Minor Rogation

[Ash Wednesday]

I didn't have a problem with the initial post. The blanketed statement that phatmassers only want to do the bare minimum was very uncalled for, though.

Remember, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' post='1273800' date='May 14 2007, 10:17 PM']Well, when he accused people who didn't want to practice this devotion of striving for the minimum, I think he showed his true colors. [/quote]
I agree.

Maggie, I understand what you're saying, and frankly you're probably right that my past experience with St. B impact how I read what he says. If you were to have made the exact same post, I probably would not have read into it what I did with St. B. However, his subsequent responses confirmed what I thought based on my prior experience with him.

Admittedly, as PP states, I could be reading all this wrong, and St. B could be a good-hearted soul whose aim is to enrich all our lives. But when he cannot defend his position without slamming a valid ecumenical council ("It shouldn't be dropped just because of one ecumencial council, whose indirect results have caused more harm than good") that leads me to believe that my assessment is not that far off. But hopefully I am wrong.

[KnightofChrist]

Benny has messed up in the past and now has messed up again, but in this thread he was not given a chance to be "nice" before old scars were reopened. Charity is a two street, we can not expect him to be charitable when we get in his face and pour vinegar in old wounds.

In the heated conversations between us and Benny I see both sides as being uncharitable.

Edited May 15, 2007 by KnightofChrist

[Jaime]

[quote name='St. Benedict' post='1273342' date='May 14 2007, 03:52 PM']Everyone, just forget about it. People here always strives just for the miniumum. Most of you sound worse than the Protestants that I talk to! Just forget I posted this. I was the one encouraging this along with hundreds of other traditional, orthodox priests. The Church has had this practice for centuries! It shouldn't be dropped just because of one ecumencial council, whose indirect results have caused more harm than good.

I forget that everyone just wants the minimum - NOT AN OUNCE MORE. The truth is that I am upset about this and the rude, insulting comments directed towards me especially by hughey in the quoted section above. I didn't have an attitude before! I was just posting some information!![/quote]


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Nope no "hold my breath and have a tantrum" smilie

[Maggyie]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1273863' date='May 15 2007, 12:42 AM']Benny has messed up in the past and now has messed up again, but in this thread he was not given a chance to be "nice" before old scars were reopened. Charity is a two street, we can not expect him to be charitable when we get in his face and pour vinegar in old wounds.

In the heated conversations between us and Benny I see both sides as being uncharitable.[/quote]

:applause:

[Aloysius]

I agree with KnightofChrist

although I am still concerned that Benny is supporting heretical Anglican bishops who still recommend rogation days as an optional practice

[Sojourner]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1273863' date='May 14 2007, 10:42 PM']Benny has messed up in the past and now has messed up again, but in this thread he was not given a chance to be "nice" before old scars were reopened. Charity is a two street, we can not expect him to be charitable when we get in his face and pour vinegar in old wounds.

In the heated conversations between us and Benny I see both sides as being uncharitable.[/quote]
Phatmass (and really any online communication) is severely limited by the fact that we are missing significant chunks of information in every post. We get the words, but none of the nonverbal communication that helps us to interpret the words.

So, when we go into reading someone's posts, one of the main tools we have in understanding what they say is their history as part of our community. We build perceptions of people based on past interactions, and those perceptions get tweaked or cemented as we go along.

It is precisely because of the persona that Benny has built for himself that his words were interpreted in the way they were, and he should not have been surprised by this interpretation. He has, to my knowledge, not apologized for the behaviors that led up to his recent break, and I have as of yet seen nothing to indicate that he has changed his tune. I'd consider this post a neutral ... it doesn't clearly indicate a change in his approach, but at the same time is not as bad as other posts he's made. My early suspicion was that he was making a post in the same vein as others he has made, and then when he responded as he did to Red, I felt that my suspicions were correct.

I am more than willing to tweak my views of Benny, but in all honesty one neutral post in the same vein as other negative posts he has made does not turn the tide of my opinion on its own. If he truly wants to be part of this community, and to help us to appreciate the beauty of older traditions, there are ways to go about doing that. In Benny's case, he's going to have to be extra careful in how he presents these things, because people are still tender over the ways he's tried to do this in the past. And frankly, that tenderness is not unwarranted.

[cappie]

In the Dictionary of the Liturgy (Catholic Book Publishing Company), Father Jovian Lang, O.F.M., describes these as “days of special prayer and penance formerly prescribed on the three days before Ascension....The primary purpose of the prayers was to ask for protection, appease Divine Justice, and beg for a fruitful harvest.”

The major Rogation Day was eventually celebrated on April 25, not because that day is the feast of St. Mark but instead to replace a festival honoring the pagan god Robigus. There were also minor Rogation Days. [b]Both sets of days were dropped in the 1969 revision of the Roman Calendar.
[/b]
[i][b]Episcopal conferences were encouraged at that time to designate special days of prayer and thanksgiving for a good harvest and for human labor. The U.S. bishops asked that Labor Day and Thanksgiving Day Masses include these themes.[/b][/i]

[KnightofChrist]

Perhaps it is our persona that we have built for Benny's which has caused some of he's harsh comments, it certianly has not made the relationship better. We have many times as a community insulted his intelligence, and also to my knowledge in most cases not apologized for those comments, rather made accuses to justify insults made against him.

We are a Christian Community, and Benny is a part of it even if he does not apologize we should forgive him, and apologize for insulting him, instead of prejudging him and further putting him down. Knowing his persona we should have known better than jump down his throat and since he didn't really say anything bad gave him a chance to be good. We did not.

If we think he has a bad persona, the we shouldn't go down to the level we think his on and return tit for tat.

He has not been the best at being charitable but we have insulted someones intelligence, and picked at old wounds we should be surprised when he fights back.

[franciscanheart]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' post='1273800' date='May 14 2007, 10:17 PM']Well, when he accused people who didn't want to practice this devotion of striving for the minimum, I think he showed his true colors. [/quote]
As rachael would say: yup.

[quote name='Terra Firma' post='1273824' date='May 14 2007, 10:26 PM']I agree.

Maggie, I understand what you're saying, and frankly you're probably right that my past experience with St. B impact how I read what he says. If you were to have made the exact same post, I probably would not have read into it what I did with St. B. However, his subsequent responses confirmed what I thought based on my prior experience with him.

Admittedly, as PP states, I could be reading all this wrong, and St. B could be a good-hearted soul whose aim is to enrich all our lives. But when he cannot defend his position without slamming a valid ecumenical council ("It shouldn't be dropped just because of one ecumencial council, whose indirect results have caused more harm than good") that leads me to believe that my assessment is not that far off. But hopefully I am wrong.[/quote] [quote name='Terra Firma' post='1273888' date='May 14 2007, 11:17 PM']Phatmass (and really any online communication) is severely limited by the fact that we are missing significant chunks of information in every post. We get the words, but none of the nonverbal communication that helps us to interpret the words.

So, when we go into reading someone's posts, one of the main tools we have in understanding what they say is their history as part of our community. We build perceptions of people based on past interactions, and those perceptions get tweaked or cemented as we go along.

It is precisely because of the persona that Benny has built for himself that his words were interpreted in the way they were, and he should not have been surprised by this interpretation. He has, to my knowledge, not apologized for the behaviors that led up to his recent break, and I have as of yet seen nothing to indicate that he has changed his tune. I'd consider this post a neutral ... it doesn't clearly indicate a change in his approach, but at the same time is not as bad as other posts he's made. My early suspicion was that he was making a post in the same vein as others he has made, and then when he responded as he did to Red, I felt that my suspicions were correct.

I am more than willing to tweak my views of Benny, but in all honesty one neutral post in the same vein as other negative posts he has made does not turn the tide of my opinion on its own. If he truly wants to be part of this community, and to help us to appreciate the beauty of older traditions, there are ways to go about doing that. In Benny's case, he's going to have to be extra careful in how he presents these things, because people are still tender over the ways he's tried to do this in the past. And frankly, that tenderness is not unwarranted.[/quote]
Yup and yup.

[quote name='cappie' post='1273889' date='May 14 2007, 11:25 PM']In the Dictionary of the Liturgy (Catholic Book Publishing Company), Father Jovian Lang, O.F.M., describes these as “days of special prayer and penance formerly prescribed on the three days before Ascension....The primary purpose of the prayers was to ask for protection, appease Divine Justice, and beg for a fruitful harvest.”

The major Rogation Day was eventually celebrated on April 25, not because that day is the feast of St. Mark but instead to replace a festival honoring the pagan god Robigus. There were also minor Rogation Days. [b]Both sets of days were dropped in the 1969 revision of the Roman Calendar.
[/b]
[i][b]Episcopal conferences were encouraged at that time to designate special days of prayer and thanksgiving for a good harvest and for human labor. The U.S. bishops asked that Labor Day and Thanksgiving Day Masses include these themes.[/b][/i][/quote]
Thank you for that, Cappie.

[Sojourner]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1273895' date='May 14 2007, 11:58 PM']Perhaps it is our persona that we have built for Benny's which has caused some of he's harsh comments, it certianly has not made the relationship better. We have many times as a community insulted his intelligence, and also to my knowledge in most cases not apologized for those comments, rather made accuses to justify insults made against him.

We are a Christian Community, and Benny is a part of it even if he does not apologize we should forgive him, and apologize for insulting him, instead of prejudging him and further putting him down. Knowing his persona we should have known better than jump down his throat and since he didn't really say anything bad gave him a chance to be good. We did not.

If we think he has a bad persona, the we shouldn't go down to the level we think his on and return tit for tat.

He has not been the best at being charitable but we have insulted someones intelligence, and picked at old wounds we should be surprised when he fights back.[/quote]
Even God does not forgive without sincere repentance.

We can choose not to hold a grudge and not to allow bitterness to grow, and to always be open to forgiving and revising our perceptions, but forgiveness means mending a break in the relationship. It takes both parties to mend the break. He's expressed nothing that indicates he has changed his earlier modus operandi. In light of that, I don't believe any of the posts here were uncharitable or unwarranted.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='KnightofChrist' post='1273895' date='May 15 2007, 12:58 AM']We have many times as a community insulted his intelligence, and also to my knowledge in most cases not apologized for those comments, rather made accuses to justify insults made against him.


He has not been the best at being charitable but we have insulted someones intelligence, and picked at old wounds we should be surprised when he fights back.[/quote]

Could you please show me an example of where someone insulted his intelligence? Please [b]PM me [/b]with a quote. I want to edit/warn. Because insulting someone's intelligence would be against phorum guidelines and I want to nip that kind of behavior in the bud. Thanks.

[Moneybags]

I would just like to thank the few people here that have stood by me including Maggie and Aloysius. I just came here wanting to help people and encourage a devotion. I was immediately insulted and past things were again brought up. There is no forgiveness here. My writing style is unique. I can't help it if people always read into it. I have a particular style, and that is the style that I have always possessed.

So thank you to those few people that have stood by me. I am sorry I wasted my time here. I appears that no one wants to observe the fasting and pray for repentance and God's mercy. :sad:

I wish that I had never found this forum and met some of the most insulting people. Insults from people like hughey and hot stuff offend me, but they are allowed to post them. I just try to post about a devotion and I am immediately attacked. I wrote a reply yesterday when I was still angry.

Since I see that hardly no one around here can read my topics without bringing up past errors and then insulting me.

Good bye, Phatmass! I'm moving on over to a new message board where the people will be more welcoming when I post news, information, and devotional information.

To those few people that have defended me, thank you.

[Maggyie]

Sorry everyone if my posts smell like Eau de Moralizing Harpy. It is just so annoying. Instead of an edifying thread on fasting we have a three page spectacle for the unbelievers.

[puellapaschalis]

I'm now getting the impression that I'm in the wrong because of what I said in my post. Time for a Phatmass break for me, I think; I suspect I'm missing not only some non-verbal communication going on here, but also some trans-Atlantic cultural points.

PP