Happy Birthday, Novus Ordo

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='kafka' post='1824440' date='Apr 4 2009, 01:06 PM']Sadly you are putting a label on me, implying I'm a Protestant or a heretic. I disagree that I experience the immediate vision of God when I recieve the Sacraments.[/quote]
Alas, we do not share the same faith then, because the sacraments and the liturgy in general are a real and full participation in the celestial liturgy.

[quote name='kafka' post='1824440' date='Apr 4 2009, 01:06 PM']I agree men in grace on earth are united with the Angels and Saints in worshiping God, yet this union cannot be considered a fullness .[/quote]
I too believed that when I was a Protestant.

[quote name='kafka' post='1824440' date='Apr 4 2009, 01:06 PM']Heaven is substantially different than earth, and a person who enters Heaven undergoes an enormous change, what exactly this change is I really dont know, maybe I will study what theologians have speculated on the topic based on S.S. I agree the Death of Jesus Christ is beyond Time and Place and the Saints and Angels will see it in Heaven in awe forever.[/quote]
Heaven is quite simply the experience of God, and that experience occurs both in the wayfaring state and after death.

[quote name='kafka' post='1824440' date='Apr 4 2009, 01:06 PM']I dont know how to respond to some of your more Eastern theology, since I'm not well versed in it.[/quote]
Although the terms I use to describe the liturgy are Eastern, the theology that I espouse was taught by both the Eastern and Western Fathers.

[quote name='kafka' post='1824440' date='Apr 4 2009, 01:06 PM'][i]Those who celebrate the divine liturgy on earth are already in heaven.[/i]

I hope you meant that symbolically . . .[/quote]
Your understanding of the nature of a "symbol" is modern, while mine is ancient.

I have pointed this difference out in other posts here at Phatmass. According to the Ancient Fathers a symbol and the thing symbolized form a single reality, and so to come into contact with the symbol is to experience its prototype.

For greater clarification I am including information from an old post that I wrote back in 2005:

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='628220' date='Jun 30 2005, 09:15 AM']The Catholic Church uses the word [i]symbol[/i] in its original and ancient sense, while you are using the word in the modern sense, which is derived from the Cartesian revolution in philosophy. The word symbol in the original Greek is derived from the word [i]sym-ballein[/i], which means to bring together. Thus, as Carlo Siri pointed out, "The [i]symbolon[/i] was originally the broken half of an object which, when brought together with its other half, could serve as sign of recognition." [Carlo Siri, [u]Images of Truth: From Sign to Symbol[/u], translated by Massimo Verdicchio, New Jersey: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1993, page 105] In other words, the symbol and the thing symbolized are mystically one and the same reality.

In fact even the Protestant scholar Adolf von Harnack recognized this truth, and that is why in reference to the Eucharist he said that, "The symbol is the mystery and the mystery was not conceivable without a symbol,” and then he went on to say that, “What we now-a-days understand by symbol is a thing which is not that which it represents; at that time [i.e., in the ancient Church] symbol denoted a thing which, in some kind of way, really is what it signifies." [Adolph von Harnack, [u]History of Dogma[/u], New York: Dover Publications, 1961, volume 2, page 144] Consequently, the sacraments in Catholic theology are symbols in the ancient sense of the word, and not in the modern Cartesian sense, because they [i.e., the sacraments] render present the mystery that they signify.[/quote]

[quote name='kafka' post='1824440' date='Apr 4 2009, 01:06 PM']. . . cause it isnt true, I mean if you want to start throwing the word heresy around, that statment smacks of it.[/quote]
I cannot judge your heart, because only God can see the secrets contained therein, but I can judge your statements, and they are not in line with the traditional doctrine of the Church. Whether you are a heretic or not is irrelevant, but the fact that your comments are erroneous (and quite possibly heretical) is a matter of concern.

[quote name='kafka' post='1824440' date='Apr 4 2009, 01:06 PM']I'm not in Heaven when I go to Mass.[/quote]
Clearly you and I do not share the same faith, because when I am at the divine liturgy I am in heaven, because I am experiencing one and the same act of celestial worship which is offered by all the angels and saints in heaven.

[quote name='kafka' post='1824440' date='Apr 4 2009, 01:06 PM']When I recieve Jesus in the Eucharist there certainly is a sort of mystical aspect of it, and perhaps I might experience a sort of Timelessness or Placelessness in contemplation, but to say I am actually in Heaven, is absurd. Plus how could a person celebrating the Divine Liturgy whose is in the state of mortal sin possibly be in Heaven?[/quote]
Clearly we conceive heaven itself differently, but that is not all that shocking since we do not share a common faith.

[quote name='kafka' post='1824440' date='Apr 4 2009, 01:06 PM']Anyhow I'm not going to respond to you anymore since I am not well versed in Eastern Theology, so I might misinterpret the points you are making.[/quote]
No one said that you had to respond to me, but I will continue to respond to your posts when I deem it necessary.

Edited April 4, 2009 by Apotheoun

[kafka]

I have problems with some of both of your understandings of the Deposit of the Faith otherwise known as Divine Revelation. I agree more with some of Al's statments than with Apotheun's. Neither of you nor I possess the gift of Magisterium so we are all under scrutiny in our own personal understandings of the liturgy.

I will let the Christ judge my understanding of the liturgy, and let the Magisterium judge it, and purify me accordingly.

The Sacred Deposit of Faith or Divine Revelation itself is distinct from any one single person's or theologian's or theological school's understanding of the Faith. One may mistake one's own understanding of the Faith with the Faith itself, it happens in some people.

If us three are in the state of grace we are united, in spite of our own limited understanding of the Faith. I've never seen any definitive teachings of the Magisterium condemning any of my basic ideas expressed above.

And so I will leave both of you in peace.