do you celebrate?

dave lackey said:
Good grief...what or who caused this change and for what reason? Seems to be a hard pill to swallow if the words and the music are not in sync!:eek:

Makes it that much tougher to celebrate, let alone worship and grow the membership.:confused:
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Exactally what the old timers think of this charismatic rock music infiltrating their church services now. :D gotta love it! Just shows Catholics & Evangelicals are more alike than they realise:).
 
I actually quite like the new service, but I am in the UK so perhaps we have a slightly different service to the US. We do sing a fair few more parts now in Latin which I have always found moving. I always have had a fondness for the Latin mass.
 
I like almost everything about Christmas. My daugher is grown, my son a teen, but I now have a 1 y/o granddaughter so I get another shot a being Santa Claus - love that too. My new wife is also an expert homemaker and cook so we are having quite the time!
 
Ducky,Sorry to read about your loss. Some years ago my wife died near Christmas time and I would not even answer many phone calls. I too, take photos as a way of moving on. Best wishes to you.
 
al1966 said:
I actually quite like the new service, but I am in the UK so perhaps we have a slightly different service to the US. We do sing a fair few more parts now in Latin which I have always found moving. I always have had a fondness for the Latin mass.
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You should try the C of E, it was one song to the tune of another all the way through this christmas eve, very unsatisfactory. At least now the kids have grown out of scouts and guides we only go two or three times a year

PS ... my condolences also
 
Here in HK the biggest Western commercial holidays are Valentine's Day, Halloween, and Christmas. So a week after the vampires, bats and plastic pumpkins are taken down the malls start with the Christmas decor and soundtrack in early November!
 
Forgive me if this sounds cynical, but I believe that the early Christian church manipulated things to make itself necessary, by creating a distance and disconnect between God and the people. The priests made themselves necessary for people to commune and communicate with God. This ensured their privaledged position in society. Making the language of church Latin, which no one but priests and the most educated nobility could write or speak, was one way to do this.
 
FrankS said:
Forgive me if this sounds cynical, but I believe that the early Christian church manipulated things to make itself necessary, by creating a distance and disconnect between God and the people. The priests made themselves necessary for people to commune and communicate with God. This ensured their privaledged position in society. Making the language of church Latin, which no one but priests and the most educated nobility could write or speak, was one way to do this.
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I believe the Latin was an edited translation from the Greek which was a translation of the Hebrew it was originally written in, so it's already pretty disconnected from the original, well not that there ever was an original
 
paulfish4570 said:
i love singing in latin; such a strong pull on my heart. ubi caritas ...
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... and the Gregorian chant is, for me, even more of strong pull on the heart. One day we had a visiting priest from somewhere in Africa who chanted the entire Mass and "sang the sermon" in his own language. Few knew what to do or how to respond. A few old timers chimed in with whatever latin they remembered. At the end he asked the congregation in perfectly clear English, "didn't that move you, even if you didn't know what I was saying?" It really was moving and proof that the Spirit transcends logic and language.
 
Frank: perhaps... and there is a lot of possible truth to your "cynical" comment. It might be more truth than cynicism..

Stewart: the translations are said to have suffered greatest deviation because of differences in languages that could not possibly be resolved no matter how hard the translators tried to remain true to the exact text. In the end, it is the good intent that is most important, I suppose. Oh... and there was some translation from Aramaic too.
 
... and going back to the original question:

... and going back to the original question:

We are still celebrating, BTW. There were a few family members who are old or infirmed or had-plans-with-other-family-members who could not join us for the religious and/or secular celebration of the holiday so we are taking some it to them.
 
Latin in church, does this still exist? In a protestant service you won't find latin. We attended the afternoon service on the 24. that's completely organized around the children's christmas play, a very modern version this year. Church was packed full, the play was good (my daughter had a leading role :) ) and they picked nice classical christmas chants. Even my father (who is catholic) liked it that words were more important than liturgy.
 
We lived in Saint Louis for a few years, and once I went outside my parish to a Latin rite church. I could not really keep up (Vatican II came into effect when I was a kid).

What sticks in my memory - it wasn't a holiday, yet this little church was packed! So much for the Latin mass driving people away. Had I not liked the priest in my own parish, I would have switched in an instant.

From my perspective (probably as cynical as Frank's in its own way), I think it is better if people DON'T understand the language, but participate in the ritual as a mystery. That is what makes it "spine-tingling", as Paul said. Scripture is complex, and filled with words that you can twist to suit your prejudices. All though I don't agree with the Church's positions on a lot of things, there is a certain wisdom in having the priest act as interpreter and arbiter of meaning.

Hey, maybe I should investigate Latin rite churches here in Philly. My local Parish has switched to the new liturgy. I have fallen out of going to church regularly, and this new change has further dampened my motivation to go to Mass.

Randy
 
thomasw_ said:
Frank, historically the facts don't match your theory -- if i understand your reference to the 'early' church, i.e., the time from the apostles to 500 AD?
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Surely one of the really big changes in the church was under Constantine, who co-opted Christianity as a state religion and cut out (or rather, heavily de-emphasized) all the revolutionary stuff such as the well-known passage from the Magificat: He hath put down the mighty from their seat : and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things : and the rich he hath sent empty away.. The Nicene Creed concentrates on the birth, death and resurrection, and leaves out all the awkward bits in between. This was of course well before 500 CE.

Cheers,

R.
 
We celebrate Christmas, my daughters are still young enough to get excited about it. My wives parents usually join us. This year was a bit different as we have have a forever hungry dog now, that spent most of Christmas dreaming about and trying to get the ham.
 
Ducky said:
My wife passed away just before Christmas (we are both too old anyway), my kids insisted on coming down to keep me company and friends have brought casseroles. I will shoo them all away ASAP and next year I will go out and take pictures.
It's just the way I will handle it..

the friends that i used to celebrate with got divorced years ago and half of them moved out of town and the other half re-married.


sounds like "good time charlie's got the blues."
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I am very sorry for your loss.
 
Thanksgiving Day is the primary holiday that I celebrate
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. I will generally go to my parent's place & have a meal with them & hang out for the entire day.

I do celebrate the other holidays by taking the day off if its allowed.
 
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