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Dic semper veritatem
"Always speak truth."
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 HE
Stabat
Mater Dolorosa has been called one of the seven greatest Latin
hymns of all time. The Stabat Mater is perfectly suited to the Lenten
season. Based on Simeon's prophecy in Luke 2:35 that a sword would pierce
Mary's heart, the hymn recounts the feelings Mary must have had seeing
her own glorious son dying on the Cross. The combined effect of
the music and the moving words is striking, and have helped to make
it one of the best loved of Latin hymns for both Catholics and Protestants.
Be sure to click on the link above to see all twenty verses in both
Latin and English. Each little stanza is a gem. Several of our students
learned ten stanzas in one week! You can also click here
to hear the melody (you will have to scroll down once or twice and click
on the "Stabat Mater" link to hear the tune).
In addition to its aesthetic beauty,
the Stabat Mater--like many Latin hymns--is an ideal vehicle for
teaching Christian Latin to children. The short, rhyming
lines are beautiful and easy to memorize when sung. What
easier and more pleasant way is there to pick up a vocabulary
of over 120 Latin words in a variety of forms than memorizing
this powerful hymn? Because of the rhyming nature of the
words--and the fact that the grammatical form of Latin words is
indicated by their endings--each stanza is a prepackaged grammar
lesson, since each one emphasizes a particular grammatical concept.
There are stanzas highlighting the imperfect
tense, the passive voice, the genitive and accusative cases, and
rhyming infinitives, participles, and subjunctives.
In addition, there are numerous examples
of many of the hard little Latin words that can make life difficult
for the Latin student--most of which are conjunctions, adverbs
and prepositions. Put into an easily memorized hymn, however,
these words can be learned in a meaningful context and with a
minimum of frustation. So whenever your student comes across
one of those pesky little words like quando, dum,
quam, tanto, pro, tam, etc., he can
simply recall the hymn to mind and remember its usage there.
It will also help in remembering which case the prepositions take,
since the hymn contains so many good model examples.
Oh, and while your teaching the grammar
and vocabulary, don't let them miss the moving message of the
hymn itself.
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In Defense of the
Permanent Things
Complete
List of Memoria Press Articles
Could it be that the best way to learn your own language
is to study another one? Here, a famous classicist
gives the first of three reasons for the study of Latin.
If you're wondering about the other two reasons, we are
keeping them secret for now so you will be held in suspense
until our next issue.
LANGUAGE is the supreme instrument in education.This
study of one's own language is achieved incomparably better
by the indirect method of studying another language.
Training in English, then, as
the result of careful translation from Latin, is here
set down as the first and most important reason for studying
Latin. To my own mind this reason weighs more than
all others combined, though several other excellent reasons
for the study of Latin will be discussed later.
Experience has never shown that
any study of the vernacular is capable of yielding results
in any way comparable with those secured from the study
of other languages. In fact experience has so frequently
illustrated the reverse as practically to have demonstrated
the impossibility of securing such results.
First and foremost, I should
say Latin is of value because it confers a mastery over
the resources of one's mother tongue. The mastery
comes as the direct and necessary result of careful daily
translation--a process involving on the one hand a careful
consideration and analysis of the thought of the author
read, and on the other a severe and laborious comparison
of the value of alternative English words, phrases, and
sentences.
- Charles E. Bennett, The
Teaching of Latin and Greek in the Secondary School,
1911
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Encouragement and
fortification
for the
classical educator
|
 There
exist about one hundred and fifty versions of the Dies Irae, Dies
Illa alone; Cicero cannot boast of nearly so many."
- Eugen
Rosenstock-Huessy
CONTEST FOR
YOU AND YOUR CHILD Win A Free Book Of Your Choice From
Memoria Press (click here to enter contest)
When it comes to creative ways to remember something,
some people are more creative than others.
 N
our Latina
Christiana program, we suggest an acrostic saying
to help remember the cases--nominative, genitive, dative,
accusative, and ablative. Our suggested acrostic
was "No Good Dogs Are Alive." Now we admit we are
not the most imaginative people in the world, but we didn't
realize just how unimaginative we were until Janice Firth
e-mailed us and shared the acrostics her students had
come up with in her high school class.
"Norman Grumbled Deliberately
After Arriving," was one of them. That was pretty
good. And "Nancy's Grandfather Dated An American"
was not too shabby either. These were pretty down
to earth. But then came, "No Guillotine Does
Admirable Acts." And if you think that is unusual,
check out our personal favorite: "Never Golf During An
Avalanche."
In fact, Janice's e-mail has
so excited our monks that they came up with the idea of
having another contest. They have decided to give
a free book to the reader with the best acrostic for remembering
the cases. We asked them how the entries would be
judged. They meditated upon this for some time,
and came up with one criterion. They said the acrostic
must be "memorable." The monks refused to elaborate,
but did confess to having in their possession a highly
sophisticated software program to determine memorability
(although they couldn't remember what it was called).
So e-mail your best acrostic,
or two or three, using the link above. Our monks
are waiting even now for the first e-mail. Once
they have determined the winner, they will toll the bell
in the monastery. They will then write the person's
name on a small piece of manuscript paper with a quill
pen, and give it to a page, who will ride a donkey down
a steep mountain trail and across the fields to our offices,
at which point we will relay the name of the winner to
you.
We don't mess around here at
Memoria Press
when it comes to these contests.
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