Women Serving During Mass

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1581651' date='Jun 24 2008, 02:28 PM']If this is so traditionally incorrect, then why did it change?
I ask this not confrontationally, but out of honest curiosity.[/quote]
Sadly, the Roman Church broke with Apostolic Tradition at the end of the 1960s when it modernized its liturgy.

Why the Roman Church authorities at that time decided to dispense with tradition is something only they can answer, but in my readings of the documents of the [i]Concilium[/i] (i.e., the group that revised the Roman Missal) it is evident that many of the members of that committee subscribed to an ideological position that saw "modern man" as somehow distinct from man before the so-called "modern age," and that prayers and practices of time immemorial needed to be changed in order to "fit" better the cultural sensibilities of "modern man."

Edited June 24, 2008 by Apotheoun

[goldenchild17]

voted for OTHER, because curiously there was no NO option. hmm...

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='goldenchild17' post='1581683' date='Jun 24 2008, 02:43 PM']voted for OTHER, because curiously there was no NO option. hmm... [/quote]
That is why I also chose "other." I used "other" as "no."

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Deo Iuvente' post='1581674' date='Jun 24 2008, 03:39 PM']Mostly, because liberal theologians thought it promoted inclusivity, universality, and helped the laity to be engaged in the mass. They thought that changing these things would bring hordes of people into the church (Didn't happen, sadly.) I don't know why any of those things had to go away.[/quote]
Well to be honest, I really like the way things are at the moment.
Of course when Vatican II happened, my parents hadn't even met yet... So for me it's always been this way.
...but I do feel a sense of 'inclusiveness'. I don't think some sort of distant reverence would be very healthy. We have a personal God, and it seems to me that He would encourage us to have a warm relationship with him. If we have these multitude of rules in place, yea, it adds plenty of reverence and tradition, but I don't think we're lacking in that anyway. We have lots of tradition; one of the main complaints of people not in the Church is that we're too bound by tradition. With these 'new' reforms, it looks from my perspective that it brings the focus to a better, personal, and meaningful relationship with God, without really taking crucial elements out of tradition.
Of course I can opine all I want, but the official Church position is my position...

[Deo Iuvente]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1581687' date='Jun 24 2008, 04:45 PM']Well to be honest, I really like the way things are at the moment.
Of course when Vatican II happened, my parents hadn't even met yet... So for me it's always been this way.
...but I do feel a sense of 'inclusiveness'. I don't think some sort of distant reverence would be very healthy. We have a personal God, and it seems to me that He would encourage us to have a warm relationship with him. If we have these multitude of rules in place, yea, it adds plenty of reverence and tradition, but I don't think we're lacking in that anyway. We have lots of tradition; one of the main complaints of people not in the Church is that we're too bound by tradition. With these 'new' reforms, it looks from my perspective that it brings the focus to a better, personal, and meaningful relationship with God, without really taking crucial elements out of tradition.
Of course I can opine all I want, but the official Church position is my position...[/quote]
People outside of the church will never be pleased with the church until we stop being Catholic. Untill we have woman priests, a female pope,(Or no clerics at all) and we drop all our teaching n contraception, abortion and marriage, they will not like the church.
Doesn't mean that we change these things for them. We can't change to appease the world, that's the opposite of the gospel.You've seen the articles about lay people being prepared to schism with their bishop rather than stop preaching at mass. The laity are becoming too clericalized, and there are people who seriously have no idea that the priest is any way different than them. We all know that reverence is severely lacking in celebrations nowadays.
And I don't see how rules make people distant from God. Before these rules came into effect, we had our Catherines of Sienna, Maria Gorettis, Padre Pios, and John Boscos. People had a tremendous love of God with great reverence also. Reverence doesn't have to be distant! With all the laws of the old covenant, the Jews had a great love of God. To the contrary, a "Do whatever you want, I'm fine-You're fine-we're all fine" kind of relationship is bad.
There's no love without sacrifice, and there's no sacrifice without rules.
But that's just my poor opinion.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Deo Iuvente' post='1581702' date='Jun 24 2008, 03:59 PM']And I don't see how rules make people distant from God. Before these rules came into effect, we had our Catherines of Sienna, Maria Gorettis, Padre Pios, and John Boscos. People had a tremendous love of God with great reverence also. Reverence doesn't have to be distant! With all the laws of the old covenant, the Jews had a great love of God. To the contrary, a "Do whatever you want, I'm fine-You're fine-we're all fine" kind of relationship is bad.
There's no love without sacrifice, and there's no sacrifice without rules.
But that's just my poor opinion.[/quote]
Those people you named are all saints though. They aren't exactly the average Catholic. Wasn't part of Jesus' mission to give us a more personal loving relationship with God? Especially though the Lord's Prayer? What they teach us now in Canadian Catholic high schools is that Jesus was in part reacting to an excessively legalistic and rule bound Jewish society.
Obviously we don't want to "do whatever" and assume that it's the right thing to do, but I think we needn't be quite so worried about rules that are more ritualistic that belief oriented.
Reverence doesn't have to be distant, of course, but the fact remains that for average people, we're already distant enough. Average Catholics even. If only the outstanding people can find it in them to have a perfect relationship with God in spite of an extreme emphasis on reverence (leading to distantness) then most of our faith base disappears. We're not perfect people, and I think hat these new understandings in a lot of ways accept that and make it possible for the people who are not outstanding faith-wise to still be able to build a strong, personal relationship with our Lord.
Of course... if anything I just said accidentaly turned into heresy, I'll drop it without thought.

[Deo Iuvente]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1581726' date='Jun 24 2008, 05:23 PM']Those people you named are all saints though. They aren't exactly the average Catholic. Wasn't part of Jesus' mission to give us a more personal loving relationship with God? Especially though the Lord's Prayer? What they teach us now in Canadian Catholic high schools is that Jesus was in part reacting to an excessively legalistic and rule bound Jewish society.
Obviously we don't want to "do whatever" and assume that it's the right thing to do, but I think we needn't be quite so worried about rules that are more ritualistic that belief oriented.
Reverence doesn't have to be distant, of course, but the fact remains that for average people, we're already distant enough. Average Catholics even. If only the outstanding people can find it in them to have a perfect relationship with God in spite of an extreme emphasis on reverence (leading to distantness) then most of our faith base disappears. We're not perfect people, and I think hat these new understandings in a lot of ways accept that and make it possible for the people who are not outstanding faith-wise to still be able to build a strong, personal relationship with our Lord.
Of course... if anything I just said accidentaly turned into heresy, I'll drop it without thought.[/quote]
But we're all called to be saints! Jesus didn't call us to be average. The average Catholic is supposed to be like the saints. Somehow, the presupposition is that if you are reverent, or accept a lot of rules, then you can't have a real, personal relationship with God, which simply isn't true. Truthfully, the average Catholic these days does'nt really accept the teachings of the church, and most of them blatantly disagree with the magisterium. The average Catholic is neither very reverent nor close to God.We can't just keep making concessions to people t make the gospel easier for them, rather, we need to raise them up.
And it's not only the great saints, visit your nearest church with a latin mass. There you'll find lots of normal, everyday people who love God, and are reverent.
In fact, History shows the opposite of your logic. Once we got rid of the "ritual and reverence", the average Catholic became more and more complacent. Instead of people growing closer to God, the average Catholic rarely goes to mass, receives communion in a state of mortal sin when he does go, and grew farther away from God. It's almost odd, when we god rid of all the things which were labeled barriers to God, Catholic's don't seem to want to have much to to with him now.And what of the rules are ritualistic, rather than belief oriented? I see a bit of a fallacy, in equating:
Reverence = You can't love God, because you are legalistic.
Average Catholics = Unable to love God and be Reverent at the same time.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Deo Iuvente' post='1581794' date='Jun 24 2008, 04:46 PM']But we're all called to be saints! Jesus didn't call us to be average. The average Catholic is supposed to be like the saints. Somehow, the presupposition is that if you are reverent, or accept a lot of rules, then you can't have a real, personal relationship with God, which simply isn't true. Truthfully, the average Catholic these days does'nt really accept the teachings of the church, and most of them blatantly disagree with the magisterium. The average Catholic is neither very reverent nor close to God.We can't just keep making concessions to people t make the gospel easier for them, rather, we need to raise them up.
And it's not only the great saints, visit your nearest church with a latin mass. There you'll find lots of normal, everyday people who love God, and are reverent.
In fact, History shows the opposite of your logic. Once we got rid of the "ritual and reverence", the average Catholic became more and more complacent. Instead of people growing closer to God, the average Catholic rarely goes to mass, receives communion in a state of mortal sin when he does go, and grew farther away from God. It's almost odd, when we god rid of all the things which were labeled barriers to God, Catholic's don't seem to want to have much to to with him now.And what of the rules are ritualistic, rather than belief oriented? I see a bit of a fallacy, in equating:
Reverence = You can't love God, because you are legalistic.
Average Catholics = Unable to love God and be Reverent at the same time.[/quote]
Everything you say is quite true, I have no doubt...
but just responding to one part in particular, about the past versus now. Sure, in the past most people went to church, especially kind of around the middle ages, but I might be tempted to argue that it meant very little to the majority of them. They went because that's what was done. The only difference here is that these days people just don't go. I'd argue that it's the same, not going or not caring.
I'll definitely accept that healthy doses of reverence and ritual are good, and extremely beneficial. I just truly believe that too much will stifle the faith of the general population. It's a balance that must be struck, probably mostly through trial and error, and of course through the intervention of the Holy Spirit.

[TeresaBenedicta]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1581811' date='Jun 24 2008, 06:51 PM']Everything you say is quite true, I have no doubt...
but just responding to one part in particular, about the past versus now. Sure, in the past most people went to church, especially kind of around the middle ages, but I might be tempted to argue that it meant very little to the majority of them. They went because that's what was done. The only difference here is that these days people just don't go. I'd argue that it's the same, not going or not caring.
I'll definitely accept that healthy doses of reverence and ritual are good, and extremely beneficial. I just truly believe that too much will stifle the faith of the general population. It's a balance that must be struck, probably mostly through trial and error, and of course through the intervention of the Holy Spirit.[/quote]

Honestly though, how many people do you think in Sunday Mass go "because that's what is done" and it "means very little to them". I'd say it's still a fairly large amount.

I don't think it's about too much or too little reverence and tradition. Each and everyone of the faithful are called to deeprer conversion and to repentance. If they don't respond, then you can't blame the Mass and the Traditions of the Church. People in recent generations have done that, and look where it's brought us? No further.

No, it's not about the Mass and Traditions and reverence and involvement.

It's about responding to God's call; knowing and loving Him.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='TeresaBenedicta' post='1581922' date='Jun 24 2008, 05:36 PM']Honestly though, how many people do you think in Sunday Mass go "because that's what is done" and it "means very little to them". I'd say it's still a fairly large amount.

I don't think it's about too much or too little reverence and tradition. Each and everyone of the faithful are called to deeprer conversion and to repentance. If they don't respond, then you can't blame the Mass and the Traditions of the Church. People in recent generations have done that, and look where it's brought us? No further.

No, it's not about the Mass and Traditions and reverence and involvement.

It's about responding to God's call; knowing and loving Him.[/quote]
Maybe though it's not necessarily what it [b]is[/b] as much as it's about what people [b]think[/b] it is? Absolutely, a commited Catholic would not be overly burdened with traditions, they wouldn't get in the way, they would help. What about thsoe who are on the fence though? What if people are being driven away because they [b]think[/b] that these traditions and rituals will get in the way of them truly being close to God? To a great extent it happens already, but we have at least some leeway to limit that. If the Church appeared to be more inclusive (not saying it isn't, just the way some people think it is) then maybe we would find people at least taking a look, giving us the chance to really start a conversion in them.

[TeresaBenedicta]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1581943' date='Jun 24 2008, 07:51 PM']Maybe though it's not necessarily what it [b]is[/b] as much as it's about what people [b]think[/b] it is? Absolutely, a commited Catholic would not be overly burdened with traditions, they wouldn't get in the way, they would help. What about thsoe who are on the fence though? What if people are being driven away because they [b]think[/b] that these traditions and rituals will get in the way of them truly being close to God? To a great extent it happens already, but we have at least some leeway to limit that. If the Church appeared to be more inclusive (not saying it isn't, just the way some people think it is) then maybe we would find people at least taking a look, giving us the chance to really start a conversion in them.[/quote]

Changing Traditions to become more "inclusive" isn't going to help those people who are on the fence, it'll be robbing them of the Truth and Tradition that has long lasted in the Church. We're not going to water things down just so they'll convert, that's an insult to both them and us.

See, what's needed is not changes: what is needed is for Catholics to actually live out the faith the way it's meant to be lived out. To be living witnesses to the Truth that has been given to us, the [i]way[/i] it has been given to us. People think that traditions and rituals get in the way truly being close to God, why? Because they do not and have not seen people who are close to God living out the traditions and rituals. They do not have the traditions and rituals explained to them in a way that shows them how those things [i]help foster[/i] their relationship with God. They are not taught.

If people think wrongly about something, we don't change that something, we teach them correct attributes of that something.

And if people refuse to believe after being taught... Well, it is sad. Many of Jesus' disciples left when after he taught that He was the Bread from Heaven. They could not accept that teaching; so they left.

[i]Many are called; but few are chosen.[/i]

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='TeresaBenedicta' post='1582152' date='Jun 24 2008, 07:25 PM']Changing Traditions to become more "inclusive" isn't going to help those people who are on the fence, it'll be robbing them of the Truth and Tradition that has long lasted in the Church. We're not going to water things down just so they'll convert, that's an insult to both them and us.

See, what's needed is not changes: what is needed is for Catholics to actually live out the faith the way it's meant to be lived out. To be living witnesses to the Truth that has been given to us, the [i]way[/i] it has been given to us. People think that traditions and rituals get in the way truly being close to God, why? Because they do not and have not seen people who are close to God living out the traditions and rituals. They do not have the traditions and rituals explained to them in a way that shows them how those things [i]help foster[/i] their relationship with God. They are not taught.

If people think wrongly about something, we don't change that something, we teach them correct attributes of that something.

And if people refuse to believe after being taught... Well, it is sad. Many of Jesus' disciples left when after he taught that He was the Bread from Heaven. They could not accept that teaching; so they left.

[i]Many are called; but few are chosen.[/i][/quote]

Changing doesn't hate to equate with 'watering down'. Look at the Eastern Catholics versus us. Neither is 'better', even though both are (it seems) fairly different in some ways.
I'm sure that it would be possible to attract people who are on the fence without violating our own traditions, in a way that is perfectly acceptable to God.

[HisChildForever]

This may be a bit late to interject, but - Jesus humbly washed the feet of the Twelve. He certainly did not act like He was too good to serve others. I don't think that He would mind if a Eucharistic Minister gave out Communion. Technically, we're all unworthy to receive Him, including the priests. Priests do sin, they are not perfect.

[TeresaBenedicta]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1582156' date='Jun 24 2008, 09:27 PM']Changing doesn't hate to equate with 'watering down'. Look at the Eastern Catholics versus us. Neither is 'better', even though both are (it seems) fairly different in some ways.
I'm sure that it would be possible to attract people who are on the fence without violating our own traditions, in a way that is perfectly acceptable to God.[/quote]

When it's breaking away from strong, well-founded traditions in order to appease people, I think that's watering down. Taking something of high concentration and making it lower...

Anywho, I completely agree with your third statement. We don't need to violate our own traditions to attract people who are on the fence. What we need to do is teach them the importance of the traditions and of the faith; if they bite, they bite. If they don't, well, we can't bend over backwords for them, but we can continue to pray for them.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='HisChildForever' post='1582160' date='Jun 24 2008, 07:31 PM']This may be a bit late to interject, but - Jesus humbly washed the feet of the Twelve. He certainly did not act like He was too good to serve others. I don't think that He would mind if a Eucharistic Minister gave out Communion. Technically, we're all unworthy to receive Him, including the priests. Priests do sin, they are not perfect.[/quote]
Exactly what I've been thinking.