The Mass
Sir: May I draw the attention of Mr Auberon Waugh to a feature of the Liturgy controversy which has passed unnoticed? The present English liturgy is unsatisfactory, wanting in dignity and simplicity. In that opinion I agree with him, but no one seems to have noticed that the same applies to the Tridentine liturgy.
'El in saerula .vaectilorum'. The Romans were well aware of the humorous character of their genitive plural, as is shown by a late writer who began a story '0/imo/iorllm'. That is only one example of the highly colloquial, not to say slangy Latin which was incongruously set to the most exquisite music Europe could produce.
I plead, and hope that Mr Waugh will plead, for a Mass text in simple, dignified English. to which the first step should be the suppression (from public functions) of the Jerusalem Bible and the Grail version of the Psalms, and the substitution of the Revised Standard Version.
I write this in the keen recollection that to quarrel about the Mass is to quarrel at the foot of the Cross and to add to the angry clamour that tormented the last hour of the earthly life of Jesus. Does Mr Waugh hope that the tone of his article(7 August)is likely to win the sympathy of his opponents?
M. A. Lynch
Room 16, St. Joseph's Nursing Home, 15 Church Street, Lower Edmonton, London N9
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