I recently came across my pre-Vatican II, 1st Communion Photo from 1959, going through the gymnastics of receiving communion with my head back, and tongue sticking out as the nuns taught us.
Not a particularly good argument. The Church instructed!
I once attended a Lutheran memorial service and found their methods even more reverent than ours. But what’s my idea of reverence really worth?
Well, you did as instructed and you obeyed the stricter rules. Am I missing something?
It’s not more or less.
Had no choice. The nun would’ve slapped my head back if it wasn’t far enough.
The Church can instruct and then it not be our preference. In fact, obedience is purest when we do not like something but agree anyway. Now an option does exist.
Neither is more spiritually efficacious. I hope your not implying that either will bring you closer to God than the other. That sounds more like magic than a sacrament.
I would further that and say obedience is purest when you actually have some strict rules to obey. One cannot obey an allowance because there is really nothing to obey, unless they’re considering another alternative. (And who’s to say by disregarding some of the conditions imposed on CITH, that hasn’t been violated?)
Say what? In some countries it is still prohibited, much less the norm. In fact, your priest or bishop can prohibit it even in countries where the Vatican has given approval after 2/3 vote by their bishops.
I do not know what to think of that. Part of me thinks that the stricter the rules, the more like the Pharisees and less like St. Paul’s freedom in Christ we become.
I would say in this case the charity of truth should be the rule. In other words, in absence of evidence, we should assume the most charitable interpretation of the actions of others.
Fair enough. Here are the supposed conditions according to ewtn: (In light of J_Peterson’s testimony among other things, the first rule already has been violated. The discord has in fact been created, as evidenced by all the discussions we’ve had on it. And how do you explain care being taken when they’ve removed the paten? I’ll leave it to the pollsters to determine how much real faith in the Eucharist is still left.)
Part of me thinks so too. (Relaxing the fast and Friday meat abstinence, for example, was supposedly intended to appeal to our higher spirituality; it was hoped we’d still conform to the practice. Instead it became a cause for celebration.)
People join a religious community because of the spirituality aspects of the order and they choose to follow the Rule of Life of that order as it is today, because it feeds the person and community, spiritually. Most spiritual orders have modified their Rule of Life over the centuries.
I think the religious are wise to see that rules and precepts, when voluntarily embraced are like sacramentals, in that they are an easy way to open us up to the grace of God. When a person joins the Catholic Church, they also fall under a minimal amount of precepts that they are to follow. Even in the early Church the Gentiles coming in were given two rules that were specific to the needs then. We function well with rules. What I do not think most people need is to be regimented, to use Cardinal Arinze’s term. When do liturgical rules become regimenting the people of God? That is the question, is it not? I believe this varies from time to time and community to community.
Here 'ya go! Confusion, confusion and discontinuity. Within continuity lies sensus fidelium – that instinct governed by the Spirit within each heart that says “this is the faith” the one we have always known and believed!