Salvete, omnes!
Through a benefactor, I was able to attend one day of the week-long Latin immersion Cenaculum, held at our local retreat center a couple of weeks ago. It was a great privilege, and I got to meet many people from all over the world who get together annually to experience Living Latin. That’s right; all communication for the whole week is in Latin!
My spoken Latin is woefully inadequate, so I spent most of the day listening to the various talks and presentations. However, I was able to participate at a higher level during the morning, midday, evening & night prayers, Benediction, and of course the Holy Mass. This was my first experience of the current, or Novus Ordo, Mass being completely in Latin, including the homily! Celebrating the Mass ad orientem, with the priest and people all facing God together, felt very natural.
The day’s talks varied from a presentation on St. Charbel, to a discourse on the Christological controversies of the early Church, complete with some Greek words thrown in for good measure, to a presentation for children on the Calendar. Finally, there was an evening slide show on the Holy Land. Remember, all these were presented in the Latin language! I understood about ¾ of the presentations. By the evening slide show, the presenter’s heavy French accent made it a little harder to understand her descriptions of her travels, but the slides made up for my fried brain cells by that time.
Next year, the Cenaculum will be held in Mobile, AL. I highly recommend the Cenaculum to anyone interested in Latin. It isn’t quite as dead a language as it is made out to be!
Familiae Sancti Hieronymi may be found here:
http://www.fshcm.com/
Valete!
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