Semi-coherent Ramblings on Contemplation and Mass

I have no idea what it means to be a contemplative, though I've read books about it to the point of frustration, but I do know this: one of the advantages of the Latin Liturgy is the opportunity to participate in a more intuitive, as opposed to intellectual manner. In other words, if I hear the English language being spoken, it is reflexive for me to attend to the meaning of the words themselves, and if I'm not careful, I can lose the overall thrust of what is actually going on. In the Latin Liturgy, I can be present, I can participate, but I can also find a quiet spot inside of myself which can be open to promptings and movements of God. These may take the form of ideas, plans, or just a quiet, secure knowledge of the rightness of what I believe. It sounds anti-intellectual, I suppose, but I don't mean it to be so, when I say that I don't have to think my way through Mass. I can experience Mass, and hopefully experience the one who is present.

Mind you, I'm not saying I hear the voice of God during Mass, telling me, personally, what's what. But there are few places where I can set aside everything else and maybe, for a few moments, be open and receptive to God in quite this way. Again, I repeat, I am in no wise a contemplative, much less a mystic, but in that small quiet chapel, in the midst of the most reverently conducted Mass you'll ever want to see, I can sometimes skirt around the edges of the neighborhood of contemplation. For me, that's pretty close, and a little can go a long way.

There is an excellent book, Know Him in the Breaking of the Bread: A Guide to Mass By Fr. Francis Rudolph, which though written about the Mass as we hear it in English at most of our parishes, has an amazing appendix about the Latin Mass. In it, he talks a bit about the history of Vatican II, the fallout as it pertains to liturgy, and about the many good reasons some people prefer Latin. I recommend the entire book, but if you pick it up just to browse, read the appendix. Here is one of my favorite quotes:

The Mass is the Mass, wherever and however it is celebrated. Naturally you will find some forms of Mass more congenial than others. You have a right to search out the celebration where you are most happy, but other people have that right as well. If you travel out of your home parish to find your favorite church, you have no right to despise those whom you meet going the other way to Mass in the church you have just left. And if you cannot avoid attending Mass in a style you dislike, remember that it is the one, eternal Mass, and no matter how uncongenial the surroundings, how boring the sermon, how fatuous the priest, it is the Sacrifice that matters. Christ has come to earth for us, come let us adore him!"