I don't know what has happened to me

[HashemEchad]

I would describe this concept, as well as kabalah in general, as very definately a post-2nd-Temple counter-Christian “answer” to the attractiveness of the Christian afterlife, which draws most strongly for it’s inspiration from a syncretism of “eastern” (Indian/Vedic?) reincarnation.

But, that’s neither here not there.

Jews who know their religion are not attracted to the Christian idea of the afterlife, because they know that Christianity got it from us.

They got their idea of techiyat he’meitim (resurrection of the dead) from us, as well as the idea of Heaven (olam ha’ba) and Hell (Gehinnom).

 

[CatsAndDogs]

Jews who know their religion are not attracted to the Christian idea of the afterlife, because they know that Christianity got it from us.

They got their idea of techiyat he’meitim (resurrection of the dead) from us, as well as the idea of Heaven (olam ha’ba) and Hell (Gehinnom).

I bow to your superior knowledge of all things Jewish!

But, being a Christian, I’m forced into certain views, just as you are by your religion. Best to you!

 

[PrayforMallory]

Thank you! Indeed, there is. I grew up before Vatican II and got my BA in Anthropology in 76 and my MA in 78. (I had a 3 1/2 year excursion with Uncle Sam in his Navy which delayed my graduation). I don’t need a 1962 St. Joseph Missal to participate in any TLM - it’s hard-wired into me by virtue of all those six AM Masses I served.

I am more than aware of what those in our discipline have fomented. I may have graduated in '78 but I do try to keep current in the literature. The bottom line is that across the world, humankind, in general has shucked its heritage in favor of whatever is “most modern”.

Remember the phrase “psychic unity of man”? Don’t want to go Levi-Straussian on you and mayhap such is a now an ancient term…however, humankind’s spiritual basis is rooted in ritual. All of us are impacted by that which has gone before.

Indeed, it is this very absence of “that which has gone before” which is what HashemEchad is posting. We attended a “bris” (sp?) for one one my wife’s colleague’s grandsons. So, as an anthropologist and a Catholic, I am not supposed to see the connection with Our Lord? I’m not supposed to recognize how God is addressed because the ceremony is Jewish?

I am, as my friend, a well-known Scottish bard, says, a mongrel American. Indeed I am. I am Irish, Scot, Breton Celt, French, English and German. And I work to make sure that my sons know their heritage.

All of us - all of us, are diminished when any human tradition is obliterated in favor of modernism. And, I just listened to myself, and I can hear the spears coming over the fence line…obviously I am not speaking about cannibalism, human sacrifice, or anything else your purient minds can come up with… Sigh.

I was under the impression you were an undergraduate, hence my advice. If you were offended by it, please accept my apologies, because you are more familiar with anthropology than I am.

Psychic Unity of Man. Ironically, I wish that was what we were allowed to study. The whole discipline has veered so far from the thinkers of the mid-twentieth that it’s pretty much off the deep end. Gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, etc, pretty much dominate, at least from my perspective.

When we look at other Christian Rites, such as Syriac Orthodox, Ethiopian, etc., or at Jewish, Muslim or Buddhist faithful that worship in the traditional way, I just can’t help but think about what we’ve lost. While yes, these other groups are often fundamentally different from Traditional Catholicism, they have one thing in common, that they are free from the modernizing influences that make everything seem so trite and soulless.

Enjoyed your post.

 

[PrayforMallory]

Same here. I was so relieved to find the TLM.

 

[I_Believe]

I just finished letting off a MAJOR vent against the modernizations of the RCC in another thread, and I’m worried I may have really upset some modern Catholics by it. I don’t know why I feel so strongly about this, I’m not even Catholic!

I tend to be a very big supporter of traditionalism in all religions, esp. my own, but it truly breaks my heart to see how Catholicism has been changed since V2.

My mom;s family is Catholic, and I remember how my great-aunt (a nun) cried to me back in the 1970s (because no one else in her church seemed to care), because of all the changes they made. She said it really shattered her spirit, to see the church she’d always known and loved turned into some sort of hippie-fest.

What I don’t get is, why do I feel so strongly about this? Is it because I detest the modernizations in any religion because its a symbol of how our entire society has gone downhill? It even ticks me off that women don’t wear hats to church anymore, and I don;t even go to church! I guess maybe I’m a sentimentalist, or maybe I just like traditional roles and traditionalism in general.

I was literally out of breath after writing my rant, and I have to wonder: maybe I was a Catholic in a past life who witnessed the changes of V2? Sounds crazy, but my religion does believe in reincarnation. Maybe I take this so personally because of my aunt, who cried to me, poured out her soul so tragically, to her Jewish niece because she felt those in her own religion didn’t care?

Or maybe because half my family is Catholic, and they all left the church because of V2…and so the only exposure I’ve had to RCism is via them and their memories?

Or because I love old movies like Going My Way and the Bells of St Mary’s?

I’m just trying to figure out WHY this irritates me so much.

It is because you look at the overall picture with an unbiased opinion. Since you are not Catholic, you are not jaded by one viewpoint or the other. You’ve been here long enough to form an opinion, and you are entitled to it.

 

[brotherhrolf]

I was under the impression you were an undergraduate, hence my advice. If you were offended by it, please accept my apologies, because you are more familiar with anthropology than I am.

No offense taken. In fact, it was because of my studies, that I realized precisely what we had lost in terms of what HE has observed.

I had a classmate in grad school who was Eastern Orthodox. She invited five of us RC types to the Divine Liturgy for Holy Saturday with her family. At various points, all of us had tears streaming down our faces because we recognized what we had lost ten years earlier.

As Catholics, we are fortunate in two ways. One, we still have priests who were ordained before Vatican II and two, the missals, rubrics, etc of the TLM are still known. I thank God that the HF promulgated the MP and that HMC will be able to salvage and then maintain our tradition before it became completely lost.

The other thing that has impacted me in the last three years is just how close we have come to losing a lot of the traditions that made us “New Orleans” - including Catholic traditions (we’ve restored the Corpus Christi procession down Canal St. for the last three years). I don’t believe we need to be bound by tradtion but if we lose our traditions or trash them as being worthless then we lose our very selves.

 

[latinmasslover]

I’m just trying to figure out WHY this irritates me so much.

Some modernists speak truth, and a modernist priest at my parish once said, from the pulpit: Common sense isn’t common.

Apparently, you’re one that God has blessed with common sense. He not only gave you a brain, but the ability to think with it. (Congrats! You’re not Nazi-minded!) This is why tossing out tradition bothers you. (Not to mention, an obvious appreciation of religious purity.) That’s the way I see it, anyway. I could be wrong, but not likely.

Keep using your head and heart.

 

[Island_Oak]

When it comes to liturgy and tradition, form and substance are inseperable, if “Lex Orandi. Lex Credendi” has any meaning at all.

Not necessarily for someone standing on the outside looking in and who has never participated in nor embraced the faith.

 

[PrayforMallory]

Not necessarily for someone standing on the outside looking in and who has never participated in nor embraced the faith.

That’s true. I wasn’t aware of your particular situation.

Heh. Internet.

 

[Cristiano]

Jews who know their religion are not attracted to the Christian idea of the afterlife, because they know that Christianity got it from us.

They got their idea of techiyat he’meitim (resurrection of the dead) from us, as well as the idea of Heaven (olam ha’ba) and Hell (Gehinnom).

I would like to disagree with you on that. The idea does not come to Christianity from Judaism, it comes through Judaism. The idea is not a simple idea, it is the Truth, and even people that are not informed about Judaism and/or Christianity may believe in the resurrection of the dead, heaven and hell.

 

[Pier]

Jews who know their religion are not attracted to the Christian idea of the afterlife, because they know that Christianity got it from us.

They got their idea of techiyat he’meitim (resurrection of the dead) from us, as well as the idea of Heaven (olam ha’ba) and Hell (Gehinnom).

Well, actually, we got it from One of you…

 

[CatholicCajun]

I guess I was cut out to be an anthropology major because I don’t see God’s hand as being limited to Roman Catholicism. All across the globe we are witnessing the complete and total demise of traditional cultures. And I can hear the outcry against me arising…

I understand completely, we as Cajuns have lost our language, and we are very quickly losing our heritage and that which makes us unique, it is very sad indeed.

 

[Lui]

I don’t know why I feel so strongly about this, I’m not even Catholic!

My mom;s family is Catholic,

Just out of curiosity, why are you Jewish? I thought Jews from mixed marriages are only Jewish if the mother is Jewish.

 

[Island_Oak]

That’s true. I wasn’t aware of your particular situation.

Heh. Internet.

Not mine…the OP is not Catholic.

 

[brotherhrolf]

I understand completely, we as Cajuns have lost our language, and we are very quickly losing our heritage and that which makes us unique, it is very sad indeed.

I look all around south Louisiana and it is not as I was as a child. My wife (she is on the English faculty at a local university) is involved in Women’s Studies. (Not like you think Pray for Mallory ). She and one of my old anthro profs from UNO are going out and interviewing all the old Cajun spinners and weavers and collecting their stories before they die. Some of them still have heirloom varieties of cotton that have been grown for 200 years.

I am Cajun but I am also New Orleans French (not Creole since my great grandfather didn’t arrive till 1835) but French was spoken at home well into the 20th century. We went to Mass in Latin. The parish in which my great - great grandfather was baptized is being closed in New Orleans after 150 years. I’m not even talking about my long closed Irish family church in which my great-great grandmother was instrumental in helping raise funds to build.

There is a disconnect somewhere in HMC. Haschem is reporting what she grew up with and what she saw. She gives a better witness because she doesn’t have a “dog in the hunt” like me.

The baby got thrown out with the bathwater in 1969. Benedict is seeking a last-minute rescue of the baby. I have no desire to go back exclusively to the TLM nor do I want to see our heritage disappear. The likelihood of the second is far more likely than that of the first.

 

[CatholicCajun]

I agree with you Brother. My grandparents spoke no english, my parents french and english, I will be 50 (choking) this year and there are not many people my age still speaking our language (French) and the next generation does not speak it at all, due to economics, it will be rare to know someone who is a trawler by trade, it is so sad to see all those beautiful boats tied up or for sale. All our beautiful customs and history and going away.

 

[brotherhrolf]

I agree with you Brother. My grandparents spoke no english, my parents french and english, I will be 50 (choking) this year and there are not many people my age still speaking our language (French) and the next generation does not speak it at all, due to economics, it will be rare to know someone who is a trawler by trade, it is so sad to see all those beautiful boats tied up or for sale. All our beautiful customs and history and going away.

Mais cher, I’m gonna be 57 come September :bigyikes: . Many a summer I spent down on the docks by Lafitte when the boats were out. You can have pity on me - Bro is now allergic to crabs. Crawfish don’t bother me, no. But crabs? The last time I ate crabs in a gumbo, they near had to take me to the ER.

Katrina/Rita did a real number on us too. Big wake up call. If we lose our traditions, we lose the soul of our people. We are Catholic and Cajun and I don’t see how we can seperate one from the other.

 

[catharina]

I just finished letting off a MAJOR vent against the modernizations of the RCC in another thread, and I’m worried I may have really upset some modern Catholics by it. I don’t know why I feel so strongly about this, I’m not even Catholic!

I tend to be a very big supporter of traditionalism in all religions, esp. my own, but it truly breaks my heart to see how Catholicism has been changed since V2.

My mom;s family is Catholic, and I remember how my great-aunt (a nun) cried to me back in the 1970s (because no one else in her church seemed to care), because of all the changes they made. She said it really shattered her spirit, to see the church she’d always known and loved turned into some sort of hippie-fest.

What I don’t get is, why do I feel so strongly about this? Is it because I detest the modernizations in any religion because its a symbol of how our entire society has gone downhill? It even ticks me off that women don’t wear hats to church anymore, and I don;t even go to church! I guess maybe I’m a sentimentalist, or maybe I just like traditional roles and traditionalism in general.

I was literally out of breath after writing my rant, and I have to wonder: maybe I was a Catholic in a past life who witnessed the changes of V2? Sounds crazy, but my religion does believe in reincarnation. Maybe I take this so personally because of my aunt, who cried to me, poured out her soul so tragically, to her Jewish niece because she felt those in her own religion didn’t care?

Or maybe because half my family is Catholic, and they all left the church because of V2…and so the only exposure I’ve had to RCism is via them and their memories?

Or because I love old movies like Going My Way and the Bells of St Mary’s?

I’m just trying to figure out WHY this irritates me so much.

H.E., I’ve read many of your posts in a number of threads.
Usually, I haven’t responded to them.

I do recall that you came to CA as carolsdaughter just a few months ago; your mother had just died (my sympathy to you) and you had called a Catholic priest to come to your home and give her the Last Rites of the Catholic Church - “just in case.” Your mother (and much of her family?) left the Church after V II. Your mother became Jewish - perhaps a conversion to enable her marriage to your father? (I’m not certain of those last details.)

In any event, you have lost your mother SO recently. The religious “mix” is central to your family of origin. Why are you so intense/intent right now? I have to guess that your life history and the very recent loss of your mother must be a heavy load.

You’re still in my prayers.

 

[HashemEchad]

Just out of curiosity, why are you Jewish? I thought Jews from mixed marriages are only Jewish if the mother is Jewish.

My mother was Jewish; she converted to Orthodox Judaism in 1944, and I was born in 1959. But her family did not convert along with her!

 

[HashemEchad]

H.E., I’ve read many of your posts in a number of threads.
Usually, I haven’t responded to them.

I do recall that you came to CA as carolsdaughter just a few months ago; your mother had just died (my sympathy to you) and you had called a Catholic priest to come to your home and give her the Last Rites of the Catholic Church - “just in case.” Your mother (and much of her family?) left the Church after V II. Your mother became Jewish - perhaps a conversion to enable her marriage to your father? (I’m not certain of those last details.)

In any event, you have lost your mother SO recently. The religious “mix” is central to your family of origin. Why are you so intense/intent right now? I have to guess that your life history and the very recent loss of your mother must be a heavy load.

You’re still in my prayers.

My mother converted to Orthodox Judaism in 1944…3 years before she met my (born Jewish) father, so I doubt it was so she could marry him. She became a much more committed Jew, religiously, than he was. And no, she left the church long before V2 (1944 is quite some time before V2)…but her family left after V2, you remembered that correctly.

When my mother died, I wanted to do something to show my respect for everything she had ever been in her life, and so I did things which seemed right at the time (like calling a priest when she was unconscious), but I now think was probably a dumb thing to do since she always made it very clear that she was deeply committed to being Jewish now. In fact I’m glad she was unconscious or seeing a priest would have perhaps given her a heart attack.

I really don’t think this is the proper thread for this discussion though.