We’re going to Rome! Well, the dates aren’t confirmed yet, but we’ll be spending about 10 days there, somewhere towards the end of June to the start of July. The hope is that we’ll be able to attend the Papal Mass on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.
What will we be doing? A couple of objectives:
Pray, pray, pray!
Full Immersion into the Latin Language and the Culture of the Roman Catholic Church
Attend Masses in Latin
Attempt to read a whole bunch of stuff in Latin, like the ATMs in the Vatican City (see the picture below, taken from http://www.frcoulter.com/latin/)
REALLY explore the Vatican City (since most tour groups in Singapore don’t really do this. They kinda just make you run all over Rome). EVERY SQUARE METRE OF THE VATICAN CITY WILL BE COMBED!!!
Explore the History of the Church – especially the stories of the Early Roman Martyrs
See the Pope! (If we’re lucky, we might even get an audience with him! Be sure to pray hard for this!)
Did I mention… PRAY! PRAY! PRAY! Haha… we’ll probably pray like never before (and in Latin too!)
I’ll release more details about the trip once I’ve gotten more info about it.
Sounds good? So please start marking out your calendars and saving up for it!
I’ve been making mentioned about the new translation of the Mass several times. So, here’s where you can find the new text for it. It’s a very accurate translation of the Latin. So here’s something that you can look forward to sometime in 2010 (hopefully!).
Date: Saturday, 5 Dec 2009 (NO CLASS ON 28 NOV!!!) Time: 7.30pm-9.30pm Venue: Church of the Risen Christ, Auditorium (Level 3)
What will we do at the next session? Well, we’ll go through the Collects for the 2nd Week of Advent, continue the reading of the story of Benedictus, Paulus, Stephanus, and Mulus. I’ll try to bring Minimus back too!
I’ll recap the 2nd Declension until we’re very firm with it.
I shall also go through other verb-related things. (It’s very fuzzy now because I have not planned it out yet. Will do so immediately after my exams).
Well, I look forward to seeing you at Session 3! Remember… It’s on 5 December, and not 28 Nov.
As usual, I can’t put up the exercises because of copyright restrictions. I think what I might want to do when I have the time will be to create my own questions so that I don’t have to always cut out the exercises for the benefit of everyone here.
The answers to the translations of the Collects can be found in the slides for this session.
Date: Wednesday, 25 Nov 2009 Time: 7.30pm-9.30pm Venue: Church of the Risen Christ, Auditorium (Level 3)
In this next session, we will look at Latin in Sacred Scripture. I’ll speak a bit about some interesting points regarding Latin in Scripture and how we miss out on quite a few interesting (and maybe key) points when we read it in the English language.
I’ll also recap the lesson on verbs that we had, and, if time permits, we’ll learn a bit about prepositions.
We’ll also have some Minimus to aid us in the learning of Latin, and we’ll learn a chant or two.
I do recommend looking at the slides (and even printing out the ones you find useful). I have added some slides into it, which I do hope are self-explanatory in aiding your learning.
Here are some very beautiful chants by the Church Music Association of America (www.musicasacra.com) when they did their recent chant pilgrimage this year. Enjoy!
(If you’re curious about the Mass, this is the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, a.k.a. The Traditional Latin Mass)
Thank you for coming to Session I of Level II Latin!
Well, now that we’ve done our grammar revision of what we’ve learnt from the previous level, we’ll start to touch on Ecclesiastical Latin!
We’ll focus on vocabulary words in the 1st and 2nd Declension, and try to translate some Ecclesiastical texts.
Also, please bring the Ad Completorium booklets. We’ll learn how to chant the Office of Compline (Night Prayer). If you have the Latin Pronunciation Pack CD, please listen to Tracks 44-54 to familiarise yourself with the tune of the chants.
Hello everyone!
Here’s the notes for Session 1 of 9. I’ve to remove the reading and translation exercises due to copyright restrictions. If you need the notes in its entirety, please let me know, and I’ll pass it to you.
They look Catholic, the church looks very Catholic, but it’s not! Surprise surprise! These are the traditional Anglicans (aka High Church Anglicans). The ones we find most often in Singapore are known as Low Church Anglicans.
So… If you ever go to the UK (where most Anglican churches are High Church), the general rule of “If you see a Crucifix and a picture/statue of Our Lady, it’s a Catholic Church” doesn’t apply at all! You’d probably need to find the sign board of the church to see if it says “Catholic”.
Anyway… Though these hymns are sung in English, but they’re just as beautiful and spiritually up-lifting as Gregorian Chant.
Well, for those of you who will be returning for the next level of Latin Appreciation, I’ve got some good news for you!
We’ll look at the Latin hymns for the last week of the Liturgical Calendar, and the hymns sung for that week and the first 2 weeks of Advent. I’ll also go through some interesting trivia about Advent which we may not be aware of.
This hymn was traditionally sung in the Requiem Masses before Vatican II.
After Vatican II, this hymn has found it’s proper place – in the last week of the Liturgical Year (34th Week in Ordinary Time) to remind us of the Second Coming of Christ. I’ll go through more of this hymn in Session 1 of Level II.
Date: Wednesday, 18 Nov 2009 Time: 7.30pm-9.30pm Venue: Church of the Risen Christ, Auditorium (Level 3)
In the next session, we’ll learn about the history of Gregorian Chant and Sacred Music in the Catholic Church. We’ll learn the Mystery behind chant and the kinds of chant in the Church. At the same time, we’ll have a wonderful introduction to sacred polyphony.
There’s a translation exercise, but I can’t have it uploaded online due to copyright restrictions. So, let me know if you’d like a printed copy of it. I’ll pass it to you at the next session.
Hope you had a good time at Session 2. See you at Session 3!
[Round II, Level II] Session 3 of 9 Date: Saturday, 5 Dec 2009 NO CLASS ON 28 NOV 09!!! Time: 7.30pm-9.30pm Venue: Church of the Risen Christ, Auditorium (Level 3)
