Category: Fatherhood

My kids are learning Latin in school. That puts a big smile on my face. Not simply because they are being trained in a language inextricably linked with the rich history of our Catholic faith, but because it offers poetic justice in my own much-less storied narrative. My dad, Jerry, was a Latin teacher at an all-boys Catholic high school for a number of years, until Latin decidedly went out of vogue, somewhere in the late ’70s to ’80s. Not one to be swayed by passing trends, he still valued the importance of the sacred, historic language and when the time came for me to choose an elective in the 9th grade, he wisely counseled me to pick Latin. I gave it a cursory thought and smugly replied, “It’s a dead language, Dad! I’m taking French.” Not ready to concede defeat, my father asserted that while Latin was dead it would provide me a great springboard for learning any of the Romance languages, including French. And since English used so many words with Latin origins, it would most likely increase my vocabulary and reading comprehension. That’s the gist of what he said. What I heard was, “blah-blah-blah-blah-Latin, boring Latin…” In my teenage mind, I wanted to take French because it seemed romantic and exciting and honestly it just sounded so dang pretty. Continue reading “Ora Pro Nobis: \ō-rä-prō-ˈnō-bēs\ a Latin invocation meaning pray for us”