www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy I guess they are right again

Well, after all the belly aching and moaning, I guess I am ready to say this whole "Revised Divine Liturgy" section has lost it's luster. The change has occurred, it's been accepted and I don�t see it being re-canted. If someone left our Faith after a few new words, then their Belief must not be very strong anyway.

They said to, "Wait it out. You'll forget about the old way soon enough" and they are right. Again.

God Bless our Eparchies.

I also deeply appreciate the adoption of elements of horizontal inclusive language and find it both theologically correct and pastorally sensitive. From my personal dialogue with literally hundreds of young people, I can honestly say that this Liturgy communicates the Gospel effectively to today's youth in a way that the older form of the Liturgy does not.

Liturgiam Authenticam
30. In many languages there exist nouns and pronouns denoting both genders, masculine and feminine, together in a single term. The insistence that such a usage should be changed is not necessarily to be regarded as the effect or the manifestation of an authentic development of the language as such. Even if it may be necessary by means of catechesis to ensure that such words continue to be understood in the "inclusive" sense just described, it may not be possible to employ different words in the translations themselves without detriment to the precise intended meaning of the text, the correlation of its various words or expressions, or its aesthetic qualities. When the original text, for example, employs a single term in expressing the interplay between the individual and the universality and unity of the human family or community (such as the Hebrew word 'adam, the Greek anthropos, or the Latin homo), this property of the language of the original text should be maintained in the translation. Just as has occurred at other times in history, the Church herself must freely decide upon the system of language that will serve her doctrinal mission most effectively, and should not be subject to externally imposed linguistic norms that are detrimental to that mission.

31. In particular: to be avoided is the systematic resort to imprudent solutions such as a mechanical substitution of words, the transition from the singular to the plural, the splitting of a unitary collective term into masculine and feminine parts, or the introduction of impersonal or abstract words, all of which may impede the communication of the true and integral sense of a word or an expression in the original text. Such measures introduce theological and anthropological problems into the translation. Some particular norms are the following:

a) In referring to almighty God or the individual persons of the Most Holy Trinity, the truth of tradition as well as the established gender usage of each respective language are to be maintained.

b) Particular care is to be taken to ensure that the fixed expression "Son of Man" be rendered faithfully and exactly. The great Christological and typological significance of this expression requires that there should also be employed throughout the translation a rule of language that will ensure that the fixed expression remain comprehensible in the context of the whole translation.

c) The term "fathers", found in many biblical passages and liturgical texts of ecclesiastical composition, is to be rendered by the corresponding masculine word into vernacular languages insofar as it may be seen to refer to the Patriarchs or the kings of the chosen people in the Old Testament, or to the Fathers of the Church.

d) Insofar as possible in a given vernacular language, the use of the feminine pronoun, rather than the neuter, is to be maintained in referring to the Church.

e) Words which express consanguinity or other important types of relationship, such as "brother", "sister", etc., which are clearly masculine or feminine by virtue of the context, are to be maintained as such in the translation.

f) The grammatical gender of angels, demons, and pagan gods or goddesses, according to the original texts, is to be maintained in the vernacular language insofar as possible.

g) In all these matters it will be necessary to remain attentive to the principles set forth above, in nn. 27 and 29.

32. The translation should not restrict the full sense of the original text within narrower limits. To be avoided on this account are expressions characteristic of commercial publicity, political or ideological programs, passing fashions, and those which are subject to regional variations or ambiguities in meaning. Academic style manuals or similar works, since they sometimes give way to such tendencies, are not to be considered standards for liturgical translation. On the other hand, works that are commonly considered "classics" in a given vernacular language may prove useful in providing a suitable standard for its vocabulary and usage.

That is certainly not something that the statistics of religious practice indicate. The Catholic Church in the USA has been growing and continues to grow -- primarily because of the recent immigration of Hispanics. As far as I know, the large and overflowing Hispanic Churches use the new forms and do not have any controversy about them.

On a local level, the largest and most active Latin Church in town (which is filled for every service to overflowing on Saturday/Sunday and is often filled with people during the week) has enthusiastically embraced the "new forms" -- including guitar masses, rock-n-roll liturgies, etc. I personally do not find this to be a meaningful worship experience, but thousands in my town do. This Church is literally so packed so that there are no seats available. So at least here in town, your thesis is not borne out in practice.

While this is true, I would note that nowhere and at no time did the Cardinal (now Pope) recommend or encourage priests and/or laypeople to rebel against or in any way disobey the legitimate authority of the Church as exercised through her bishops. In fact, those who insisted on using the older liturgical forms often found themselves in schism against the Church.

If indeed the Faith of Christ were vague, indeterminate, a matter of opinion or deduction, then, indeed, we may well conceive that the Ministers of the Gospel would be the only due expounders and guardians of it; then it might be fitting for private Christians to wait till they were informed concerning the best mode of expressing it, or the relative importance of this or that part of it. But this has been all settled long ago; the Gospel Faith is a definite deposit,�a treasure, common to all, one and the same in every age, conceived in set words, and such as admits of being received, preserved, transmitted. We may safely leave the custody of it even in the hands of individuals; for in so doing, we are leaving nothing at all to private rashness and fancy, to pride, debate, and strife. We are but allowing men to "contend earnestly for the Faith once delivered to the Saints;" the Faith which was put into their hands one by one at their baptism, in a form of words called the Creed, and which has come down to them in that very same form from the first ages. This Faith is what even the humblest member of the Church may and must contend for; and in proportion to his education, will the circle of his knowledge enlarge. The Creed delivered to him in Baptism will then unfold, first, into the Nicene Creed (as it is called), then into the Athanasian; and, according as his power of grasping the sense of its articles increases, so will it become his duty to contend for them in their fuller and more accurate form. All these unfoldings of the Gospel Doctrine will become to him precious as the original articles, because they are in fact nothing more or less than the {257} one true explanation of them delivered down to us from the first ages, together with the original baptismal or Apostles' Creed itself. As all nations confess to the existence of a God, so all branches of the Church confess to the Gospel doctrine; as the tradition of men witnesses to a Moral Governor and Judge, so the tradition of Saints witnesses to the Father Almighty, and His only Son, and the Holy Ghost. And as neither the superstitions of polytheism, nor the atheistic extravagances of particular countries at particular times, practically interfere with our reception of the one message which the sons of Adam deliver; so, much less, do the local heresies and temporary errors of the early Church, and its superadded corruptions, its schismatic offshoots, or its partial defections in later ages, impair the evidence and the claim of its teaching, in the judgment of those who sincerely wish to know the Truth once delivered to it. Blessed be God! we have not to find the Truth, it is put into our hands; we have but to commit it to our hearts, to preserve it inviolate, and to deliver it over to our posterity.

Also, has Vespers and Matins at St. Luke's been discontinued in the past year? I thought that they used to be celebrated there? Earlier in the thread you mentioned 'services', did you only mean the Divine Liturgy or Vespers and Matins as well?

St. Elias in Toronto (UGCC), St. Anne's in Harrisburgh (BCA), and Pokrova in Parma (UGCC) are the only places where I've seen some kind of future in young people attending church. None of these three embrace the secular changes that are taking place in the BCA, I'll be awaiting to hear the facts about this new and exciting trend that you've uncovered!

The most recent St. Luke's bulletin indicates that Vespers is suppressed until further notice. When I was assisting in that parish over a year ago, we had Vespers, Matins and the full Ruthenian Rescension Divine Liturgy (1964 Liturgikon).

I would also add Gender neutral language and horizaontal inclusive language are not the same thing.