www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy A Call for a Conference on Our Liturgy!

Could you offer us, both clergy and laity here, who tend to represent the rear guard some specific sense of what changes in the rubrics have served directly to bring about this remarkable metanoia?

Also is this truly a remarkable metanoia? I haven't been in any of our parishes where those things are not already done or most of them. Perhaps I've just gotten lucky?

Give us a little more of substance here. I think it is important to put flesh on the bones of assertion at this time.

Eli

Father Deacon,

But I didn't say that every priest I heard about objected to it for every reason. Only that everyone hated the revised Liturgy and music for some reason.

I've been to some Liturgies where the new rubrics are in use too, and the sky hasn't fallen, but my heart did. Those rubrics change the whole 'feel' of our Liturgy, it's just not our Liturgy anymore.

It sounds like an "intellectual" argument here on this forum, between right and wrong translations, the merits of inclusive/exclusive language.

But the real point for me, is how much this revision hurts. I love our Liturgy, there was nothing wrong with it, and it didn't need revision. It just breaks my heart.

I know the Archbishop doesn't have to care about me and my feelings. But in an ideal world, I wish he would.

Nick

Good. It�s good to know that your suggestion that those who disagree with the revisions are unfaithful was not something you really believe.

Can you please answer my other question?

Why are you concluding that those who disagree with this liturgical revision must also believe that the church is not in good hands?

Or did you mean something else with your suggestion?

If something else, can you please clarify what you meant?

Eli,

"Could you offer us, both clergy and laity here, who tend to represent the rear guard some specific sense of what changes in the rubrics have served directly to bring about this remarkable metanoia?"

As Fr. Thomas Loya has remarked elsewhere on the site, the chanting of the Anaphora aloud is probably the single biggest factor coupled with enthusiastic priests.

"Also is this truly a remarkable metanoia? I haven't been in any of our parishes where those things are not already done or most of them. Perhaps I've just gotten lucky?"

Perhaps, it depends were you are at I suppose. In the Archeparchy, many parishes still lack the above.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Nick,

What specifically about the new rubrics don't you like? Is it those things that are missing like the litanies or extra verses or the added things like prayers aloud?

Myself, I don't mind the Liturgy either way but I really love to hear the Anaphora chanted aloud and can't believe there are people who don't want to hear it.

Fr. Deacon Lance

I made no such suggestion.

I made no such conclusion.

I think that those who see "destruction" are wrong. I ask those who bring this up to support it or reconsider it. Likewise fidelity has nothing to do with whether one would have made the same decisions as bishop, or likes those decisions being made by our actual bishops; it has to do with how one acts in the aftermath of those decisions (hence my use of future tense).

So it is enthusiastic priests and not the rubrics actually?

I think that is what I am getting at.

What did the change in rubrics do that a well placed order from the bishop on any occasion of a pastoral visit would not have done?

Or if you like, how does chanting the anaphora aloud result in more infant's communing, or the appearance of an icon screen?

Are you sending the message to our priest's that all they need to is chant the Anaphora loudly enough to be heard, and all will be well in their parishes?

Have these renewed priests passed along the great news of this wonderwork to their brother priests? One would think they'd want to encourage all their brother priests to get on board. Why has that not happened?

Eli

Dear Deacon Lance,

I don't like the fact that they are new rubrics, inventions, revisions, changes in the Recension as published by Rome.

The rubrics in the old Liturgicon, together with the instructions in the Ordo and Norms, are just fine the way they are and don't need to be changed, re-organized or re-written.

Where there is no specific rubric (silently, or "out loud") there is freedom. Don't write it in. Where the books say one or the other, the translation should say EXACTLY the same thing, only in English.

Over the next 50 to 100 years, the anaphora may come to be taken aloud more and more, I don't deny it. Then, after the fact, we can 'update' rubrics to reflect this organic development.

Read Cardinal Ratzinger on the reforms of Vat II. He says that "mandating" liturgy changes (as was done in the Latin West) was unheard of anywhere in the Church before Vat II's reforms. It has never been successfully done in the East. (Though Fr. David cited the one example of Nikon of Moscow! Hardly a successful model to follow.)

Deacon Lance, the rubrics I don't like are all those that are not exact, faithful, literal translations of those that are in the approved Slavonic books.

Is that such a hard thing to accept?

Nick

That's very encouraging for the short run. If the translation is that good why is it being hidden from most of us?

CDL

djs writes that my ecclesiology (expressed in my last posting) is correct, but why do I think the points I made are relevant.

I was responding specifically to a posting stating that Bishops could do, basically, whatever they please. They have no such right. Nobody does. Even Almighty God does not act by whim.

Another question has come up in the course of the discussion: is it possible for a bishop (presumably even the Pope) to believe, genuinely, that he is acting for the upbuilding of the Church while in fact the result of his action is destructive?

Well of course it is - nobody except Almighty God is omniscient, especially where the future is involved. In such a case, the bishop would not be morally culpable, since presumably he used ordinary prudence and asked for the Divine guidance (often called "the grace of office") but misinterpreted the data, so to speak. Anyone can be thoroughly wrong without being wilfully dishonest.

On the other hand, God and the Church expect the Christians, especially the ordained clergy, to go to considerable trouble to form their consciences accurately and to alert to the guidance of God. There is such a thing as wilful deafness!

Nevertheless, ultimate judgement belongs to God.

Fr. Serge

Even if there are all these parishes using the new rubrics, who are otherwise making progress in genuine renewal, don't you see a conflict here?

Why can't we restore the WHOLE tradition? Why pick and choose, this tradition here, that innovation there, this old custom here, that new invention there.

It is flawed. We must be faithful 100% While I am happy to hear of infant communion or icons here and there, we can't pick and choose some traditional ideas and some renovationist ideas according to whim and pleasure.

Why can't we be consistent? Why can't we embrace the whole Ruthenian tradition? Why do we have to take some ideas from one vision, and others from another?

Inclusive language from liberal Jesuits and radical Notre Dame Liturgy seminars in the 1970's, together with a Latin "mandating" of reforms, even together with infant communion and icon screens, does not strike me as a genuine renewal, but rather an awkward attempt at "selected" elements from the tradition!

Renewal is not a smorgasbord. Real revitalization will not be "buffet-style" help yourself, according to your mood and taste and appetite at the time.

It's like picking this litany, that antiphon verse, according to someone's taste. It will never work. The only thing that will work and unite the Church, is to pick and select EXACTLY what is found in the official books, and translate them EXACTLY.

We have to study the Ruthenian Recension, live the tradition, and comform our lives to it as completely and carefully as we can.

Dabbling at renewal (icons and infant communion) while at the same time advocating revision (inclusive language, invented rubrics, abbreviations and re-organizing the typicon and services) is doomed to fail in the long run, because it is "half-****d" and misguided. It has no integrity, and will end poorly.

I ask, why can't we restore the WHOLE tradition? Why can't we distinguish between the wheat and the chaff?

Organic development is fine, but first we have to fully appropriate and live the WHOLE tradition. Otherwise, it is misguided arrogance.

Why can't we restore the WHOLE tradition?

Nick

Why can't we restore the WHOLE tradition?

Nick

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Perhaps there is a perception that the laity can't handle it?

Well I for one, can handle it, and I'm asking for the whole tradition.

Is this clerical arrogance, by another name? There must be some pressure group campaigning for revision, inclusive language etc. They are being heard by the Archbishop! They have his ear.

Why won't he listen to us, who only want our tradition? Don't we count? Aren't we entitled to be on any committees?

Just because we didn't go to Notre Dame school of liberal liturgy, and don't rush after feminism and other fads, I guess we're too boring to be heard. All the liberal clergy want is our dollars and our obedience.

Nick

Dear Nicholas,
I've deleted my former post because it is too negative.