www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy All is Quiet on the Eastern Front...

It would appear that not much has been said or done with the new translation...

Is this just the calm before the storm or a sign of things to come (or not come)?

Gordo

I think everything has been said that can be said. We're fatigued.

Yes, I was commiserating with someone today about this, and I would agree I think it's the calm before the storm. With the release of Fr. David's long-awaited explanation, it appears that the new liturgy will be promuglated soon. How sad for our little church.

JMHO, Cathy

Vichnaja pamjat', indeed!

Ungcsertezs

Benedict XVI has quitely spoken, but his actual lecture was not an attack so much on Islam but on the rejection of the logos in the univeristy.

He wrote:

My greatest complaint about the "inclusive language" in the liturgy is that there is no real account (ie. dialogue) which can justify it and such language inherently rejects the Divine order which was from the beginning: "Male and female He created them."

The multi-cultural (ie, the "new" relationships in America between men and women) justification for the mistranslations are inherently unreasonable. What the practical consequences of these errors will be, remains to be seen - but consequences there will be.

With great sadness I await the promulgation.

Interesting, Cathy: I had a similar conversation with a friend last week. I'm still going to reserve judgement till I actually see the new translation. If it's not too bad, I doubt if it will have much of an effect. But if it is too modernistic, well, it will be interesting to see who is left after the others depart for Orthodox parishes or traditional Roman Catholic parishes.

-- John

...OR other Eastern Catholic jurisdictions!

As I was reminded yesterday by a priest, if the people in the pews don't accept the new Liturgy, it won't happen because that's the Holy Spirit at work. From this priest's account, the change in music alone is enough to get people angry, let alone a change in wording. Then factor in the cantor's regard or disregard for learning NEW music, and you have a recipe for disaster. So, all the moaning we've been doing here will probably play out in the pews -- louder than everyone is expecting.

It ain't over till the people in the pews and the cantors' refuse to sing the NEW music.

JMHO, Cathy

I have generally been avoiding this forum because of the distinct lack of charity espoused here. However the MUSIC is not "new"! Stop referring to the MUSIC as "new", please. I find it amazing that even cradle Byzantines (Ruthenian) over 40 are referring to the recent liturgical music (which is modeled on the much older melodies used for centuries) as "New". How quickly a generation has lost knowledge of our chant!

Had the music been restored first, then perhaps a decade later any revisions in text, things might have continued much more smoothly. Unfortunately, the decision was made to revise the texts AND restore the melodies simultaneously.

back to my occasional lurking,

Steve

Hmm...when I hear talk like this about the music issue with the Divine Liturgy, I hear things based upon fact. That "we" are factually correcting things which should have never been, and that is that.

When I bring up issues, such as factually correcting "forever and ever" to "unto ages of ages" or correcting "true-faith" to "orthodox," I hear from "your" people, we must be pastorally sensitive to people's feelings.

Well, now, what about being pastorally sensitive to all the older cantors who know the music by heart, along with all the people in the pews who know the music by heart. It appears that "your" people want what they want, and not necessairly what is correct.

Is it my imagination that the only word changes have been to add inclusive language, that things which should have been corrected have not, because as one bishop put it, "We would not be Byzantine if we didn't say forever and ever." Forget what is correct, now take feelings into account.

IMHO, the only feelings that matter are those with the red pens who have inked out the corrections that should be, and which were presented to our God-loving bishops.

JMHO-Cathy

Steve,

I must disagree with you strongly and call you out on your accusation.

Lack of charity and principled disagreement are two different things. Too many people in our society (and in our Church) seem to mistakenly believe that when you have a strong disagreement with someone you are being uncharitable.

Sometimes an accusation of lack of charity is used to stifle discussion. The reasoning goes like this:

1) Joe has worked very hard on a particular project and really believes in it.
2) When anyone criticizes the project Joe worked so hard on it really hurts Joe.
3) Those who criticize the project Joe worked on lack charity because their criticism hurts Joe.

One can certainly understand and sympathize with Joe, and agree that he worked hard on his project. Yet the real world judges the quality of the product and not the effort that went into it. And it can really be no other way.

Those on both sides of the issue need to present their opinions on the revisions based simply on the quality of the changes, using good scholarship and other appropriate supporting qualitative evidence.

I invite you to spend some time rereading what has been posted here on the Forum regarding the proposed liturgical revision. If you look at it with a discerning mind I think you will see lots of principled disagreement and little lack of charity. Where you do see lack of charity report it to the moderators using the �Report a Post� feature. Posts that cross the line into uncharitableness are either edited or deleted.

I have not seen much of the new music, but it most certainly is �new�. You must look at it from the view of the average worshipper. They have sung the official English settings (Gray Book, Greek Book, black �Byzantine Liturgical Chant� book) for 40 years. For many, the new settings and texts are changing something they have sung all their lives. Like it or not the changed music is �new� to them.

I�ve offered this example before but I will offer it again. Think of the refrain for the Christmas Carol �O Come, All Ye Faithful�. It is known by almost every Christian in the English speaking world. Now imagine if some fictitious committee on Christmas Carols issued a decree changing �O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord� to �You! Come and adore the Lord!� This committee would be correct that the new translation and (imagine a) setting is a more accurate rendering of the Latin. But would the average layman in the congregation welcome a change to something he has sung all his life? To him it would most likely be both �new� and unacceptable.

Let�s look at another example. Mom and Baba grew up with the Liturgy in Church Slavonic. All their lives (in Baba�s case over 80 years!) they have sung the Slavonic Divine Liturgy a certain way. But the old cantor has now retired and there is a new cantor. He says the parish adds extra notes to the �I�e Cheruvimi� (instead of singing �tajno� with two half notes both on an �E� the parish sings �taj� on �E� and �F#� and comes back down to the �E� for �no�). But the new cantor says that the official Bok�aj doesn�t have the slur! And he�s correct, Bok�aj doesn�t have the slur! Does this new cantor have the right to come into a parish, accuse them of getting sloppy with Bok�aj, and force them to change? How many generations of singing something (anything) a particular way are necessary before that setting become legitimate? The Irmologia published in the generations before Bok�aj are all a bit different (and in some cases quite different). Should we revise Bok�aj to match the notation from an earlier generation? What criteria do we use to say that one source is more accurate than another? That one development is legitimate and another illegitimate? What about the oftentimes vast differences between parishes?

That is certainly a debate!

Now, look at the issue today. Almost all parishes have accepted the official English musical settings for the fixed portions of the Divine Liturgy. They have sung them now for 40 years. They have united our Church when the people from the various parishes get together to pray. These settings have been accepted as legitimate by the faithful (�Sensus Fidelium�).

On what basis does anyone tell the faithful that what they have been singing for 40 years is now unacceptable and should be forbidden?

If one says that we must restore every note to Bok�aj one must explain why. Does anyone seriously argue that we can reform the Divine Liturgy (that we hold common with other Churches) in any manner we please but that our liturgical chant (that is unique to us) must be identical to Bok�aj, even to the point of prohibiting us from following the example of how the Slavs took Greek Chant and turned it into something uniquely Slavic?

It really does not matter whether the new settings are better or not. [There are many criteria for judging musical settings that we can discuss if you want to.] What matters here is that some are proposing that musical settings that people have sung for a lifetime need to be changed.

To summarize:

1). Principled disagreement and lack of charity are not the same thing. Posters are free to disagree greatly so long as they present their disagreement with charity.

2) The revised settings � whether they are good or bad � are �new� to people who have never known them. Those who propose the changes need to present the reasons for changing the settings to the faithful to see a (�Sensus Fidelium�).

I hope you will reread the posts here with a new outlook and comment back.

Admin

Yeah! What Cathy said!

Cathy, so true. You are a prophet.

Sometimes someone calls it uncharitable when they get no backing though they know they are speaking the truth, but life is like that.

There are also times when questionable posts are not corrected, so caveat emptor. When it comes to info on the Forum, be careful what you accept, because all too often there are misrepresentations or incomplete scenarios presented here that can mislead into wrong conclusions, even though they may appear to be widely accepted by the net community.

Charity certainly includes the style of presentation (polite agreement and/or disagreement) but it also includes truthfulness. No one should post here without being truthful. That is why I always use appropriate documentation to back up my presentations.

Caveat emptor applies to all things at all times.

The moderators routinely correct or delete incorrect posts. In some cases the correction is quite evident and the moderators attend to it at once. In other cases the correction occurs as soon as someone brings it to their attention, providing the information that shows that the post is incorrect.

Can you please report the posts you think are questionable to the moderator of that forum? And provide a source for the moderator to verify that the post is incorrect? If there are incorrect posts here they need to be corrected immediately.