Hmm--interesting. When singing the Requiem, we were told to sing miserere, for ex., as mee-zay-ray-ray; so I somehow thought pretty much all* es in Latin were pronounced with the long a sound. Perhaps what we were told was just for singing, where pronunciation in English can also differ from the spoken word.

*Well, so much for that: I just remembered we sang both es in Requiem as ehs!

Are there any silent letters in Latin?