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Dear Gerard,

Ah, but there is where the difference between us lies.

The "bad theological expression" is my own assessment of the Filioque, based on my own reading and thought, from both the RC, Orthodox and Eastern Catholic vantage points.

Meyendorff makes mention of Pope John's reference, and if it was spurious, then why did Pope John agree with St Photios on the Creed without the Filioque?

The problem with your approach, you see, is that we can heap bibliographies on one another.

But the question is the Filioque itself. Both of us have read enough about it to be able to discuss it intelligently ourselves. There is no sacred text out there than can settle this issue and this is not "spouting."

I do take offence at your use of this rude and really reprehensible term. You certainly take offence quickly enough at me for being "personal" with you. And you think such a term applied to me is not?

You have a thing or two to learn about common courtesy - and being a little more dispassionate about your triumphalist Latin perspective that sees an enemy in anyone who even questions the Western approach.

Sorry, but that's not on. And this is where I get off.

Alex

Come, Holy Spirit!

Alex writes:

You have a thing or two to learn about common courtesy - and being a little more dispassionate about your triumphalist Latin perspective that sees an enemy in anyone who even questions the Western approach.

In the area under discussion, the Trinity in east and west, I am most interested in learning as much as I can. This is an area dear to my own heart (and soul). I do not think I have seen an enemy in anyone questioning the western approach, (I haven't seen enemies anywhere yet in this thread at all!).

I have contributed a few of my own observations and responses - and have disagreed with some observations shared by some as well. That's to be expected I hope.

Regarding you: I did question your comment about a Pope calling the Filioque "heretical" - and believe such comments, since they can have some serious consequences, should be able to be verified. I hope if I ever make a strong claim I can back up any quote I refer to or reference I make. Otherwise I would be "spouting off" myself. And would not be offended, I hope, if someone suggested that was what I was doing if I couldn't back up my assertions.

And, yes, in another thread I questioned you on yet another quote attributed to another Pope. I think I have such a right to ask for verifiable references to such assertions.

Be that as it may: I am sorry you are so offended. As I mentioned in the original post, I had hoped you wouldn't be offended. I do not chisel my words. I am sure I can learn more about common courtesies. But I do not think I said anything to cause you - or anyone else - to "shake the dust off your feet" in my regard.

But you are free of course....and I have no power to make you change your mind.

However, I have enjoyed our conversations greatly and am sad to think they might be over.

Perhaps someone who has ready access to it can dust off Fr. Dvornik's writing on the topic of the council that took place with Pope John VIII. I think that would help to clear things up.

From Alex:

>Dear Geore, er, Sir,

[Ye Ol' Smelly One is as good as Ge-ore!]

>Yes, love those Celtic Saints!

>The Celi De monks would get up, as you know, at 3:00 am to begin their Office and to read the entire Psalter by 3:00 pm in the afternoon. The Celtic Rite was also the only Western one to actually do prostrations.

I did NOT know - Thank-you! Immersion in the faith seems to be the key, rather than engagement or praxis, unless the praxis constitutes a 24/7 effort... millisecond by millesecond!

>Much of it was influenced throught the writings of St John Cassian following his sojourn through Coptic Egypt and the Thebaid.

More news, Thanks again - I was just impressed that when he was kidnapped, his dad was a deacon, his grandfather a priest, so that even though he was stuck out by himself tending critters, he knew, at 14, what he needed to do, and had the wherewithal, apparently memorized, to do it, and succeed...

>I visited the Isle of St Honorat, Lerine in France and one may still see the seven small eremitic communities that surrounded the main coenobitic monastery there, again from the influence and writings of St John Cassian.

I think Podraigue's grand-pa was from France...

>Since he opposed Augustine on original sin, Cassian's cult is only local to Marseilles!

Well, as well, when the split occurred, the Isle of Saints, Ireland, which had been producing saints heavily until the split, was effectively shut down, and stopped producing any but a handful [by western rite standards at that] for the next 800 years or so... The Eastern Christian tradition in the west did not do well at all under the post-schism Popes... They were pretty effectively shut down, [perhaps with only a few 'hags' [hAGIAS] left in the woods - I have wondered if these might have been the focus of much of the inquisition...].

geo

Come, Holy Spirit!

Alex writes:

We begin, as you know, all our prayers with the prayer to the Holy Spirit directly. There are prayers directly to Christ and to the Mother of God. Perhaps it's me, but does the Roman Rite Liturgy, old or new, every directly address the Mother of God at the altar? I don't believe it does, but I stand corrected if you can indicate to me otherwise.

Not sure, Alex, by what you mean "at the altar" - are you referring to the eucharistic liturgy or including all the liturgical services, such as the Liturgy of the Hours.

In the Eucharistic Liturgy the Latin Church almost never addresses Our Lady, but I believe it can happen in some "Introits" etc. One comes to mind: O salve sancta parens.... but, in general, the prayers of the Roman Rite invoke the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; a few prayers invoke Our Lord himself, and a few the Holy Spirit, such as the golden sequence, Veni, Sancte Spiritus

In some liturgical celebrations, such as at the Vigil of Easter and ordinations, the Litany of the Saints is used. This invokes Mary and other saints - Holy Mother of God, pray for us, etc.

In the Liturgy of the Hours there are some Marian prayers, most especially the Marian antiphons of Compline - such as the Salve Regina and the Regina Coeli Laetare, etc.

So it does seem there are some direct invocations of the Blessed Virgin at the altar and certainly in her liturgy. But not as often, I suspect, as in the Byzantine Liturgical Services.

[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: Gerard Serafin ]

Come, Holy Spirit!

To all:

One reason I am so "smitten" with the Filioque as doctrine is the "spiritual fragrance" I find emanating from it and the resonance with my totally inadequate experience of the Triune Life and Love of God bestowed even on me, unworthy as I am. Here is one such example from someone far more worthy to speak of these mysteries than I am, the great John of the Cross (whose poems are considered by many the high-point of Spanish literature!):

A SPIRITUAL CANTICLE OF THE SOUL AND THE BRIDEGROOM CHRIST- an excerpt

by ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS

STANZA XXXIX

The breathing of the air,
The song of the sweet nightingale,
The grove and its beauty
In the serene night,
With the flame that consumes, and gives no pain.

The soul refers here, under five different expressions, to that which the Bridegroom is to give it in the beatific transformation.

1. The aspiration of the Holy Spirit of God after it, and its own aspiration after God.
2. Joyous praise of God in the fruition of Him.
3. The knowledge of creatures and the order of them.
4. The pure and clear contemplation of the divine
essence.
5. Perfect transformation in the infinite love of God.

"The breathing of the air"

2. This is a certain faculty which God will there give the soul in the communication of the Holy Spirit, Who, like one breathing, raises the soul
by His divine aspiration, informs it, strengthens it, so that it too may breathe in God with the same aspiration of love which the Father breathes with the Son, and the Son with the Father, which is the Holy Spirit Himself, Who is breathed into the soul in the Father and the Son in that transformation so as to unite it to Himself; for the transformation will not be true and perfect if the soul is not transformed in the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity in a clear manifest degree.

This breathing of the Holy Spirit in the soul, whereby God transforms it in Himself, is to the soul a joy so deep, so exquisite, and so grand that no mortal tongue can describe it, no human understanding, as such, conceive it in any degree; for even that which passes in the soul with respect to the communication which takes place in its transformation wrought in this
life cannot be described, because the soul united with God and transformed in Him breathes in God that very divine aspiration which God breathes Himself in the soul when it is transformed in Him.

3. In the transformation which takes place in this life, this breathing of God in the soul, and of the soul in God, is of most frequent occurrence, and the source of the most exquisite delight of love to the soul, but not however in the clear and manifest degree which it will have in the life to come. This, in my opinion, is what St. Paul referred to when he said: "Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba, Father." The blessed in the life to come, and the perfect in this, thus experience it.

4. Nor is it to be thought possible that the soul should be capable of so great a thing as that it should breathe in God as God in it, in the way of
participation. For granting that God has bestowed upon it so great a favor as to unite it to the most Holy Trinity, whereby it becomes like God, and God by participation, is it altogether incredible that it should exercise the faculties of its understanding, perform its acts of knowledge and of love, or, to speak more accurately, should have it all done in the Holy Trinity together with It, as the Holy Trinity itself? This, however, takes place by communication and participation, God Himself effecting it in the soul, for this is "to be transformed in the Three Persons" in power, wisdom, and love, and herein it is that the soul becomes like God, Who, that it might come to this, created it to His own image and likeness.

5. How this can be so cannot be explained in any other way than by showing how the Son of God has raised us to so high a state, and merited for us the "power to be made the sons of God." He prayed to the Father, saying: "Father, I will that where I am they also whom You have given Me may be with Me, that they may see My glory which You have given Me."

That is,"that they may do by participation in Us what I do naturally, namely, breathe the Holy Spirit." He says also: "Not for them only do I pray, but for them also who through their word shall believe in Me; that they all may be one, as
You, Father, in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that You have sent Me. And the glory which You have given Me, I have given to them: that they may be one as We also are one. I in them and You in Me, that they may be made perfect in one, and the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have also loved Me,"-- that is, in bestowing upon them that love which He bestows upon the Son, though not naturally as upon Him, but in the way I speak of, in the union and transformation of love.

6. We are not to suppose from this that our Lord prayed that the saints might become one in essence and nature, as the Father and the Son are; but that they might become one in the union of love as the Father and the Son are one in the oneness of love. Souls have by participation that very God which the Son has by nature, and are therefore really gods by participation like unto God and of His society.

7. St. Peter speaks of this as follows: "Grace to you and peace be accomplished in the knowledge of God, and Christ Jesus our Lord; as all things of His divine power, which pertain to life and godliness, are given us by the knowledge of Him Who has called us by His own proper glory and
virtue, by Whom He has given us most great and precious promises: that by these you may be made partakers of the divine nature."

Thus far St. Peter, who clearly teaches that the soul will be a partaker of God Himself, and will do, together with Him, the work of the Most Holy Trinity, because of the substantial union between the soul and God. And though this union is perfect only in the life to come, yet even in this, in the state of perfection, which the soul is said now to have attained, some anticipation of its sweetness is given it, in the way I am speaking of, though in a manner wholly ineffable.

8. O souls created for this and called to this, what are you doing? What are your occupations? Your aim is meanness, and your enjoyments misery. Oh, wretched blindness of the children of Adam, blind to so great a light, and deaf to so clear a voice; you do not see that, while seeking after greatness and glory, you are miserable and contemptible, ignorant, and unworthy of blessings so great. I now proceed to the second expression
which the soul has made use of to describe that which He gave it...."

I would especially appreciate any critiques from an "eastern" Trinitarian perspective.

[ 08-09-2002: Message edited by: Gerard Serafin ]

John 15:26
"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me."

Maybe I am naive, but it seems to me that Jesus Himself said the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.

I attended 8 years of Roman elementary school with nuns (remember them?.... haven't seen one in years, sadly). Never could understand the
Spirit from what I was taught there, The Spirit did not seem to really be a Person, not equal to the Father and the Son. The Spirit was a complete mystery.

But as I read Orthodox theology, the Spirit has now become an equal Person, is somewhat less of a mystery. And that the Trisagion prayers begins with the prayer to the Holy Spirit shows to me the devotion the East feels towards the Spirit.

I keep a holy card of Rublev's Holy Trinity on my night stand as a constant reminder of the Trinity.

That's all.
Not a theologian
denise