Authentic Liturgy....

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johnquinn39
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Authentic Liturgy....

Post by johnquinn39 »

great caution is to be taken to avoid a wording or style that the Catholic faithful would confuse with the manner of speech of non-Catholic ecclesial communities or of other religions, so that such a factor will not cause them confusion or discomfort.

- Authentic Liturgy


I'm not quite sure what this means. Looking through my copy of the Anglican EP's, they seem, in manner of speech, not much different from the RC ones. (There is also an option to use 'traditional' language alternatives, and in my opinion these are dignified and beautiful).

Is anyone confused or discomforted by the hymns of Wesley, Dudley-Smith, Kendrick, Bell, Pratt-Green et al?

I have frequently, with the permission of the PP, introduced the texts of non-Catholic eccesial communities into the Sunday Eucharist. Should I be taking caution to avoid phrases like 'Christ is truly present here'; 'Come, receive the body and the bood'; '...we eat this bread and drink this cup, until you come again'; 'The presence of the Lord...is here'?; or any good scripture settings?
Southern Comfort
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Re: Authentic Liturgy....

Post by Southern Comfort »

This extract from LA 40 seems to be directed at two things:
(1) "Here endeth the lesson"
and other examples of phraseology which come across as distinctly Anglican in tone;
(2) EPs where the phraseology does not convey that transubstantiation is necessarily believed in by the participants. An example would be

Send your Holy Spirit
that these gifts of bread and wine which we receive
may be to us the body and blood of Christ


(from one of the New Zealand alternative texts)

The point seems to be that this phrasesology seems to be asking for the bread and wine to appear to us as, rather than become for us, the body and blood of Christ.

To the person in the pew this seems like nit-picking, but I'm sure that the theologians amongst us would have something to say about it.
johnquinn39
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Re: Authentic Liturgy....

Post by johnquinn39 »

Yes, I see what you mean about transubstantiation.

However, do people really object to anglican phraseology? As far as I am aware, the revised missal uses this sort of language, with '...and with your spirit'; 'thwart'; 'wrought'; 'gibbett'; 'ineffable' etc.

Also, the Sanctus in morning Jewish prayer is very close to the one on the revised missal: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole Earth is full of his glory!'

Most our our scripture is Jewish (another religion), who objects to this?

Just to finish with Jewish morning prayer:

'The Lord shall reign for ever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise ye the Lord!'
Southern Comfort
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Re: Authentic Liturgy....

Post by Southern Comfort »

johnquinn39 wrote:However, do people really object to anglican phraseology? As far as I am aware, the revised missal uses this sort of language, with '...and with your spirit'; 'thwart'; 'wrought'; 'gibbett'; 'ineffable' etc.'


That's in large part because the general secretary of ICEL and a number of his co-translators are convert Anglicans. Most of them just don't get the difference in ethos, alas. We're moving from down-to-earth-ness to precious-ness, I fear.
festivaltrumpet
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Re: Authentic Liturgy....

Post by festivaltrumpet »

johnquinn39 wrote:However, do people really object to anglican phraseology? As far as I am aware, the revised missal uses this sort of language, with '...and with your spirit'; 'thwart'; 'wrought'; 'gibbett'; 'ineffable' etc.


One might contend that in fact Anglican phraseology is borrowed from Catholic phraseology. It was merely translated from the Latin in the sixteenth century in a style that Rome chose not to use in the twentieth, but chooses to use in the twenty first.
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mcb
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Re: Authentic Liturgy....

Post by mcb »

johnquinn39 wrote:
great caution is to be taken to avoid a wording or style that the Catholic faithful would confuse with the manner of speech of non-Catholic ecclesial communities or of other religions, so that such a factor will not cause them confusion or discomfort.

- Authentic Liturgy


I took it to mean something vastly more disagreeable, namely hostility to the idea of common liturgical texts across Christian denominations. All else being equal, it seems to me unequivocally a good thing to aim to share translations of the texts of prayer between Christian churches. You could argue that all things are not equal, for instance, that the ICET ecumenical translation of the Gloria (that we use on Sundays) just isn't very good; but LA seems to be saying that, all else being equal, we in the One True Church should have our own exclusive versions of the prayers.

Am I being unfair?
docmattc
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Re: Authentic Liturgy....

Post by docmattc »

mcb wrote: LA seems to be saying that, all else being equal, we in the One True Church should have our own exclusive versions of the prayers.


Surely that would be an unwanted and impractical aim. If others use our texts (whether borrowed now or at the reformation!), can we prevent that, would we want to, and would that then mean we had to alter ours so we were exclusive again? I think SC's earlier interpretation is more likely.

Taken in context with the rest of the paragraph (number 40), and those around it, this quote looks like it is dealing exclusively with scriptural passgaes rather than other elements of the liturgy, so some of this discussion might be a red herring.
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mcb
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Re: Authentic Liturgy....

Post by mcb »

Yes, you're right, Doc, now I re-read paragraph 40 and paragraph 91 as well. Don't know why I took such a jaundiced view. :oops:

M.
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