www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Two questions for Fr Petras

Dear Recluse,

Our ancestors have not been liturgizing in English for 17 centuries; they used languages which provided terms for both "human being" and "male human being" when necessary, and they were living (in general) in a conceptual universe which focused on much more than just "us".

You accept my argument in a secular situation; but those coming TO our church come from from the secular world. We are not blessed with one language for worldly things and one for divine things. By your wink, you seem to suggest that hardly anyone "really" doesn't understand; I'm saying that after 3 centuries of acting as if the world is REALLY Us and God (and inert things; and mabe not even God), our language has come to suggest that. (Ask a Christian what a "person" is and see how many give you a reasonably complete answer!) As a result, the OBVIOUS meaning of some phrases as seen by a secular person is not the meaning we might give it! I'm not saying we should change our words, but I think we should stop pretending that only self-deception prevents those outside the church from accepting the "correct" meaning of "men." It's more complicated than that.

One does not AT ALL need to accept a Muslim theology to recognize that some coming to the Church will have concerns that you do NOT have. (I used to use Mithraism as an example of a religion that treats men and women differently, but Islam is more topical.) Saint Paul desired to make himself all things to all men for Christ; I'm asking you to CONSIDER that someone approaching us may honestly know about some bad things (misogyny or racism), have heard (on the nightly news!) that Christians hold some of these views, and be coming to the Church to find out. Telling him (or her), "You (wink wink) don't really believe we could think that (wink wink), you're trying to make us believe what YOU believe!" That is simply not going to work as an evangelical tool. It would be much more forthright to say, "We believe in a large world, of which human beings are only a part. We use the word "man" or "men" to mean all those sharing a common human nature, damaged in the primeval Fall but redeemed by the Passion of Christ." That is MUCH more likely to work than "Get thee behind me, radical pro-homosexual modernist abortion-loving perverted feminist! Everyone KNOWS what men REALLY means!"

Yours in Christ,
Jeff

And therein lies the error. The real Creed and Liturgy remind "us" that we are in God's context not "ours". When I say the Creed in the Liturgy, it is about what I believe in the context about what has been revealed by God Himself, not the baggage with which I may come to it. Don't dumb down the Liturgy. Let God lift men up to Him.

In Christ,
lm

But one cannot ignore the fact that those who made "men" a dirty word, did have an agenda. They were not innocent parties claiming, "Gosh, we don't understand that includes us."

The problem, lm, is that it takes a lifetime of work to see things from God's point of view - in other words, to interpret all we experience in the same way God would. And even then, our ignorance may make this impossible. I know holy monks who, if the word, "Ukraine" is mentioned, canNOT interpret the next few sentences equably. For others, "men" is such a word.

I am talking about the subjective context to which each of us is limited by experience and culture. Some, chained by the world, WILL HEAR "for us men" as sexist. It is a problem THEY have, but our reaction to it conditions how we can lead them toward God and right belief. Denying that it is a problem FOR THEM, or telling them that they are some kind of subversives, is not likely to help them. If by "let God lift men up to Him" you are forswearing any responsbility on your part, and will just let God do with them what He wants, then I think you run into real problems with the Great Commission. Are we really teaching confused moderns by telling them "We're right, you're sick and manipulative, and we pray that God will fix you good!"?

Does any of this mean we should omit "men"? By no means! But we HAVE to accept that it is a real problem for some before we can expect to help them make progress against it.

Jeff

Indeed!!

I know many priests who are using this logic in the confessionals as well.

Let's not upset the sinner now, shall we?

Of course not!!

Let's make religion as comfortable as possible now, shan't we?

But of course!

Mary

Fortunately, Jeff, Rome has spoken on the issue. I think it is part of the ordinary magisterium given that this issue was dealt with indirectly in the translation of the universal catechism as well as directly by Liturgiam Authenticam. I agree that we have a part in charitably educating and welcoming into the Church those who have been formed not by the Word but by words of men. By leaving these words in the Creed and Liturgy, we are not saying offending anyone except those who want to change the Church in their image. For those who have an honest question, these "offensive' words are a great opportunity to evanglize the world--to speak of the fall of man and the redemption by a God who deigned to take the form of a slave and become like us in all things but sin.

But we should not wink at the fact that modern world has taken its toll on the Church in the United States. Education must begin at home. Hence, it is vitality important that those in the Church see the error for what it is. This does not absolve us from presenting the Gospel truth to the world. But you can't present what you don't have. I suspect the best witness I give, though it is a poor one at that, is that I do have many children and a relatively happy family. Yes, even my wife, who has often been pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen is happy. For this example, my wife has often incurred the contempt of the element of those in the Church who are demanding these "just" changes. For her, I feel the hurt most painfully.

The fact that nascent Russian Orthodoxy translated "catholic" as "conciliar" doesn't mean that I'd accuse modern Orthodox of being duplicitous in using it - for that matter, I doubt I'd accuse the original translators. Its a skewed translation with political advantages. Same situation here with "men" as only meaning "males". Some feminists avoid "men" because of its ambiguity, some out of distaste. Some moderns simply avoid its use as a generic out of custom. The last are almost surely the majority, and they need to be evangelized. Should our evangelization START with "You talk funny, you don't use proper English, and you're probably a man-hating pervert bend on destroying our church!"? Yet this is the sort of rhetoric that we devolve into here, even when talking about our own priests and bishops.

You did this in your previous post. You told us that ONLY those are offended who want to change the Church.

You need not attribute to malice whatever could just as well be laid at the door of a misreading of the situation. You don't do anyone much good by accusations - ESPECIALLY if they're off base; and if you refuse to acknowledge a problem some people really do have, others will ignore you when they seek a resolution of that problem.

Jeff

Born yesterday!!

Your argument might carry some weight if this entire topic had not already been talked near to death in the Latin rite and in the public secular arena as well.

As it is what you and Father David are doing is treating us all as though were were born...just a few moments ago.

Some of us are even aware that Rome has spoken on the matter of the Creed.

Well...we know about the Byzantine Magisterium from Father David so I suppose we're not obliged.

But the discussion does have a bit more hair on it than you are allowing.



Mary

But none of this explains why the Creed and Liturgy have been distorted unless of course the Bishops and Fr. Petras are saying that "conservatives" like me need to be taught a lesson.

Should our evangelization start with changing our Creed? Of course not. None of these discussions would have occurred if these things had been left alone. The burden is on Fr. Petras to show what is good about changing the Creed. How is it now just in a way it was unjust before?

So tell me what I am misreading. Show me. Fr. Petras himself says that "man" is a sexist term. He has said it is right and just to drop it from the Creed. Either that's true or false. Since I haven't seen a good argument why that is true, it is not wrong for me to assume we have just thoughtlessly or worse yet thoughtfully (ie because it's just), to imitate the dominant pagan culture which does in fact reject the gospel truth.

Perhaps this is the problem, the Liturgy is not principally for evangelization it is for worship, which is the primary (ie, most basic) meaning of culture. Remember, the doors, the doors!

And I refer you to this link for the argument by none other than Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) that the Byzantine Liturgy was not missionary, except in its most profound sense.

https://www.byzcath.org/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/230249#Post230249

When it comes to the authentic Magisterium of the Church, the teaching of a higher authority (i.e. Papal) always trumps the teaching of a lesser authority (i.e. Patriarchal, Metropolitan, Archiepiscopal, Episcopal,etc. unless one can prove that the higher authority is wrong, and the burden of proof is on the one taking that position). I am quite sure that you are aware of that! The strange thing about our situation is that all of the fine Roman instructions on Liturgical translation were aimed only at the Latin Church. What was taught consisted of general principles which could, and should, be applied to the Universal Church, not just the Latin portion of it. One could argue that they represent the "mind of the Church". IMHO, it would be wonderful if similar instructions were directed, ideally from the Congregation for Eastern Churches, at all Catholic Eastern Churches.

Dn. Robert

Let me put this bluntly and then I will be quiet. It appears to me that Fr. David and the Bishops who promulgated this new liturgy don't want to follow Rome, and hence I don't want to follow them. That's it short and simple. Rome's "take" on things seems to sum up best how we are to address the problems of modern times.

In Christ,

lm

Yes. It is as simple as that. Jeff, I am sorry that you were so offended by the winking smiley. It was not my intention to ridicule your argument in any way. Here is what I meant by the wink:

There are so few people in our Church that "may" be offended by these words, that it would be a very simple process to Cathecize them and point to the proper context.

I am not blind. As lM has pointed out, there surely seems to be an agenda here--where these words are suddenly taboo after many centuries (I realize not as many as 17 centuries but I was too late to edit).

I understand that you are trying to give our Church the benefit of the doubt, while at the same time not preferring the change. I choose to take a stand. And the explanations offered thus far have been weak. I credit Fr David with discussing these issues with us. He is a lone voice in defense of some considerable changes. But I yearn to know the extent of the displeasure with the old language. Was there an underground movement of laity and clergy in the Ruthenian Catholic Church who have been demanding the change? In other words, what precipitated this drastic departure from the ancient language of our Liturgy?

That is all.

I believe it has been stated on this forum that the Greek anthropos/anthropoi means human being/beings and as such can not be understood in an exclusive way. Examples from scripture have also been given on the forum to show that this is not accurate:

Restricted to (adult) males: man, husband Mt 19:5, 10; 1 Cor 7:1; meaning Son, see Mt 10:35; also Ephesians 5:31 quoting Genesis 2:24

English and Greek have potentially the same ambiguity.


The closest biblical expression is, I believe:

RSV 1 Timothy 2:4 who desires all men (pantas anthropous) to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

While in the English "all" is neutral, the Greek pantas also has grammatical gender (masculine, plural). So how good a job does the Greek of scripture do, using the term anthropos/anthropoi, in declaring explicity that women are saved? Anthropos has a feminine form, but I have not found nor do I believe does scripture itself ever use this explicit feminine form.


I believe we do, well and often:

RSV Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Also in the Greek of the liturgy there is the very explicit:

kai pantōn kai pasōn [and all(m, pl) and all (f, pl)] thus really being explicitly inclusive (not just men and women but boys and girls as well).

I am bemused that here the 1965 liturgicon has the more literal and explicit "Also all men and all women" while the 2006 liturgicon, p 79 (for all the talk about needing to be explicit) has just "And remember all your people."

I believe in the good intentions of those here who seek to use inclusive language; but the choices are wrong, the results are misleading. The Greek of the Creed could also just have said *for us*, but it doesn't; it says, literally, "on account of us (the) men=human beings"; that is, *di' humas tous anthropous* (anthropous, masculine accusative plural). Why did the fathers include anthropous/men explicitly? In the case of the creed, it seems that a certain closure is lost when the word "men" is dropped. That is, the phrase reads: "Who for us MEN (anthropous) and for our salvation came down out of the heavens and was enfleshed out of the Holy Spirit and Mary the Virgin and BECAME MAN (enanthropesanta). Thus we profess in the creed that Jesus, who consistently referred to Himself as the "Son of MAN", "for us MEN...BECAME MAN." Do we really want to give that up?

And why is "for us men" and "Mankind" exclusive but it is ok and not exclusive to say that He "became man"? Think about how misleading that can be.

Dn. Anthony

I will ask Fr David one last time.

Was there a considerable and substantial voice within the Ruthenian Catholic Church, (laity and clergy), who were demanding inclusive language in the Liturgy, which prompted the decision to use it?

This is a simple and straight forward question.