to Self: God gives everybody a different set of strengths and weaknesses. The trick is to use your strengths well, and for the glory of God. Work on your weaknesses, but don’t fault yourself for them.