Language of the Catholic Church and Western Civilization
"Church Latin" is the informal, snappier-sounding term for the more scholarly phrase Ecclesiastical Latin, or the occasionally-used Medieval Latin. All of these terms are used to denote something different from "Classical Latin"--the Latin used by, say, Julius Caesar. Church Latin was (and is!) the Latin used by the Catholic Church for two thousand years--thus, where... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yN6QueLslM I love hymns and carols, and currently this one is playing in my head--mostly because I am getting ready for Advent. (What, you don't know many songs for Advent? Better learn this, stat!) This song sounds like a Christmas carol, but it is all about the Annunciation, so it's absolutely delightful to sing while... Continue Reading →
As I said in a recent post, if you're here because you want to start worshiping at the Traditional Latin Mass, the most important thing I want to tell you is that with a good Latin Mass Missal, you don't need to actually know Latin to worship well. But there are so many good reasons... Continue Reading →
Latin is useful. You can use it to make a gift for your Aunt. Qui me amat, amet et canem meam. --St. Bernard of Clairvaux Real medieval Latin here. I'll leave it up to your Latin skills (or maybe search engine skills) to provide the translation. It's mid-November, and definitely time to start work on... Continue Reading →
GOOD NEWS: You can pray well at the Latin Mass using a Missal with English translations (or that of any native language !), that lets you follow along easily with what the priest is saying and doing--and no Latin-fluency is needed! There's so much richness to Traditional Catholic worship. Of course, I have resource recommendations... Continue Reading →
After your first year or year-and-a-half of Latin , particularly if you have used Fr. Most's books, you will be ready for a Latin Reader supplement. An excellent choice for visitors to this site would be Charles Beeson's A Primer of Medieval Latin from 1925 which is now out of copyright and available, scanned and... Continue Reading →
This is my very favorite piece of music by St. Hildegard von Bingen. It is very mysterious, which is not surprising as she was a great mystic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77M2pkkdH10 O Virtus Sapientiae (antiphon) by Hildegard von Bingen I have learned to sing it, and you can learn to sing it, too! Read through the Latin text... Continue Reading →
You want to learn Latin. DO IT! Let's get you started today. In order to design a course you will learn from and keep going with, you should match your strategy with the ways you learn best. This whole website is devoted to helping you design a program of study for yourself, but in this... Continue Reading →
It was Classical Latin I learned in High School. It was also Classical Latin that I took in college. Yet in the last few years I have really come to appreciate the fascinating, challenging, and special thing that Church Latin is. I wish there were more concentration on this in schools and colleges! Church Latin... Continue Reading →
I'm redoing something from the past that doesn't exist today! I'm taking the incomplete tape scripts from Fr. Most's Latin by the Natural Method, translating and completing each exercise, and recording them, making them an audio resource as they were meant to be. After reading each lesson of the textbook, students can then listen to... Continue Reading →
Sentence diagramming: it's grammar, visualized. Have you ever heard of this extremely useful tool? Using various kinds of lines throughout, you can see the internal grammatical structure of a sentence and its parts. Today you will see how it can help you understand principles of Latin grammar. Let's start with the simplest of examples. The... Continue Reading →
