MY recent personal experi ences compel me to write and contradict Mrs. M. J. Field (Sept. 25), when she asserts "now, everyone can hear, speak and understand the liturgy". These days, when I travel abroad and go into a church, I have no inkling of what is being said, whereas before the changes, I have heard Mass in such places as Notre Dame in Paris and heard and understood in exactly the same degree as I would have done in my own parish church—using the same missal!
Mrs. Field should remember that ours is the Catholic (Universal) Church and not a Church of England or any other nationality. So far as understanding the readings is concerned. I am convinced that she would be met with a blank gaze from 99",, of the congregation, including the reader. if she halted them Outside the church as they left and examined them on what they had heard. "The spoken word is a transient thing and cannot bear comparison with the printed article. And what about those who cannot hear? The most depressing thing find in her letter, however, is the insistence that mass must he communal. The Church is made up of individuals and when I go into the church I talk to God and He talks to me. Of course I join myself with the priest when he offers the Sacrifice. If the crowd is the all-important thing it would not much matter whether it numbered 10,000 or 9.999. Personally, I believe that the single. individual. person is all-important to Christ. He did tell us that didn't He?
Leonard Hurst (Major) Sanderstead, Surrey.