I’ve been having a conversation with a poster named Jonathan on a thread below. http://scelata.blogspot.com/2008/07/synod-in-york-approves-women-bishops-in.html
Terrific, because it’s making me think about things like the things I think I think… I mean, really THINK about them….
I'm moving it to its own thread because.... oh, because it's about to move off the front page and then I won't be able to find it anymore than I can find anything IRL on desk or console or bedside swath of floor that currently holds about 23 books and 8 magazines.
And to invite anyone wishing to school me to do so.
Anyway, corrections to my Catholic Theology of the Liturgy for Dummies, my logic and my grammar welcomed.
.................................
He: Ultimately I am interested in the unity of all Christians, not only in all Catholics.
I: Amen to that! I would go a step further, I am interested in the unity of all mankind.
Protestants, after all, used to be Catholics in an era when the word Cathoic was as universal as its meaning suggests.
That was why I asked about which was more primary, the Gospel, or the liturgy, since far more common ground is felt between all Christians regarding the former than the latter.
If you mean “primary” in the chicken or the egg sense, I would say clearly the Liturgy -- it is from the Liturgy, ortho-praxis, that we draw the faith and strength to go out and live the Gospel. In the words of the Church, the Eucharist, and its celebration is the “source and summit” of the Christian faith.
Ultimately to me, Christian belief, and how it transforms moral praxis in the real world (to the end of saving the world) matters more than the specifics of worship (which I see more as an aid and support to belief and an expresive outlet for ones feelings of dependency on and gratitude to God).
I like that phrase, beautiful!
I do not see Worship as the primarily important thing..because of its intrinsic potentiality for being a focus of dissension amongst Christians. It shouldn't be something which, in arguments relating to its minutae, should fragment and divide Christians.
After all, God is not a narcissist. He doesnt need our worship for himself. In my opinion, he is not like an insecure, vain Roman Emperor, hungry for our reassuring praise for himself, and so for that reason full of demands that it be expressed in this way and not in that way. Yes he accepts our praise and is glad to receive it since it keeps our focus on him, with all the positive consequences for us and our World that that entails.
Yes, the Liturgy which He has given us is not for His benefit but for OURS.
What is most important to him is that we as Christians love one another and be the light in the World that we can be.
I disagree only in that the FIRST law is “Love God” (and I believe the Liturgy is the means God gave us in which to love Him,) and the one that is like it is SECOND.
So it is from loving God, and expressing and increasing that love in the Liturgy, that we become empowered to love our neighbor.
Can we do the latter without the former?
Sure.
But why would we try?
I can probably program my new phone without resorting to the instructions.
But someone who knows a whole lot more about the phone than I will ever know has been kind enough to provide me with the instructions, and they’ll make it a helluva lot easier.
If I have most of the basic instructions but am missing a page, it’ll make it that little bit harder.
Well, the Liturgy is the Instructions.
In the Catholic view, the Liturgy’s purpose is two-fold -- 1) the worship of God, and 2) the sanctification of the faithful.
The better we do the first, the better it will accomplish the second in us. And our going out to “love one another and be the light in the World” will evidence it.
Still, that said, I do not doubt the value and virtue of public acts of worship according to ordered and uplifting forms,and that some can be better, richer and more beneficial than others.
Anyway, I need to look into the history and meaning of transubstantion some more.
Honestly, it is not something I ever had any trouble with. I was raised Catholic, very devout, very intelligent Catholic parents, but in an era of atrocious formal catechesis.
In adolescence with typical adolescent cynicism, and interest in proving that I was altogether cleverer than any ooooold person could possibly be, I went through wondering and doubting all received wisdom, wondering and doubting if there was a God, wondering and doubting if He had had a Son Who was True God and True Man named Jesus , wondering and doubting if He had established a Church, wondering and doubting if the Bible was inspired… by the time I resolved those in my mind and got to specifics about the Real Presence, I really had no doubt.
If nothing else, the fact that Jesus didn’t run after those who had left Him muttering “This is a hard saying….” yelling, “No, wait fellas, it’s a METAPHOR, nobody’s really gonna eat my flesh,” convinces me.
Personally, for the sake of history and tradition, I see no problem with acccepting The Bishop of Rome as First amongst equals, as long as it is a real equality that is being meant.
I cant help suspecting that if Jesus had wanted Uniformity over Unity he would have chosen just one disciple to pass on his legacy, not 12.
Good line! And I agree. I think a multiplicity of Rites was intended.
“The” Liturgy is many Rites, and I rejoice in them all.
But I think it is vital that they not be human fabrications.
I’m not sure if the Anglican view is in line with the Byzantine or Roman in this, but as I understand the Catholic viewpoint the Liturgy is not something we do -- it is something given to us. When it develops organically it is the work of the Holy Spirit on the Body of Christ.
When a committee makes crap up it is a deformation.
God so loved the world that he did NOT send a committee.
I just read a review by Alcuin Reid http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/reviews/r0000319.shtml of a new book by Laurence Hemming called Worship as a Revelation: The Past, Present and Future of Catholic Liturgy that I think might be very pertinent to this.
Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Hi,
Good discussion.
I'll respond to each of your responses.
1. I respect what you say. To me though 'ortho-praxis' sounds to me like 'right action' and that would embrace correct behaviour (in evgeryday life) as much as correct worship. Re the gospel, why to me it comes first is becasue to me 'the gospel' is not merely a set of teachings but a cosmic, metaphysical cosmic event embodied in God's incarnation and sacrifical death on behalf of humanity. It is that on account of which, becasue of which, we worship. This is why it comes first. Worship is our response to it, as is our implementation of its love towards others, such that we love others in the same way that God loved us.
2. Thank you. I'd thought I was being controversial! I am certainly wanting to imply that worship is secondary to our duty to love humanity (outside of Church buildings!)
3. And yet we obsess and panic over its 'correctness' in such a way that it often seems to me that we are worrying about offending God if we get it wrong.
4. I take your point. This is highly complex. I am motivated in my observation by a worry. Namely that one can kill and be unrighteous and cruel in the name of God, believeing that this is not incompatible with ones love for God. while for me I accept that if one didnt have a primary bond of love-union with God one would be incapable of loving humankind in the way the gospel expects us to, I would yet want to maintain that the test of whether one is loving God in the right way, whether one is indeed loving God for whom he is, and not instead an idol to satisfy what you want God to be, is whether or not one is loving towards ones fellow man in the way Jesus was. By the fuit of the tree you know the tree.
5. Nor would I wish Catholics to have trouble with it. But in return are those who do feel uncomfortable with it obliged, if the Church is to ever unite, under Peter as first amongst equals, to accept it. If so, where the equality? I believe the belief in it should be optional, whether or not the differently believing would want to partake from different altars. Why fall out over a philosophical debate over the meaning of the words 'substance' and 'accidents' etc?
6. I have always respected Catholic spirituality and yet, and yet, if I could sum up the niggling issue I have with Rome, I would sum it up with reference to a certain spirit and aura of authoritarianism that goes against my grain as an free thinking Englishman. I have even speculated whether the (I dont want to use the word arrogant) insistence on its supremacy (in a more than first amongst equals sense) even reflects the actual personality of Peter the apostle. It strikes me as odd that a man who was flawed enough to deny Christ 3 times should be the template for a claim to Papal infallibility in the Church that looks to him as an authority (I am not disrespecting Peter..he was a fallible human!). Isnt that a shade ironic and, well, a cause for reflection at least. Remember the tensions he had with John, and how Jesus defended John against Peter's attitude.
This 'bossiness' is my only gripe with Rome. I would never wish to question its right to do as it wished, only its right to make others do as it wishes.
To me the church is both visible and invisible, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, a communion both of the living and the departed. Ultimately its expanse is surely known only to God as the Body of his Son. Are we sure it can be identified in too simple a fashion with a particular Earthbound, temporalised institution?
If I am wrong, I am wrong. I'm just speaking my mind.
With Christian love and best wishes
Jonathan
Post a Comment