Is this ok? - Seder meal for Catholics?

[matthias]

A group of my Catholic friends are going to hava a Catholic “Lord’s day supper” which according to them is not a seder but it is based on the seder meal. They said it is not a communion service or modeled after it but…

If our liturgy of the Eucharist is based on a seder meal then this makes these very similar. They will be passing a cup of wine around and using unlevend bread.

My problem comes in two places.

1.) Catholics are forbidden to take part in other faiths communion services and I’m not sure if this would extend to the seder meal.

and
2.) This seems to be too close to communion to me. Although they make clear that they arn’t immitation communion but a seder instead but how can they possible have a seder that doesn’t immitate the Eucharistic liturgy or at least be very similar. Isn’t it wrong to have religious practices outside of Mass that immitate or at least closely resemble communion???

As a Catholic, can I attend such a seder-like meal?

 

[Nicene]

A seder meal is fine as far as I am aware, we had one every year at our old church with some of the Jewish community attending.

That said, I would find out more from them. If it isn’t a seder meal but what Christ did at the last supper… personally I would be wary of attending.

It’s very easy to have a seder meal without it being what Jesus instituted. As far as other faiths, I wouldn’t see a problem with it if you make sure they aren’t trying to imitate “the Lords supper”

If anyone says “This is my body which will be…” : head for the door or don’t participate.

Peace and God Bless
Nicene

 

[JimR-OCDS]

A Seder Meal is fine, it is not the Mass.

If you attend a Seder, just watch out how much wine you drink.
I believe there are four places within the Seder, were you drink wine from your glass. When our Parish did a Seder, many thought they were suppose to drink the entire glass, instead of just taking a sip. By the forth round, it became apparent, that one glass should’ve lasted throughout the entire Seder.

 

[matthias]

JimR-OCDS:

A Seder Meal is fine, it is not the Mass…

A protestant communion service isn’t a mass either but Catholics are prohibited from recieving. A Jewish seder is a religious rite that is also very closely connected to the mass. Shouldn’t the same prohibition exist?

 

[Aaron_I]

matthias:

A protestant communion service isn’t a mass either but Catholics are prohibited from recieving. A Jewish seder is a religious rite that is also very closely connected to the mass. Shouldn’t the same prohibition exist?

Not at all. The seder doesn’t purport to be a communion service. The point of going to a seder would be to experience the Jewish feast that foreshadowed the eucharist.

 

[SFH]

matthias:

A group of my Catholic friends are going to hava a Catholic “Lord’s day supper” which according to them is not a seder but it is based on the seder meal. They said it is not a communion service or modeled after it but…

If our liturgy of the Eucharist is based on a seder meal then this makes these very similar. They will be passing a cup of wine around and using unlevend bread.

My problem comes in two places.

1.) Catholics are forbidden to take part in other faiths communion services and I’m not sure if this would extend to the seder meal.

and
2.) This seems to be too close to communion to me. Although they make clear that they arn’t immitation communion but a seder instead but how can they possible have a seder that doesn’t immitate the Eucharistic liturgy or at least be very similar. Isn’t it wrong to have religious practices outside of Mass that immitate or at least closely resemble communion???

As a Catholic, can I attend such a seder-like meal?

I think there’s a very good reason not to participate in a Seder meal. As St. Paul teaches, the things of the Old Testament were signs of realities that were fulfilled in the New Testament. (Incidentally, St. Thomas Aquinas teaches this too.) When we participate in Old Testament rituals, we indicate that we don’t think the sign has been fulfilled by the reality in the New Testament.

For example, I use a map until I get to the town where I’m going. If I continue to use the map after I’ve arrived at the town, that suggests that I haven’t really got to the place where I’m going. The Seder meal, circumcision, the distinction between clean and unclean animals were all “maps” to get us to the Good Lord. Now that we’ve got there, we don’t need the “maps” anymore.

St. Paul allowed Jewish converts to continue to use these signs in order to ease the transition from Judaism to Catholicism. At this point, unless you’re a Jewish convert, I don’t think that dispensation still applies.

 

[rwoehmke]

I don’t see it as using a map once one has arrived etc. but more like going back and experiencing a part of our heritage. Like going home to visit the old farmstead after one has purchased a home of one’s own. Certainly it has a religous tenor, but then what would one expect when it is part of our roots as Christians. It is not led by a Rabbi, Priest, or Minister so has a different quality than a true religous service in another Church. It doesn’t happen in a Temple but in a home ordinarily; in this instance usually in a parish hall and not in the Church proper. I can understand that some might feel sqeamish about participating, but I personaaly have had no qualms, whereas I would have qualms about attending and participating fully in a service at a protestant church or jewish temple. Would you have qualms about saying grace at a meal with some protestant friends? Of course they do not make the sign of the cross, but it is a religous action. By the way, Wisconsin Synod Luterans are forbidden to so much as say and Our Father with anyone outside their denomination. Is that where we are as Catholics? I sure hope not.

 

[coyote]

SFH:

I think there’s a very good reason not to participate in a Seder meal. As St. Paul teaches, the things of the Old Testament were signs of realities that were fulfilled in the New Testament. (Incidentally, St. Thomas Aquinas teaches this too.) When we participate in Old Testament rituals, we indicate that we don’t think the sign has been fulfilled by the reality in the New Testament.

For example, I use a map until I get to the town where I’m going. If I continue to use the map after I’ve arrived at the town, that suggests that I haven’t really got to the place where I’m going. The Seder meal, circumcision, the distinction between clean and unclean animals were all “maps” to get us to the Good Lord. Now that we’ve got there, we don’t need the “maps” anymore.

St. Paul allowed Jewish converts to continue to use these signs in order to ease the transition from Judaism to Catholicism. At this point, unless you’re a Jewish convert, I don’t think that dispensation still applies.

I think you are providing more scrutiny than is called for.

The map analogy doean’t really support your position. Plenty of infant Christian boys have been and will be circumcised. Do they all require a dispensation? Also, based on the logic of this analogy, I guess we don’t need the Commandments anymore either. Heck, let’s all just tear out the entire OT from our Bibles now that we are Christians.

A sedar or Passover meal is a sharing of culture and tradition–the very tradition Christ came from.

 

[Maranatha]

We have a new parish priest this year and he is putting on a Seder which I’ve signed up for. I’m looking forward to going. I too look at it as investigating my spiritual roots.

 

[maryj]

we have had one at our parish for years and years.

 

[matthias]

Have no bishops or other official Catholic offices said anything about this practice? I guess I am uneasy about it but I see arguements on both sides. It would be nice if there were something official to appeal to for advice…

 

[SFH]

coyote:

I think you are providing more scrutiny than is called for.

The map analogy doean’t really support your position. Plenty of infant Christian boys have been and will be circumcised. Do they all require a dispensation? Also, based on the logic of this analogy, I guess we don’t need the Commandments anymore either. Heck, let’s all just tear out the entire OT from our Bibles now that we are Christians.

A sedar or Passover meal is a sharing of culture and tradition–the very tradition Christ came from.

First, there’s a vast difference between the moral laws of the Old Testament (e.g., the Ten Commandments), which remain in full force, and the ceremonial laws (e.g., Passover, kosher, etc.), which have been abrogated. It is the ceremonial laws which were signs of the Christian reality fulfilled in Christ and His Church. They are the map to lead the faithful to the promised Messias.

Second, infant Christian boys are circumcised for medical reasons not religious. If infant Christian boys were being circumcised for religious reasons, then that would be a problem. See Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Acquinas.

And third, we have our own unique culture and tradition that has grown out of the Jewish culture and tradition and our Catholic culture and tradition it to be preferred. For example, sacrificing in “high places” was a part of Israel’s culture in the Old Testament, a part of the culture that Christ inherited, but with the establishment of the Temple in Jerusalem, that sacrificial tradition was suppressed. Indeed, those who continued to sacrifice in high places were punished. Similarly, keeping a seder meal was part of our cultural past, but with the establishment of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass on Maundy Thursday, that part of our past was supplanted.

Seder meals are indifferent at best and pernicious at worst. Why not attend a Tenebrae service and experience a real part of the Catholic tradition and culture that has been sadly suppressed since Vatican II. Seder meals are the exact type of “judaizing” of Greek and Latin Catholics that St. Paul so forcefully opposed in his epistles.

God bless!

 

[SFH]

As a postscript, I challenge you to find a single synagogue any where in the world that’s having a Christian, Eucharistic-type celebration after their Seder meal so that the members of the synagogue can see what the Seder meal has grown into.

 

[Rebecca_New]

coyote:

I think you are providing more scrutiny than is called for.

The map analogy doean’t really support your position. Plenty of infant Christian boys have been and will be circumcised. Do they all require a dispensation? Also, based on the logic of this analogy, I guess we don’t need the Commandments anymore either. Heck, let’s all just tear out the entire OT from our Bibles now that we are Christians.

A sedar or Passover meal is a sharing of culture and tradition–the very tradition Christ came from.

I totally agree with you. I attended a seder meal and it really made a lot of things click.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

matthias:

A protestant communion service isn’t a mass either but Catholics are prohibited from recieving. A Jewish seder is a religious rite that is also very closely connected to the mass. Shouldn’t the same prohibition exist?

A Seder Meal isn’t a communion service, isn’t even close.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

SFH:

I think there’s a very good reason not to participate in a Seder meal. As St. Paul teaches, the things of the Old Testament were signs of realities that were fulfilled in the New Testament. (Incidentally, St. Thomas Aquinas teaches this too.) When we participate in Old Testament rituals, we indicate that we don’t think the sign has been fulfilled by the reality in the New Testament.

For example, I use a map until I get to the town where I’m going. If I continue to use the map after I’ve arrived at the town, that suggests that I haven’t really got to the place where I’m going. The Seder meal, circumcision, the distinction between clean and unclean animals were all “maps” to get us to the Good Lord. Now that we’ve got there, we don’t need the “maps” anymore.

St. Paul allowed Jewish converts to continue to use these signs in order to ease the transition from Judaism to Catholicism. At this point, unless you’re a Jewish convert, I don’t think that dispensation still applies.

The traditions addressed by St. Paul and Aquinas had to do with diet or even animal sacrifices, which of course for Christians, should not do, because Jesus is the last and everlasting sacrifice.

The Seder Meal is neither of the above.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

SFH:

As a postscript, I challenge you to find a single synagogue any where in the world that’s having a Christian, Eucharistic-type celebration after their Seder meal so that the members of the synagogue can see what the Seder meal has grown into.

Why would they? They don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.

However, we believe things Jews do believe, i.e. the Ten Commandments, and the story of the Exedus of the Hebrews.

By your logic, we should stop following the Ten Commandements and don’t watch the movie, “The Ten Commandments.”

 

[JimR-OCDS]

BTW, if you don’t understand the Jewish context of where our belief’s and traditions come from, such as the Seder, you really miss a lot of what the Mass is about.

In order to truely understand the New Testament, you need to know the Old Testament as well.

The two go together.

 

[Walking_Home]

Just for your information.

Part of the Neocatechumenal doctrine is that Christ did not come to establish a new religion, He came to fix the old.
We should be a cross between Messianic Judaism and Catholicism.

Something to consider on your way to your next Sedar meal.

 

[Sixtus]

Part of the Neocatechumenal doctrine is that Christ did not come to establish a new religion, He came to fix the old.
We should be a cross between Messianic Judaism and Catholicism.

Something to consider on your way to your next Sedar meal.

To some extent I agree with this but

having a Christian, Eucharistic-type celebration after their Seder meal so that the members of the synagogue can see what the Seder meal has grown into.

It may at first appear noble, but the Jews celebrate their delivery in the Exodus. It cannot be ‘Christened’. This meal is their sacred meal. It is not for us to modify no matter how well intentioned.

Such good intentions would be extremely offensive to the Jews and in my view inconsiderate and insensitive.

By all means celebrate a genuined Sedar meal. You may even invite a Rabbi to officiate. But it must not contain one iota of a mention of Christianity.

That isn’t disloyal it is respect to our older breathren