The first reading was read in English and the second in Spanish. Thousands listen @cnalive #PalmSunday pic.twitter.com/BALeXr4Umo
— Yahaira Jacquez (@YJacquez_) March 29, 2015
Yikes, the bi-lingual Mass.
Can anyone tell me why I intensely dislike the bi-lingual Mass? My dislike is most intense when the priest does things twice (once in each language), but I don't like it even when he's just alternating between the two languages. Am I a closet racist against Mexicans? Perhaps, but the racism is buried so deep that I can't see it, and it would make Mexicans racist because one of my assistants, who is 100% Mexican, says the Mexicans dislike the bi-lingual Mass, too.
I sympathize with the priests who basically have two congregations to serve and simply can't do two Masses on certain occasions (like Maundy Thursday), and I certainly don't have a better idea than the bi-lingual Mass, but it doesn't change the fact that I really dislike it. I just wish I could figure out the source of the distaste.
Aside: I actually do have a better idea: Do the Mass in Latin. I have only one semester of Latin and was hopelessly lost the three times I went to a Latin Mass, but I could get the hang of it. Bring back a universal language and the liturgical tension that is the two-language parish would subside.
Of course, people in Europe would say we have a universal language: English. It is the new lingua franca. Just as Latin was the lingua franca for over a thousand years because of the hegemony of the Roman Empire, English is the lingua franca today because of the hegemony of the British, and now American, empires. It doesn't make it right, but it does make it a fact.
