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I disagree. What one language should have been chosen? Greek? English? French? Ukrainian?

At an international congress, it only makes sense to include various languages in the Liturgy, especially at a Byzantine Liturgy concelebrated by clergy from many countries. This is standard practice in the Orthodox world for such gatherings, and I'd assume in the Eastern Catholic world as well.

In other news, I did enjoy one bit of commentary: the woman reading the Communion Prayer in Slovak was described as "Communion Instructions in Ukrainian."

Dave

Hah! I find it funny that the majority of comments here deal with the "female servers" and not with the fact that the hand washing and blessings after the Gospel and Cherubicon were cut, or that those two kids holding the staff (Finnian) and candle (Matejko) did such an amazing job! However, the compliments on the singing are completely appropriate, in my opinion. (I might add that they sounded even better in person.)

About the "female servers": I found it strange at first, but they were simply ushers that were wearing albs.

Regarding the time, asianpilgrim: yes, it was short for a hierarchical service (due to many abbreviations which I will not discuss here for sanity's sake), however, as discussed in other threads, you can do the full hierarchical in less time and you can also make it last much longer.

Have no idea what TIVO means - but if it can be transformed into a DVD, I would be most grateful.

Thanks for the confirmation that the hand-washing was omitted at the Great Entrance. I thought that was the case, but there was a risk that it might have been done and I simply didn't see it on television.

Fr. Serge

TIVO's just a program that records selected shows; you can fast forward, rewind, etc. You know, Fr. Serge, I appreciate ascetism in a priest and all, but TIVO's been around for a while now!

Unfortunately, I think I heard somewhere that TIVO'ed programs can't be recorded onto DVDs, but then again I don't see why they couldn't. I can attempt to try, and let you know if it works, but I must warn you: I am an embarrassment to my generation as far as technological prowess is concerned. It's not my forte', and I'm bound to mess it up, but we'll see.

I think that overall the service was very well done. Aside from the abbreviations and complete deletions that some people mention above, I thought the singing was quite well done, and I thought the deacon and the main celebrant-hierarch did great jobs.

I do have a couple questions, however.

Daniil,

Why did female ushers wear albs, albs that looked a lot like the cheap chasubles the Latin hierarchs were wearing? It just smells like an "agenda" to me, but maybe I'm just a naturally suspicious person.

Another thing: I have never understood why many Eastern Catholic bishops' mitres are of a certain, less ornamental and "plasticky-looking" variety, as opposed to most Orthodox bishops' mitres. Yesterday in the liturgy most of the EC bishops wore that type of mitre, although the main celebrant had a wonderful mitre on that didn't appear in this style. Just wondering what causes the difference.

Anyway, I thought that they did as good a job as could reasonably be expected in such a terrible venue, but the locationm, setup, and decoration were par for the course since our dear old friend the ex-Papal MC Piero Marini is now, mercifully, in charge of the international Eucharistic congresses. Mercifully for papal liturgies, anyway.

Alexis

I'm not saying one language. If made king for a day I would have stuck to English, French, and Slavonic. Of course I was not and will not be. We certainly didn't get the in-your-face, diversity-first experience the Pope had to endure in DC.

I would have thought that for the primary language there would be a choice of two, since the Liturgy was taking place in Quebec City: Greek (the original language) or French (the language of Quebec).

But then, I would also have thought that one of the Melkite hierarchs or the Romanian hierarch would have been invited to give the blessing of the vine during the Trisagion. Silly me!

Fr. Serge

Ah, you noticed that too!

I sadly did not see the Divine Liturgy but I saw the NO Mass and it was an outrage to me a round altar female altar servers and I'm a Latin Rite Catholic I couldn't bear to watch it so I turned it off how ever I noticed later on thinking back that the Female (Altar servers) where Just acting as ushers.

Altar Server

whether you like it or not - female Servers are permitted in the RC Church. It is left to each Bishop to decide whether they will permit it in their Diocese.

There are many parishes where boys will not come forward to serve - so either the Priest is on his own - or he has girls.

but in the document released by John Paul II it said that women where allowed to serve if there where no males avalible to do so so this is a great abuse of this rule or at least this is my interpritation of it
sorry I can't spell )

Our's is a "diversity" diocese (so it seems) and the girls are often "on the altar" so to speak, in some parishes. But my parish pastor, who celebrates the TLM weekly or more as well as the NO, seems to have a methodology to counteract it.

One recent Sunday I had to attend the Noon NO Mass, which the pastor was serving, and, by coincidence, during the announcements he mentioned that with the end of the school year, there would be a new class forming for the boys who wished to serve at the altar; "or girls, for that matter" he added with a smile. The context is that, de facto, no girls serve on the altar (though there are ladies who serve as readers for the NO), and the boys dress in cassock and surplice!

So, while the girls are free to take the classes, it sounds to me like the boys wouldn't want their sisters around, and vice versa! It wouldn't be .

Michael

thats true Micheal and I'm sure you know that tradition of boys serving at the altar was a way to descern a vocation to the priesthood and for some men and boys having girls on the altar is a distraction sometimes I think that the Sacredness of the sanctuary is taken away with people coming and going and in my church the only distintion between the nave and the sanctuary is a set of rounded steps since the church was redone in 02 we now have a rounded altar they took out the altar rail and the taditional three steps leading to the altar table itself but I guess some things change with time.

AS,

In my parish, the pastor has accepted the offer of a member of the parish who is a cabinet maker to add an altar rail back in! The parishioner has been doing hand carvings of saints, who he or someone else then paints, to decorate each of the uprights. It's very beautiful, especially as something done by a local!

Right now, he's working on the altar rail gates, as I understand it.

BTW, nearby is a very large parish, St. Mary's, which just finished a new Church (what they call a "worship space"), which sounds like what you are describing:

St. Mary's Parish [stmarychurchnj.org]

(Scroll down to May 3 pix.)

It's too bad they did the sanctuary the way they did, because the various furnishings (stations of the cross, images of Our Lady, St. Joseph, etc.) seem pretty nice to me (though perhaps a bit too "realistic" for where they have them placed).

Meanwhile, 10 minutes away the Greek Orthodox had their new Church of the Assumption of the Theotokos consecrated by their bishop last October. It's a beautiful, warm and "homey" "worship space" :

Kimisis tis Thetokou Parish [kimisis.com]

Michael

Just reading what you have posted, I am glad I didn't see it.