www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization ByzanTEEN Lifeteen - Does it include Byantine Catholic Youth?

ukrainiancatholic,

"I think more power to Life Teen and to vernacular Masses and Liturgies!"

With all due respect, my brother in Christ, I think you're nuts, although I have no problem with liturgies in the vernacular (I am Byzantine, after all). But, as one who experienced three years of Life Teen at the parish where it was born, I must tell you that there is more to Life Teen than the image it trys so very hard to market. Life Teen attracts a lot of teens to the program, not necessarily the Church. It is in essence a Church within a Church, an offspring of the Charismatic movement and the misreading and selective implementation of Vatican II. Life Teen is raising Catholic teens to have a five second spiritual attention span. It too often draws teens into subjective, ephemereal, emotional experiences and calls that allowing "the Holy Spirit to work in your life". I could go on, but I already have before in this thread.

Yours in the Theotokos,

Darrenn

I disagree about the 5 second attention span, but maybe thats from your church. The one my brother goes to has a social and prayer nite on Monday, Thursday there is Fellowship for 2 or 3 hours followed by Bible Study then Mass os Sunday plus they go to WYDays and numerous retreats. I dont thats a 5 minute attention span, plus theeir turnout is great. They are Catholic and are leading people to Christ.

I am nuts? I have heard that before hehehe its ok that we disagree, as long as you know I am right

ukrainiancatholic,

The remark about the 5 minute attention span is drawn not only from my personal experience and observation, but also from the moaning of others (particulary RC's who have ended up in the BCC) and from other RC's as well, in and out of the Phoenix metro area.

As I have said at the begininng of this post, the main purpose of Life Teen is to attract teens to the Church (or rather to the program) and hold their attention long enough for them to be passed on to the RCIT or Confirmation programs. Ultimately, the historical anamoly of delayed confirmation and first communion (which is bad Eastern/Western theology)is necessary for the whole Life Teen edifice, and vice-versa...thus ultimately making it nearly impossible for the RC bishops when they actually get around to restoring the ancient order of Baptism, Confirmation (chrismation), and Holy Eucharist.

This also tends to make the program over-focused on the high school years? If Confirmation is a sacramental graduation which is approached after much studying and education, what message does that send to the teens as far as sacramental growth in the Spirit without an endless series of "maturation" sacraments? By putting an undue emphasis on a teen's preparation, knowledge and effort on a one-time event, mystical, experiential knowledge of self and God takes a backseat to data. This also would explain why not a whole lot of teens remain active in the Church after going through the Life Teen program, primarily because the RCC doesn't really have a college counterpart to Life Teen (on the national scale). St. Tim's faced just that problem a few years ago when it started it's College Life group, which on an average night has about 1/20 the number of participates as an average Life Night at St. Tim's.

I would add further that the appearance of Life Teen pulling in the teens is due more to the behemoth presence (even if at times nominal presence) in this country (especially compared to us). About 400 high school teens come to an average Life Night at St. Tim's but then again, St. Tim's has about 10,000 parishoners (an EXTREMELY conservative estimate). Yet when I started the youth group at St. Thomas the Apostle in Gilbert (BC), including me, there were 3 high school age teens. St. Thomas has about 80 parishoners. Even when one gives St. Tim's the benefit of the doubt and grossly underestimates the number of parishoners (I think it's the largest parish in the Diocese of Phoenix, or close to it), the benefits of having a smaller, more close-knit community where EVERYBODY pitches in and you know all the teens (and their parents) by name apparently are much more effective at "bringing the teens closer to Christ" (Life Teen's motto) than Life Teen, Inc.

In the final analysis, the McChurch (a much better term, I think, than AmChurch) approach creates the super organizations to deal with the problems it creates in the first place. And yet, teens still fall through the cracks (the result of parents not really supporting their teens to go to Life Nights but then, come their junior year, all of a sudden want their kid confirmed) because it's so easy to get lost in a sea of people. The RCC has to allow some (okay, a lot) of craziness in order to pull their teens into the Church because of the RCC's apparent inability to inculturate Western Apostolic Christianity into the melting pot of secular American youth culture with any long lasting, positive results. So instead, it sends them off to mega-parishes where the appropiate program is supposed to fill their spiritual, educational, social, and emotional needs.

The result is not the much talked about "community", but Curialization American style. I'll take the average Byzantine Catholic parish any day.

calling you "nuts" may have been a little too severe, how about "quite possibly incorrect". :p

Yours in the Theotokos,

Darrenn

CIX!

With all due respect, I don't think you know what you're talking about.

First, if you don't understand Latin, make an effort to get a translation to be able to follow the Mass. Otherwise, if you had no idea what was going on and were lost, you have none to blame but yourself.

Secondly, Latin is NOT a dead language. Only those who don't know it or have no idea of its significance in western civilisation say so. A dead language is one that has ceased to develop and change and has no descendants - Latin is not one of these. Latin is merely an older form of many european languages.

Just for the record, I'm Russian Catholic and fluent in Latin and Greek.

In Domino,

Edward

Dear Edward,

You forgot to add "Old Rite of the Syriac tradition."

I raise two fingers for you . . .

Alex

Edward,

Acting disrespectful is not annulled with the use of "With all due respect" before acting disrespectful.


I did as you suggested and the Latin High Mass I attended, with a good translation, turned out to be a good reading session, not a worship service, because I was too busy reading along and trying to follow what was happening for it to be prayer for me.



Latin is most certainly a dead language, as in it is unchangeing. There are no new words or usages, there is no slang, as there are in the languages in use today.

Latin is also most certainly not an older form of any european languages, it may be a basis for those languages but it is not an older form.

For it to be an older form then those who speak the languages today would understand much of what is said. For example, someone that is speaking Olde English can be understood, to some extent, by someone who speaks English.

You define a dead language as, "one that has ceased to develop and change and has no descendants".

The first two, are correct, I do not know where you get the third criteria.

The offical definition, which I get from The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics is;

dead language
One that is no longer the native language of any community. Such languages may remain in use, like Latin or Sanskrit, as second or learned (e.g. as liturgical) languages.


David

[ 07-03-2002: Message edited by: DavidB ]

Latin is also most certainly not an older form of any european languages, it may be a basis for those languages but it is not an older form....For example, someone that is speaking Olde English can be understood, to some extent, by someone who speaks English.

I have to disagree with you here. Have you ever tried to read Old English? Without any training in the German language, Old English is practically undecipherable to a speaker of modern English. One could, of course, discern certain words and phrases, but the same could be said of an English speaker reading modern German. Old English is a far, far cry from the modern usage of the tongue.

As for Latin being an older form of various European languages, our friend Edward speaks somewhat of the truth. I have a meagre knowledge of Latin and used it quite often to figure out what's going on while watching the World Cup recently on Univision (an all Spanish television station). I also use that Latin to listen in on what my girlfriend's Quebecois relatives are saying about me when I'm visiting Montreal :p ! Latin is more than just a "base" for these two languages. Indeed, a native Spanish or French speaker has a much easier time with Latin than a Germanic language family speaker such as myself.

In Christ,
mikey.

Dear Edward,

Please try to be nice to our friend, David.

The view on Latin you espouse is a matter for discussion.

Good for you that you can speak Latin and Greek, you could easily join the Vatican's diplomatic corps (perhaps you could help them out in the Russian geopolitical arena just about now).

David is a committed Christian, before all else, who struggles greatly in his personal spiritual life to overcome the world and the devil.

Let's not add to his adversarial burden, shall we?

I love you both, I hope you know that!

Alex

Mikey,

I agree with you, reading it can be a pain but I have had a little luck at deciphering the little bit I have tried to read.

But if you go back to my statement, I said that a speaker of modern english can figure out the meaning of what is spoken in Olde English.

David

I'll just pop in here to say that Latin is not really all that dead. There is a guy, a Carmelite priest in the Vatican, I think, who is the Pope's "Latinist". He does translations of encyclicals and other documents into Latin, and has updated the language to include words in use today.

For instance, I must be the only guy in the New York metropolitan area who does not own a telephonium cellulare.

He's responsible for that one and others.

CIX!

Caro Davide,



How is this any different from a Latin who walks into a Divine Liturgy all in Slavonic and complains that he either can't understand a word and can't figure out what's going on or when given a translation complains that he's too busy reading and trying to follow along to pray? The worship of any apostolic community takes time to get used to - the rubrics and the newness of it all will take some time to sink in. Otherwise, perhaps you might try not to use the missal and simply "immerse yourself" in the spirit of the worship happening around you - I say the same thing to newcomers to Orthodox worship.

I had the same experience when I left the Novus Ordo for the Old Rite, and when I left that to go East and become Greek-Catholic. I've done that adjustment more than once, so I can speak from experience to say: give it time.



It's a snapshot of a continuously developing language at one point in time. Mor Ephrem has pointed out that Latin continues to accquire new words. Latin is no deader than Classical Greek or Church Armenian or Slavonic.




Just as a sample, I'll name:

French
Italian
Spanish
Portuguese
Romanian

All of which are direct descendants of Latin. Latin changed and developed differently in each region of Europe, giving us the modern Romance Languages.



Actually, what do you mean by "Olde English"? Not Shakespeare, I hope. Chaucer is difficult enough to read for those without training in that form of the language, not to mention Anglo-Saxon. The Latinate languages have not undergone any process analogous to the Norman addition to Anglo-Saxon which produced Modern English.

Your point that "For it to be an older form then those who speak the languages today would understand much of what is said" does not hold water. Ignorant Greeks who don't bother, claim that they can't understand Classical Greek. Ignorant speakers of modern Romance languages claim the same for Latin. Slavs the same for Slavonic. This does not invalidate the fact that those languages remain an older form of the modern tongue, even if they are so old a form as to be very very very different from the modern forms. If any of these moderns made a small effort, they'd find the ancient tongues to be familiar relatives.


Indeed.


From my college professors, who are authorities in their subjects, some of whom are more highly revered in the academic community than Oxford University Press publications (indeed, they edit these things).


Not a satisfactory definition. Yes, I'm challenging ODL's definition. By that token, Tudor English, Classical and Koine Greek, Anglo-Saxon, Grabar, Syriac... are all dead languages and no scholar would call them that.

I stand by my clearer definition of "with no modern descendants". That is why languages with no daughters, such as Gothic, Hittite, Akkadian, Egyptian (and Coptic), can be called dead languages. Latin is merely an older form of living languages. Indeed, romance languages can be considered widely differing dialects of Modern Latin.

In Domino,

Edward

[ 07-04-2002: Message edited by: Edward Yong ]

Edward,
I am busy right now and I will give the rest of your post the attention it requires then I will respond to it.

But for now I will comment on the part I have quoted above.

If you have been reading what I have been posting to this sight you will know that it is not Latin that I have a problem with.

I think all Liturgies should be done mainly in the vernacular. That is the language of the people.

So here, the Liturgies should, IMHO, be done mainly in English with some Slavonic, or Latin as the case may be.


David

CIX!

Dear David,


I can agree quite happily with that! You should see the looks on the faces of the "Traditional Latin Mass" crowd I hang out with when I tell them that I think 1967's reforms were way out of line but that the switch to English was good. I like throwing them off balance - I wholeheartedly oppose women priests but support women deacons, for example. It's very amusing

Dear Edward,

Women deacons?

You probably just want the "Kiss of Peace" to be more interesting . . .

Alex

Yeah, Alex, but they better be good looking...I've seen pictures of deaconnesses in Protestant churches, and many of them look ghastly.

Let's get us some sexy deaconnesses, and I think all those men who stay home while the wife and kids go to church will suddenly feel like going with them, and even volunteering around the parish.

And I'll keep on going to church too...