Using “God” in place of “he” during Mass

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I have heard some pretty strange things at my parish, but since we never say the Creed (you heard me, we never say a creed of any kind)I haven’t heard THAT.

I only add this because, up until this current parish and the shenanigans, I myself would have looked at that post and thought, "Oh, it MUST be that the poster misheard, or is trying to stir up trouble, because I cannot imagine anything like that ever happening’.

I think most Catholics in the U.S. have been lucky in that they really haven’t been exposed to a lot of abuses. . .while us older ones had to endure a lot in the 60s, 70s, and even 80s, it started to ease off in the 90s and now a larger than ever number of parishes have really wonderful Masses. . .but there are pockets all over where you would, honest to God, think yourself right back in the 1970s with tambourines, ad libs, inclusive language, every liturgical abuse known. . but until you experience it, it is hard to believe it is still happening.

It is, sadly, still happening.
 
As said earlier, there is so much more it worry about. If you think this is all about gender neutral, it might be, but it in no way makes God she either. It is not irrelevant for women to see part of themselves in God either. It might be noted that parts of the Bible assign no sex to God.
 
but there are pockets all over where you would, honest to God, think yourself right back in the 1970s with tambourines, ad libs, inclusive language, every liturgical abuse known. . but until you experience it, it is hard to believe it is still happening.
I’ve been warned to never go to the parish like that in my diocese. TBH, I kinda want to go just so I can say I’ve seen some of the things I’ve heard about online.
 
In the phrase “and He came down from heaven and became essence,” how come the pronoun “He” is tolerated instead of Gd? Further, isn’t Gd already Essence? If so, saying essence instead of man makes no sense. It seems to me this change is a more serious infraction.
 
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If young people go to a parish that, unofficially, does Private interpretation of Scripture, during portions of the Mass, the next logical step is to move on to a congregation that does Private interpretation of Scripture, officially, all the time.

How many young adults in your area have gone over to non denominationals?
 
I’d go as far as saying the priest is promoting heresy, if the word Man is changed to anything else at that moment in the Creed. It’s a rejection of the Incarnation.
 
I remember the 1970s and 80s well. There was an anti conversion mood, that we can modify the Mass, or the doctrine, to suit our preference, rather than us being modified.

In recent years most of the really liturgically liberal priests, as well as sisters and laity committed to using the Liturgy as a tool for social reform, have died or are close to retirement.

My 70ish cousins, 2 priests, and 2 sisters, are in religious orders with no vocations. My elderly lay activist cousins are still liberal, but their adult kids are essentially gone from the Church.

There are fewer young local priests, but they appear all conservative on liturgy.
 
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People should recite the response as proscribed. People should also disregard the merely tedious habits of others.
 
People should recite the response as proscribed. People should also disregard the merely tedious habits of others.
True. However if the “others” who encourage liturgy-bending include the priest, organist, liturgy planner, or someone else in a leadership role, I would gently mention the concern to them. If no response, and if the pattern repeats, then chain of command.
 
All I’m going to say further is that there is a fine line between obedient faith and legalism. Some here seem to view any variance from the exact wording as pride, that might be more of an issue if there was paraphrasing. Might it also be pride pointing our every little flaw in which a person expresses faith? Catholic prayers are not some magical incarnation, indeed most of them are translated from Latin and often have to be retranslated as living languages evolve. I can guarantee legalism or anything close to it is a major factor in driving off people from religion in general or Catholicism in specific. There was no Golden Age where everyone took the teachings of Rome as absolute, they just had little cover at the time.

I’d also add that the Catholic Church in many ways has lost the authority to absolute obedience as the excessive and grievous abuse have been surfacing for decades has shown.
 
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Yeah I don’t understand it. It’s very strange. Nobody has a problem saying He in one line but then freak out saying He in the next line. Id just prefer we read the official language. If the official language from the Vatican doesn’t say He then don’t say He. But it does say He so we should say He. It’s not a buffet that we pick and chose
 
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“Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
 
some changing all the references about Denmark to New Jersey,
out of all of those, this adaption would be quite consistent with how Shakespeare has been performed since, well, ever. Bits of customization our the norm.

Years ago in San Diego, last their open air globe, they even had a toy plane on a wire to send down and for the actors to stop and stare at while they would have been drowned out by the real one :crazy_face:🤣😜

hawk
 
People today are more interested in everything being presented in a way they can “accept” than the truth. The Personhood of God Himself is less important than people’s ego being caressed.
This not just your parish. It’s something happening everywhere in the Christian world.
I pray HE inspires Church leaders into saying SOMETHING that makes people who keep wanting going vaguer and vaguer so “nobody feels offended” question themselves. Praying for this.
 
Out of curiosity, what language do you speak? The only language I’m familiar with off the top of my head without gendered pronouns is Chinese, which makes me think some other east Asian languages probably do likewise.

Anyway, Greek apparently has gendered pronouns.
See
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Greek_pronouns

Aramaic evidently does as well, even for second person.
See
https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Aramaic/Pronouns
and
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Aramaic and pronouns Apologetics
Hey, I heard that Aramaic has no pronouns. The effect of this is they do not have “you”. So when Nicodemus came to Jesus in the middle of the night, and He said, “unless a man be…” it was like saying “unless you be…” . Is this true. And if so what implications does it have when Jesus is saying things like “You will see the Son of Man…” during the trial, or when he says to his disciples “The Son of Man will be handed over.” I always wondered why/thought it was odd Jesus was referring to hi…
 
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Thank you. I speak one of the polynesian languages. None of the languages in this group have gendered pronouns. In effect people and things are just called ‘it’ but with no hint of the disrespect this would convert in English.
 
The root of liturgical abuses is the sin of pride.
I have a lot of garbage I have to go along with that I don’t like, at work, home, church, stores. I will never understand priests that think they are exempt from obedience because the know better than the whole rest of the Church. Would I report this? No. Would I think a lot less of a priest that does this? Yes. There is an arrogance in re-writing the liturgy to suit yourself.

Now people in the pews that do this, I just accept that we are all still learning. When musicians do this, or the Church changes some words around, I have no problem with the substitution in theory.
 
Well, it is probably divine retribution because back in the 1970s in college I was part of a Folk Group and yes --I know it is hard to picture rigid ol’ Purl but it’s true–I played the tambourine and (gulp) the piano. Yes I did. Weston Priory, St. Louis Jesuits, et al.

But for heaven’s sake, if I have to go back and relieve the 70s can I at least have the hair I had then, or the waistline? I’d settle for even one!!
 
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