Traditional Liturgy and the Power of Non-Verbal Communication

A gentleman from the UK called the Latin Mass “subtly seductive.” He’s right; but why is he right? What is it about the old liturgy that works in a subtle way to draw us into the act of worship? The same man talked about the paradox of the old liturgy being somehow “easier” than the new one, in spite of the fact that the whole Catholic world was turned upside-down in the 1960s in order to make the Mass more “accessible,” as the experts said. But accessibility turned into vernacular verbosity, and that causes a lot of people to be bored and to forget about God — about prayer to God, about being with God. For this is the crucial thing: not hearing talk about God, but meeting God, seeing Him, tasting Him. There are many reasons the Latin Mass is effective at what it does, effective in communicating what can never be fully put into human words. In this talk, I explore one of the most important aspects of the traditional Latin Mass: the dominance and power of “non-verbal language.” (This lecture was given on Thursday, February 15, at The Farmer’s Table in North Palm Beach, Florida - not West Palm Beach, as the title page says! After the talk there's about 20 minutes of Q&A. The questions are written on-screen for ease of comprehension.) –*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*–*– Dr. Kwasniewski's Substack "Tradition & Sanity" https://traditionsanity.substack.com/ Dr. K's personal website https://www.peterkwasniewski.com/ Dr. K’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/ProfKwasniewski Dr. K on X (Twitter)   / drkwasniewski   Dr. K's composer website https://cantabodomino.com/ Dr. K's publishing house Os Justi Press https://osjustipress.com/ Dr. K's SoundCloud page   / drkwasniewski   Dr. K's Spotify page https://open.spotify.com/show/4W9oDUB...