Seder meal

[EasterJoy]

Right - but it has only become possible to think this way, because people have been led to think that “everybody gets to go to Heaven.” If all religions are equal, then no religion is necessary - and thus, finding God in the woods is no different than finding Him in an ashram or in a synagogue, or at a Catholic Mass (because if God is to be found equally in all those places, then why on earth wouldn’t He be in the woods, or on the golf course, or at a sports festival, as well? )

I think this is because people do not like to think that while God reserves the choice of using extraordinary means God has provided an ordinary means in His Church, and desires that we use it. They want the answer to be that either there is only one way, period, or else that there are lots of ways that are just as good. Either the Church owns the Holy Spirit, or else the fact that the Holy Spirit blows where He wills means that anybody with money to buy equipment can put in a profitable wind farm. People do not want to hear that all grace flows through the Church, even though grace is life, and not a commodity, such that the Church can own it. IOW, subtlety is not in vogue these days.

This has a parallel in the widespread belief that because we have to allow people the dignity of making their own choices that we also have to treat all choices as if they have equal merit. The entire idea is so obviously absurd, one has to think it has the equivalent of old Screwtape behind it! There are many examples like that in these days.

Having said that, if you know very well that you are not going to all into the error of indifferentism, then that isn’t an objection for why you may not attend a seder. I’ll grant you that the warnings are legitimate and that prudence requires they be considered honestly. I won’t grant you that it means that no one can discern whether or not they apply to a particular case. I think that goes a bit too far. A particular choice need not always be appropriate in order to ever deserve consideration. We shouldn’t give ourselves too much credit, we do well to ask for pastoral guidance in our particular case, but the exercise of discretion is not beyond the capacity of a prudent layperson with access to good outside spiritual guidance.

 

[floresco]

Having said that, if you know very well that you are not going to all into the error of indifferentism, then that isn’t an objection for why you may not attend a seder.

But it isn’t just about one’s own danger of falling into the error of indifferentism. The people who know that you have attended a Seder may be encouraged toward indifferentism by your action. And you can’t know that everyone who learns of your Seder attendance will not be affected that way. Since there is already a strong tendency toward this error, your attendance there is very likely to be taken this way.

 

[EasterJoy]

But it isn’t just about one’s own danger of falling into the error of indifferentism. The people who know that you have attended a Seder may be encouraged toward indifferentism by your action. And you can’t know that everyone who learns of your Seder attendance will not be affected that way. Since there is already a strong tendency toward this error, your attendance there is very likely to be taken this way.

I think it depends, but your caution and your reason for it is laudable, even so.

 

[Splinker]

And this sets the context of the Seder. The people celebrate how God has delivered them in the past and anticipate how he will deliver them in the future with the coming of the Messiah. While not spoken of much explicitly, the idea underlies the entire story of Passover. Moses is a type of the coming Messiah.

Jews await a Messiah that Christians believe has already come. That is the core of the difference between Jews and Christians. And this point of crucial difference is what underlies the Seder.

Moses is mentioned, I think, only once during the entire seder meal. And our Messiah is not God or any form of God. The definition of Messiah is very different in Judaism than it is in Christianity. The idea underlying the story of Passover is that God is ALWAYS redeeming His people. We are always slaves to something and God is always offering us deliverance from slavery.

 

[Splinker]

If you want to experience a seder, don’t try to do it yourself. There are plenty of ‘open’ seders in or around most large cities. Many universities and large Jewish organizations–universities, hospitals, offer them. I have attended plenty in my day. the most impressive was an invitation to a private family, who were ‘modern orthodox’–(framed ketubah or marriage contract on the wall) and the ceremony lasted–in Hebrew–for several hours. At the end, another guest, said “Sorry to eat and run…”

Above all, don’t attend one with young children.

Why not attend one with young children?

 

[JohnT58]

I attended a Seder for the 1st time last Easter. I guess it was a Christian version rather than a truly Jewish one. It was run by some nuns living in the parish and the parish priest was there also.
Without going into detail and specifics, it stuck to the Jewish celebration except where it would have contradicted Christian teaching, and pointed out where Jesus deviated, quite radically, from tradition at the Last Supper, without turning it into a version of the Mass / Liturgy of the Eucharist.
I found it a very worth while and lovely experience. Above all else it served to remind me of the Jewish roots of our faith. While one may know on an intellectual level, that our Lord was a Jew, a practicing Jew, in real terms it can be very easy to lose sight of that. Our mass today would be very different from the Last Supper, and while I’m not saying this Seder replicated it, it did give a sense of that link to the past.
I think Catholics can lay claim to some of this Jewish tradition, as this is where we, and or Lord came from. So much of our faith has a Jewish influence, I think its OK to acknowledge that and rember it, above all understand and respect it.:twocents:

 

[jmcrae]

Why not attend one with young children?

I think they meant, don’t bring your own very small children (who have no idea what’s going on, and no tradition of it in their own family) to a Seder supper.

Obviously, Jewish children would have been trained on how to behave at one; I don’t think they were saying not to attend one where Jewish kids were attending.

 

[Splinker]

I think they meant, don’t bring your own very small children (who have no idea what’s going on, and no tradition of it in their own family) to a Seder supper.

Obviously, Jewish children would have been trained on how to behave at one; I don’t think they were saying not to attend one where Jewish kids were attending.

Seders are usually pretty noisy and children friendly.

 

[MelanieAnne]

Seders are usually pretty noisy and children friendly.

And SOMEDAY has to ask why this night is different from any other night!