Newspaper Page Text
Thursday, March 22, 2001
The Southern Cross, Page 5
Everyday Graces
“I appreciate the ride, even this far”
I live near several golf courses. Many of
these golf courses are surrounded by
marshes. Some have lakes. A few of
the golf courses permit men to wade
into the marsh and lakes to retrieve
lost golf balls. Once they’ve spent a
few hours retrieving balls from the
mud, these men walk down the high
way near my home to take the balls to
a golf shop that purchases the balls
from them and resells them at a dis
count to golfers. The distance these men walk,
carrying the golf balls to sell, is about three
miles. They carry the balls in a large plastic bag.
They work alone and walk alone.
In my daily routine, I have driven past these
men for nearly three years. It never occurred to
me until recently to offer them a ride. These
men are very different from me. They are older
than I am, or at least they look older. They have
lived harder. They are of another race and anoth
er social class. In most circumstances, our paths
would never cross, but our paths do cross, al
most every day, after the men have retrieved the
golf balls and are walking to the shop to sell
them.
The other day, when I passed one of these
men, I looked in my rearview mirror. His face
looked like Jesus’. I felt compelled to go back
and offer him a ride. I became emotional. I was
tom. Part of me knew I should turn around and
part of me believed that offering the man a ride
was dangerous, foolish, inappropriate. I am a '
middle-aged mother of four children, and I don’t
pick up hitchhikers. I am cautious. But these
men aren’t hitchhikers. If you could call my car
whizzing past these men every day an “en
counter, “ then we are familiar with one
another.
Not only that, but we have a family
connection. Once my husband stopped
to give one of the men a ride. They
talked about the business of retrieving
and selling golf balls. My husband knows
the owner of the shop where the balls are
resold.
After passing the man and seeing
Jesus’ face in his, I mustered the courage to turn
around, pull the van over and offer him a ride.
When he realized I had stopped for him, his
eyes lit up. He hurried to the van. He was dirty.
His rubber boots smelled like the marsh, dank
and rancid. My daughter’s sweatshirt was draped
across the passenger seat and, before climbing
in, he gently lifted it and set on the back seat. He
told me his work that day had not been produc
tive; he had retrieved only half a bag of balls.
When I dropped him off at the shop, he thanked
me. He told me to tell my husband “hey.”
After I drove away, I wondered why in three
years it had never before occurred to me to offer
these men a ride.
The next afternoon, I saw another man, walk
ing to the shop with his golf balls. The morning
had been rainy, and the roadside was full of
water. This time I didn’t pass by. I pulled over
and offered him a ride. He beamed. I have seen
that same look on my children’s faces on Christ
mas morning. Unlike the day before, this time I
was in a hurry. I was on my way to retrieve my
daughter from school, and I had left the house at
the last minute. If parents are late, the teachers
bring the children back from the pick-up circle
into the school lobby. It’s embarrassing to be
late. I told this man I was on my way to pick up
my daughter, that I couldn’t drive him all the
way to the shop, but I’d take him up the road to
the intersection, where he was going left, and I
was going right.
I could sense his disappointment, but he said,
“I appreciate the ride, even this far.” I dropped
him off at the intersection and drove on. He had
about two miles left to walk.
As soon as I let him out of the van and hastily
drove off, I felt ashamed. I should have gone out
of my way to take him the remaining distance to
the shop. How foolish of me to blindly follow
my routine and ignore his need. How could I not
have realized that helping him was more impor
tant than being five minutes late picking up my
daughter from school?
It occurred to me then that my obsession with
routine was what prevented me from choosing to
do the right thing. Locked into that routine, I
couldn’t envision anything else.
When we Christians sin, the pain we cause
others is not usually malicious. The pain we
cause often results from neglect, from failing to
see, much less meet, others’ needs. Blindness
becomes a habit. Like me, a middle-aged mother
caught up in the carpool rut, we avoid seeing
Jesus in others because we haven’t the courage
or the time to look beyond the comfortable, the
routine.
Mary Hood Hart lives with her husband
and four children in Sunset Beach, N.C.
Mary Hood Hart
Q uestion: Why following
Vatican II is the Mass no
longer said in Latin?
—A reader
A nswer: Jesus spoke Aramaic
and this was the language first
used in divine worship by his
Church. In the second century, the
language most often used was
Greek, the common language of the
Eastern half of the Roman Empire.
In the third century, Latin, the main
language used in the western half
of the Roman Empire, was adopted
as the liturgical language of the
West; Greek continued to be used
in the East. During the Middle
Ages, Latin was the predominant
written language of the West; the
emerging European languages
(such as French, English, German,
Italian and Spanish) took some
time to become standardized, writ
ten languages. At about the time of
the Renaissance (fifteenth to six
teenth centuries), there was a
movement to celebrate the Mass in
these vernacular languages.
Luther’s championship of this pro-
Questions
posal, however, made it seem
“inopportune” to the bishops at the
Council of Trent (1546-63).
The Second Vatican Council
(1962-65) proclaimed that the ver
nacular, that is the spoken language
of a region, should be used more
abundantly at Mass so that the
community gathered might easily
understand what is being said just
as the early Christians did.
The Council desired first of all
that the Scriptural readings should
be proclaimed in a language under
stood by the community. The
Liturgy of the Word was therefore
to be celebrated largely or entirely
in the vernacular.
The Council apparently intended
for most of the rest of the Mass,
especially the Liturgy of the
Eucharist, to continue to be cele
brated in Latin, in the Roman Rite.
In the period following the council,
Pope Paul VI, to whom the imple
mentation of the council was
entrusted, became aware that the
celebration of most Masses in two
(or more) languages was proving
awkward. He gradually provided
& Answers
for the translation of all the Mass
texts into the vernacular languages.
There was a grass-roots desire for
the whole Mass to be translated
and by 1970 official translations of
the Catholic liturgy of the Latin rite
had been approved for the major
languages, including English.
While the use of the vernacular
languages is preferred for the Litur
gy of the Word in most instances
(with the possible exceptions of the
Creed, the Responsorial Psalm and
the Gospel Acclamation), it re
mains permissible to use the Latin
language for all or part of the
Liturgy of the Eucharist and the
introductory and concluding rites,
particularly when sung. No special
permission is needed to celebrate
the Mass of Paul VI in this way. To
celebrate the prior rite, using the
1962 Missal, entirely in Latin,
requires the permission of the local
ordinary.
The Eastern Catholic Churches
have always used a variety of lan
guages, including Greek (Byzan
tine), Aramaic, Arabic, Old Church
Slavonic and the languages of
India, but not Latin. Although these
Churches at times have made sub
stantial use of languages no longer
spoken, there has been a concerted
effort to translate their liturgies into
languages currently spoken by the
people. In the United States, this
means that Eastern-rite liturgies are
increasingly celebrated in English.
In the United States, English is
the predominant language for the
celebration of the Latin-rite Mass,
although there are many celebra
tions in other languages for differ
ent ethnic groups. Bi-lingual
Masses (for example, in English
and Spanish) in the new rite are
also permitted and require no spe
cial permission.
—DKC
Editor’s Note: Submit ques
tions to The Southern Cross,
601 E. Liberty St., Savannah,
GA 31401 (e-mail DCIark5735
@aol.com). If your question is
used, you will receive a souvenir
from the diocesan sesquicen-
tennial. Please include address.