Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory Forever!
Many people confuse simplicity with a sort of primitiveness that might be associated with the early church.
The assumption (at the time of the 16th century Reformation) was that by concentrating on the “Word” in a simple manner and disregarding as much ceremony as possible they could return to practices similar to the early mass. It just is not true.
The focus of the original Divine Liturgy (Mass) was always the Holy Sacrifice. Veronica’s response was very good here. There was also usually a common meal, but that wasn’t as important and was jettisoned for practical reasons as the communities grew. (We still hold banquets for special occasions, like weddings and funerals, and that is a continuation of the meals). There were also inspirational prayers and readings. The New Testament was a work in progress then, and those writings were written to be included in the Liturgy, not vice versa.
The framework for the Divine Liturgy was directly from the Jewish Synagog services and home services which were, and still are, very liturgical and formal.
The form of prayer in use at the synagog was the Berekoth, or blessing prayer. It was used at home for meals as well. The first Catholic/Orthodox Christians were Jews and it wasn’t uncommon for them to attend both Sabbath Services at the Synagog
and the Eucharist on the first day of the week (the day of the Risen Lord). Now that was pretty good devotion!
Saint Paul made it clear that it was not necessary for Gentile converts to attend Synagog Services, but he himself did so on many occasions out of true love of God and not compulsion of the law. He also did so to spread the Word.
The Jewish scriptures in use outside of Palestine were in Greek. The Septuagint was a Greek translation of scripture that was the standard for use in almost all of the Synagogs of the Diaspora. It set the Canon for the Old Testament by default. Later church councils confirmed the Canon as included in the Septuagint.
Our predecessors, the first followers of the Way, had prayer constantly on their lips and in their hearts. They praised God, and prayed for each other. There was a common use of simple ejaculatory prayers such as “Lord have Mercy” and “Glory to Jesus Christ!”. Eventually the Jesus Prayer in it’s many forms became the most common ejaculatory prayer and was highly recommended by the Early Church Fathers.
The LOTH had it’s origins in Jewish practices too. The Jews sanctified time and place with prayer. In the Roman Empire days the “watch” was three hours long, and so every three hours were marked with prayer. The prayers were usually repetitions of the Psalms, which were composed for use in the forecourts of the temple by the crowds, and also in processions. They were carried back to the synagogs and used there as well. The Catholic-Jewish followers of the Way continued these practices and interspersed blessing prayers and intercessions with the Psalms.
The Divine Liturgy (mass) in Rome was Greek in the beginning, it stayed that way until the fourth century. Immigration from the Greek speaking lands pretty much dried up by then because the capitol had moved East. Rome was a mature old city and the language on the street was a dialect of Latin. So the church in it’s wisdom changed the liturgy to Latin so that the prayers could
continue to be understood by the people. The Latin translation of the Bible (vulgate) was for the same reason.
Unfortunately, most of the great wisdom literature of the early church was in Greek. You will notice that the Early Church Fathers usually composed in Greek. When the church in the west stopped giving the knowledge of Greek a high priority in the training of clergy, access to the spiritual wealth of the Patristic writings was more difficult, it was harder to “discover and learn” from the patristic writings and that influenced the course of religious history. For this reason, some Greek Orthodox will claim that the Roman Catholic church is the first protestant church! LOL. We know better, but that was the first hint of the rift between east and west.
Knowledge of the Patristic literature will make one a better Catholic, and bring one closer to the sense of early Christianity which was definately
NOT protestant!
Nothing I described here sounds like modern Protestantism to me.
I agree and I only see time in front of the Blessed Sacrament or Rosary time making a change. It can’t come from me, but I have tried and failed kind of.
)