How often does your parish celebrate Vespers?

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

The UGCC parish here in Tucson, St Michael, only has one Divine Liturgy on Sunday. The first Sunday of the month is in English, the rest of the Sundays are in Ukrainian. The pastor (The Right Reverend Mitred Protopresbyter Andriy Chirovsky, Founder and First Director of the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies in Canada) does this because he says that English is the language of the young in the parish and will soon out number those who speak Ukrainian so he is preparing them for the transition.

 

[ProVobis]

I wouldn’t say people aren’t getting anything out of a worship service when they don’t receive the Eucharist, but it is always far better to receive than not to receive, providing of course that one is in a state of grace. People have a genuine desire to receive the Eucharist frequently, why encourage one group to not receive as often, simply because the practice originated in another tradition.

I don’t think it’s a case of encouraging or discouraging communion, per se. I know that in Poland, and they may be just unique I don’t know that much about Eastern countries, but 90% are Catholic and 75% attend Mass. When considering that there are many who have hardships (age, health, etc.) this is quite remarkable in 2010. Whether you’re divorced or cohabitating, you still go to Church if you live in Poland. Of course, they understand that they can’t receive communion but that shows how much they value the Catholic liturgy and how important it is in their lives. Take away the communion and the Sunday obligation in the anglicized Latin liturgies and I doubt if you’d have too many attending at all.

As I’ve stated before, I don’t know the Eastern cultures that much though I’d like to learn. Thanks to those posters who have attempted to explain some of those cultures.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I don’t think it’s a case of encouraging or discouraging communion, per se. I know that in Poland, and they may be just unique I don’t know that much about Eastern countries, but 90% are Catholic and 75% attend Mass. When considering that there are many who have hardships (age, health, etc.) this is quite remarkable in 2010. Whether you’re divorced or cohabitating, you still go to Church if you live in Poland. Of course, they understand that they can’t receive communion but that shows how much they value the Catholic liturgy and how important it is in their lives. Take away the communion and the Sunday obligation in the anglicized Latin liturgies and I doubt if you’d have too many attending at all.

As I’ve stated before, I don’t know the Eastern cultures that much though I’d like to learn. Thanks to those posters who have attempted to explain some of those cultures.

This is the same case in the Philippines. Many cultures have had the faith intertwined with culture. This is prevalent in the East where a sui juris Church would usually belong to one specific culture. The Ukrainian Church for example would have many Ukrainian cultural celebrations that are tied down to the disciplines of the Byzantine Rite. One example is the Holy Meal on Christmas Eve where there is a 12-dish vegetarian meal served. Vegetarian because its a great fasting day (no meat) and 12 to commemorate the 12 Apostles. So its a cultural celebration but has religious significance as Christianity is practiced in the Byzantine Rite by the Ukrainian Church.

 

[ProVobis]

The UGCC parish here in Tucson, St Michael, only has one Divine Liturgy on Sunday. The first Sunday of the month is in English, the rest of the Sundays are in Ukrainian. The pastor (The Right Reverend Mitred Protopresbyter Andriy Chirovsky, Founder and First Director of the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies in Canada) does this because he says that English is the language of the young in the parish and will soon out number those who speak Ukrainian so he is preparing them for the transition.

Are you okay with this and are the Ukranians okay with this? I know when I lived in London my Polish parents sent me to weekly Polish classes so I could continue that Polish culture inside a foreign country. This was back in the 50’s, by the way.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Are you okay with this and are the Ukranians okay with this? I know when I lived in London my Polish parents sent me to weekly Polish classes so I could continue that Polish culture inside a foreign country. This was back in the 50’s, by the way.

Some cultures are better at preserving their native tongue in a foreign land than others. One of the best I think are the Chinese. I’ve known 4th generation immigrants who still speak their native tongue, and its not even Mandarin. Its one of the obscure dialects in China.

Many Ukrainians who are born in North America don’t speak Ukrainian anymore. I’ve had a chance to chat with one on our table in one of the events held by the Eparchy. The lady was there with her mother. The lady didn’t speak Ukrainian and was born here in Canada, her mother does but her mother says that the Ukrainian they speak today is different than the one she spoke at the time she left Ukraine decades ago (not sure actually what she meant by it but I’ll take her word for it).

Although in our parish, English Liturgy has far less people than the Ukrainian Liturgy. But the reason isn’t always about the language. Weekday Liturgy is all in English. Over the course of the week across all parishes, there are more English Liturgies that Ukrainian.

Ukrainian itself is relatively new. They were using Old Church Slavonic not too long ago.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Are you okay with this and are the Ukranians okay with this? I know when I lived in London my Polish parents sent me to weekly Polish classes so I could continue that Polish culture inside a foreign country. This was back in the 50’s, by the way.

I am not Ukrainian. I am ethnically Yugoslavian (actually when pressed I believe my father’s father self-identified as Macedonian), Hungarian, French Canadian and German, I was raised in a non-ethnic household.

So no, I have no problem with this. This makes one more Church I can attend on the First Sundays rather than just my Ruthenian parish.

 

[ProVobis]

This makes one more Church I can attend on the First Sundays rather than just my Ruthenian parish.

I just hope the hardcore Ukranians have a Church to go on First Sundays. Or maybe they just grin and bear it, for all I can tell.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

I just hope the hardcore Ukranians have a Church to go on First Sundays. Or maybe they just grin and bear it, for all I can tell.

No, they understand what the pastor is doing and the way he has done is being welcomed. They understand that they are not to be a Ukrainian ghetto (although I do realize this mentality to keep us “where we belong”) and to be open to others.

Again (as I have said this else where), the Liturgy is not ours. It belongs to the Church.

The Homily, at all of his Sunday Liturgies, is in both languages. Readings are done in both languages.

 

[ConstantineTG]

I just hope the hardcore Ukranians have a Church to go on First Sundays. Or maybe they just grin and bear it, for all I can tell.

You have to let go of the paradigm that people are caught up with the language that is used in church. Unlike traditional Roman Catholics who can’t let go of Latin, its not the same attachment to language for them. They can understand both Ukrainian and English just fine. Its like an OF Mass in two different language, if one can understand both languages, then whats the issue? I do understand the attachment to the form of the EF. But its the same Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysosotm or St. Basil the Great, only in a different language. Many people go to the OF in English and a native language all the time without problems. In the Archdiocese of Vancouver, the ethnicity of the Church has shifted that its mostly Filipinos who attend Mass, and yet there is not a single OF Mass in Filipino here, despite having 2 or 3 parishes with a Filipino pastor. That doesn’t stop us from expressing our culture thats tied to Roman Catholicism. A Mass in Filipino is the same as the Mass in English except for the language. The same can be said for Divine Liturgy.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Again (as I have said this else where), the Liturgy is not ours. It belongs to the Church.

Very nicely put

The Homily, at all of his Sunday Liturgies, is in both languages. Readings are done in both languages.

I’ve only been to a Bilingual DL once. Interestingly we had a visiting priest from Ukraine. So our priest chanted the Gospel in English, and the visiting priest did it in Ukrainian. The Epistles were read by their respective wives. We also did the prayer before Communion twice, each in both languages. The Litanies were alternating, the first in Ukrainian, then English, then Ukrainian.

Our Bishop is born and raised here in Canada. You can tell that he’s more comfortable in speaking in English, so he would do everything in English unless he really needs to do it in Ukrainian.

 

[Mojo674]

The one Divine Liturgy per alter is part of BYZANTINE TRADITION, BYZANTINE TRADITION is neither Catholic nor Orthodox it is BYZANTINE TRADITION.

Back to back liturgies on the same alter is an abuse in ANY Byzantine church.

I’d like to make a clarification among Ruthenian Byzantine Catholics. The reason why we have ONE Liturgy is because that we feel the necessity to be unified together in community because we ALL make up the Body of Christ. Now I quote from Inexhaustible Delights** made by God With Us Publications it states “Coming together at one Liturgy manifests the unity of the parish; multiple Liturgies manifests division” (62). Then later it says “At the Cathedral of the Greek Catholic Exarchate in Athens, for example, there are three Sundary Liturgies: two Byzantine (one in Greek and one in Ukranian) and one Chaldean correctly reflecting the three communities that worship there” (62-63). So basically TWO liturgies is okay in the Byzantine Rite IF they are in Separate Languages, because it caters to that population NOT to disunity.

 

[ProVobis]

I’d like to make a clarification among Ruthenian Byzantine Catholics. The reason why we have ONE Liturgy is because that we feel the necessity to be unified together in community because we ALL make up the Body of Christ. Now I quote from Inexhaustible Delights** made by God With Us Publications it states “Coming together at one Liturgy manifests the unity of the parish; multiple Liturgies manifests division” (62). Then later it says “At the Cathedral of the Greek Catholic Exarchate in Athens, for example, there are three Sundary Liturgies: two Byzantine (one in Greek and one in Ukranian) and one Chaldean correctly reflecting the three communities that worship there” (62-63). So basically TWO liturgies is okay in the Byzantine Rite IF they are in Separate Languages, because it caters to that population NOT to disunity.

Perhaps an unintended consequence but unfortunately in practice it has led to disunity, at least in the Latin Rite where liturgical bilinguality and trilinguality exist in the same church. This disunity is not necessarily unhealthy but it does seem to keeps groups segregated and some people very hostile towards one another.

 

[awatkins69]

Three days a week, sometimes four during Great Lent.

 

[ciero]

I’d like to make a clarification among Ruthenian Byzantine Catholics. The reason why we have ONE Liturgy is because that we feel the necessity to be unified together in community because we ALL make up the Body of Christ. Now I quote from Inexhaustible Delights** made by God With Us Publications it states “Coming together at one Liturgy manifests the unity of the parish; multiple Liturgies manifests division” (62). Then later it says “At the Cathedral of the Greek Catholic Exarchate in Athens, for example, there are three Sundary Liturgies: two Byzantine (one in Greek and one in Ukranian) and one Chaldean correctly reflecting the three communities that worship there” (62-63). So basically TWO liturgies is okay in the Byzantine Rite IF they are in Separate Languages, because it caters to that population NOT to disunity.

In every parish I have been in(and that includes the Greek Catholic Exarchate in Athens) that has 2 liturgies each in a separate language you would not believe the amount of DISUNITY that that causes, SCANDALOUS!

 

[ConstantineTG]

Perhaps an unintended consequence but unfortunately in practice it has led to disunity, at least in the Latin Rite where liturgical bilinguality and trilinguality exist in the same church. This disunity is not necessarily unhealthy but it does seem to keeps groups segregated and some people very hostile towards one another.

How do you force new immigrants to be fluent with the new language, or the new generation to be fluent with a language they will never use in the country of their birth?

 

[ConstantineTG]

I don’t know how this thread turned into a language thread, but I can tell you from experience that there is no such division between those who attend the English Liturgy and the Ukrainian Liturgy in our parish. Those who attend English Liturgy, while fewer, are the most loved people in the parish. Also every Summer because attendance drops due to traveling, the two Liturgies are merged into one bilingual service.

Fact is, the Ukrainian Church has to cater to both the recent immigrants, and those who’ve been here for decades or who were born here. I can’t speak for all parishes or all Eastern or Western Churches, but here where I live all these accusations of division do not apply.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

My own parish, Holy Transfiguration Melkite Greek Catholic, celebrates Vespers at least every Saturday, and Orthros every Sunday unless there’s a baptism or wedding, in which case that replaces Orthros. We also celebrate Vespers on the evening before every great feast day. During the Philip’s Fast (Advent) we have a Paraklesis on Wednesday evenings, and during Great Lent we have the Akathist to the Mother of God and the Presanctified Liturgy, but I don’t know their prospective days. I’m sure we have other things going on that I’m forgetting to mention.

 

[ProVobis]

How do you force new immigrants to be fluent with the new language, or the new generation to be fluent with a language they will never use in the country of their birth?

That is the role of government, not the Church’s. You either want to stick with their traditions or continue with a self-serving attitude, your choice. Fact is that hostilities arise because of self-serving interests. My father, until he died, despised the English language and probably for that reason.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

That is the role of government, not the Church’s. You either want to stick with their traditions or continue with a self-serving attitude, your choice. Fact is that hostilities arise because of self-serving interests. My father, until he died, despised the English language and probably for that reason.

Again, language is not the issue in the Byzantine Church that some make it out to be in the Latin Church.

To let you know also, Ukrainian and English are both vernacular languages of the Divine Liturgy. The old language would be Church Slavonic.

This is one of the many reasons that the SSJ was excommunicated from the UGCC (and thereby the Catholic Church) was that they are resisting the change to Ukrainian in the Ukraine.

 

[ConstantineTG]

That is the role of government, not the Church’s. You either want to stick with their traditions or continue with a self-serving attitude, your choice. Fact is that hostilities arise because of self-serving interests. My father, until he died, despised the English language and probably for that reason.

What I learned in the East is that traditions are not dependent on languages. If you watched the youtube video I posted from St. Elias, the Bishops see it a necessity to use English in the Liturgy to make sure that tradition is preserved because it is the language of the children of the Ukrainian immigrants here in Canada (and the US). Even in Orientale Lumen, Pope John Paul II commended the East for successfuly transmitting tradition in all languages and cultures.