"Sisters and brothers" vs. "Brothers and sisters"

  • Thread starter Thread starter johnnydigit
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

johnnydigit

Guest
i don’t see the need to use “Sisters and brothers”. why don’t they just stick to the norm of “Brothers and sisters”? are they trying to appease feminists? push “equality”? be “modern”? we already know God loves us all. i am trying to understand why some priests do this…

by the way, is it ok to change from “Behold, the Lamb of God” to “This is Jesus”, etc.? there’s so much more to the original (John the Baptist, Passover lamb, etc.) what next, “Here He is…”? i know, “woomp, there He is!”
 
Amen. I agree with you.

Plus, isn’t it against canon law to change the words of the liturgy?
 
my parish priest sometime also say sisters and brothers…
but i prefer the the priest say BROTHERS AND SISTERS…because this is the correct word…👍
 
markadm said:
Amen. I agree with you.

Plus, isn’t it against canon law to change the words of the liturgy?
Click to expand...
Haven’t you learned? It doesn’t matter what canon law says, the words of the bishop are Gospel! LOL, or rather, cry, cry, cry

Yes, it is a way of appeasing the feminists. I say, let’s just go back to brethren! You know, I would actually love to hear the priest say “My children.”
 
The Parochial Vicar at my parish, who is an Apostles of Jesus Missionary from Africa, Always uses the Phrase “Pray my Bretheren…” I have also heard The Sisters and brothers line as well as the name God ommitted for Father as in "Through him with him in him, in the unity of the holy spirit all glory and honor is yours almighty (God) Forever and ever. Seems the Vicar also uses the traditional “Behold this is the lamb of God…”
 
It’s the pressure to be “politically correct.” There’s no other reason for it. Some priests think that they’re performing some kind of act of social justice by putting “sisters” before “brothers,” or by neutering language.

In all, it shows a lack of faith – one who is overly concerned about what the secular world thinks of them. (I say, the moment you start “giving in” to the world you’re toast. Every inch you give them, they demand ten more. As “likeable” or “cool” as you think you are making yourself to the anti-religious secularists on the outside by making these compromises, they will not be satisfied until you are totally one of them.)
 
A female here to put in my :twocents: .

“Brothers and sisters” follows alphabetical order, so it’s just fine with me.

“Sisters and brothers” sounds like the priest is bending over backwards way too much to please people and strikes me as sounding awkward.

“FRATRES” (brothers) being Latin has a decidedly cool sound to it … it doesn’t bother me if “SORORES” (sisters) is left unsaid, because it doesn’t sound as cool to me as “FRATRES”.

“Brethren” sounds cool … “Sistren” would also sound cool, so I would like to hear it, not because “sistren” fell into disuse in the 1500s and has been revived by some feminist authors, but because as a person who loves languages, linguistics, and words, it just has a nice ring to it … JMHO, wherein there is no logical reason.

Why be totally serious all the time?

🙂 :o 😃 :whacky:

~~ the phoenix
 
the_phoenix said:
Why be totally serious all the time?

🙂 :o 😃 :whacky:

~~ the phoenix
Click to expand...
i know, i know. it’s not something i voice out in public or anything. but seriously, something like that, when you’re going through the Mass and you’re enjoying it, draws unwanted attention. i’m sitting there praying as usual, expecting to hear the norm, then my ears prop up when i hear that and i’m like, “where in the world did that come from? why did he say that? what is that about? oh well, charity…” and then it may come back to haunt me later on, like when i’m on Catholic Answers…
 
The Latin says fratres which means brothers (obviously).

But the Greek equivalent ADELFOI means either “brothers” or “sisters” or both of them.
 
johnnydigit said:
no rebuttals? i would really like to hear from the other side 😃
Click to expand...
In 1 Cor. 8, St. Paul counsels that those without scruples about food should give way to those weaker ones who have scruples. Based on that, those who have “feminist” feelings ought to be bending over backwards to stick with “brethren”, lest their “traditional” counterparts be scandalized by a change to the liturgy, while the “traditional” ones ought to be going out of their way to advocate for “sisters and brothers” as the translation more faithful to modern English, lest any disrespect to women or offense to “feminists” be given unintentionally.

I stole that idea from The Screwtape Letters. According to CS Lewis’ “senior tempter” in that book, thinking like that could make parishes, which are organized according to geography, veritable hotbeds of charity among Christians of differing points of view and stations in life. Instead, the Evil One prefers Christians to hold to the congregational principle of finding people as much like themselves as possible to worship with, so that factions within the faith might be more easily encouraged.

Not a rebuttal, exactly, but the best I could do. 😉
 
markadm said:
Amen. I agree with you.

Plus, isn’t it against canon law to change the words of the liturgy?
Click to expand...
In the Sacramentary, at this point in the mass, it says:

At the discretion of the priest, other words which seem more suitable under the circumstances, such as friends, dearly beloved, my brothers and sisters, may be used.

So, there is freedom to use other phrases at this point, and to do so is not against canon law.
 
I have seen it done at other points, i.e. in readings, and I do not believe that would be covered.
 
bpbasilphx said:
The Latin says fratres which means brothers (obviously).

But the Greek equivalent ADELFOI means either “brothers” or “sisters” or both of them.
Click to expand...
It can’t just mean sisters, as it is a masculine noun. I’m not sure if adelphai exists (the appropriate feminine) or if there is another word for sisters. Adelphoi can also mean cousin/ relative I believe. Hence various problems with Biblical allusions to Jesus’ brothers. I hope I got that right, my Greek is a little rusty…
 
johnnydigit said:
i don’t see the need to use “Sisters and brothers”. why don’t they just stick to the norm of “Brothers and sisters”? are they trying to appease feminists? push “equality”? be “modern”? we already know God loves us all. i am trying to understand why some priests do this…

by the way, is it ok to change from “Behold, the Lamb of God” to “This is Jesus”, etc.? there’s so much more to the original (John the Baptist, Passover lamb, etc.) what next, “Here He is…”? i know, “woomp, there He is!”
Click to expand...
Sometimes combinations of words just sound better in a certain order, sometimes it’s habit. I’m sure there are people in marketing somewhere making big bucks polling people about such this. Brothers and sisters is in alphabetical order, is habit and to me sounds better. If the church wanted to be egalitarian then there are far better ways for it to go about it than to put the word “sisters” first.

Your post reminds me of the airline slogans that went from “We move our tail for you” and “Fly the friendly skies” to a kind of who cares…“We get you there.” Too funny!

So, you might be right, someday we may just here…“Y’all know the drill, here he is.”
 
Titus said:
It can’t just mean sisters, as it is a masculine noun. I’m not sure if adelphai exists (the appropriate feminine) or if there is another word for sisters. Adelphoi can also mean cousin/ relative I believe. Hence various problems with Biblical allusions to Jesus’ brothers. I hope I got that right, my Greek is a little rusty…
Click to expand...
I have been taught the same thing about the problems of expressing familial relations in Greek. I don’t think it is automatically to be assumed, though, that the gender of a noun has to directly apply to the gender of persons it describes. Gender as a quality of nouns isn’t always so restricted, and how the restrictions that do exist apply differ from language to language and even from noun to noun within the same language. You could say that “gender” as applied to persons is a different word than the same word when it is applied to nouns. I am no Greek scholar, so what this has to do with “adelphoi” may be another thing altogether. Still, if you were to imagine that the English word “sibling” were masculine with regards to pronoun and modification of adjectives, it would not follow that the word could not be used when all the siblings in question were female.
 
ForMary said:
Your post reminds me of the airline slogans that went from “We move our tail for you” and “Fly the friendly skies” to a kind of who cares…“We get you there.” Too funny!

So, you might be right, someday we may just here…“Y’all know the drill, here he is.”
Click to expand...
“you wanna go? we dun already flew up in there!” (ghetto delta airlines skit -beware)

ebonics in the Mass?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top