I have no problem with using foreign tongue, when used smartly. At St. Irene, the congregation consists of 3/4 of ethnic Ukrainian. The fact the service is 80%-90% English, speaks volumes. Secondly, when they use either Ukrainian, or Slavonic, it’s bounced off their English counterpart. Plus, it tickles my linguistic fancy.
Its nice for a few rounds, but if it is part of your regular spiritual life you do start to feel disconnected.
I don’t know about that, I don’t have any qualms about singing holy god, holy mighty, holy immortal, in Slavonic/Ukrainian. As Father Webber says, it’s about doing/being; not so much about thinking, or intellectualizing.
If you read the article, St. Paul disagrees about “not much about intellectualizing”.
That article doesn’t speak about intellectualizing. Instead, it talks about intelligible. Meaning, are the words SPOKEN understood by the laity. However, if I’m able to adapt myself (shall I say humble myself) to my situation, I can see the brighter side of it.
I agree with what you said here but achieving that really takes a lot of going through the notions. We can’t get to that point without starting with something really basic. Essentially, we learn to crawl before we can walk. I think this is somewhat like hesychasm where you learn to pray the Jesus Prayer first with your lips, then with your mind, before you can finally pray it with your heart. I would always admit I am a beginner to this and thus I need to relate with the externals first.
understandable. Do you have a fellow parishioner, with whom you can talk stuff with, in addition to your parish priest?
Depends what you mean by “stuff”
just mean theology, liturgy, church stuff. I’m surprised by the amount of info I get from my Orthodox friend. Then again, we’re Church “geeks.” (his words, not mine
). Him being a choir director helps, too.No, all my church geek friends are leaving. One left last year in pursuit of a job. One was temporarily working here in Canada to begin with and will return to the US at the end of the year. So by January I only have people who I can talk to about peroggy making.just mean theology, liturgy, church stuff. I’m surprised by the amount of info I get from my Orthodox friend. Then again, we’re Church “geeks.” (his words, not mine
Well, if you want, we can do some correspondence, since we’re in similar boats, except you being involved with the UGCC longer, than I’ve been with the RGCC (I believe you said you were with the church 2-3 years. I’ve only been with the RGCC since June 24, this year). One of the things I’ll touch on, in some time, is how - in many small parishes, there isn’t much of a catechism program, like there is in the Latin rite. So I had to learn, as I go, which I don’t mind, really.
Sure. You got PM
We already did thatI got a better idea: why not just flush all them “foreign tongues” right down the toilet? After all, as some some insist, didn’t the Latins do it in imitation of the East?
And while we’re at it, why not follow the Novus Ordo even closer and dump the iconostatis and use a versus populum table instead of an ad orientem altar?
Well, I don’t think it’s that clear cut. Yes, the immigrants play a role. But, I think it’s more sufficient to say, these people haven’t assimilated in the sense of keeping culture in the home, and adapting to the culture outside. Kind of like, how my parents did it, when we came to America (I was one, at the time). I should rather say my cousins. My parents were advised not to speak the tongue to my siblings, and me. Meanwhile, I witnessed my cousins who went back and forth, from the home language, to the outside language (English) just fine.We already did that
But seriously, the Byzantine “model” of evangelization has always been to bring the faith to the local culture. North America has been an aberration because the faith was brought here by immigrants, not missionaries.
a. The ethnic parishes tend to be more focused on culture and ethnicity than spirituality. The reason it is so hard to delatinize is because people think what they are doing is the tradition of their culture. They are not bothered with Byzantine tradition. They don’t even see their Church as Byzantine, its whatever ethnicity they are.Why even bother?
+1. That’s why the work Sts Cyril & Methodius did, for the Slavs is easily commendable.
I think a perfect example here is Sts. Cyril and Methodius. They learned a foreign language, they even structured the “barbaric tongue” of the Slavs so that they can use a formal set of words for Liturgy and even created the written form of it. They were Greeks, yet they didn’t even evangelize with the Greek tongue or forced the people to use a Greek Liturgy.