Was The OF Created By Protestants?

[triumphguy]

Most of the vocation numbers are for diocesan priests and ignore vocations to religious life, religious priesthood and completely ignores the explosion in the diaconate all over the world.

Bennedict XVI recently took western bishops to the woodshed for promoting diocesan priesthood at the expense of religious life.

I remember a recent thread bemoaning the fact that there was one priest at a recent ordination in New York City until it was pointed out that the one priest was diocesan while 13 (as I recall) religious priests were ordained that day as well.

-Tim-

Yep.
Good point.

 

[1AugustSon7]

But it had never been used in the Catholic Mass. In fact, any use of the all-vernacular in the Mass is something which the Reformers could claim as their idea.

Actually, the petition to “give us this day our daily bread”, for instance, is an expression of English Catholic genius par-excellence, even if it wasn’t deliberate or realized.

The petition contains the dynamic of the prayer: we are asking this day for our daily (perpetual, perennial) “bread”. We are asking for eternity now. It is quite probably the only way of expressing in English, with a similar genius or native wit of language, the equivalent Greek: Marana tha and/or Maran atha. This petition was not a human translation. It was and is the work and fruit of the Holy Spirit, already mysteriously present and laying the ground-work for Christianity in the most ordinary of things and, in this case, the words for signifying those things, just as God was already at work so Koine Greek would be perfectly sufficient for enshrining the Gospel in written form, or Aramaic in spoken: our Lord loved and loves to hide the most profound of truths in plain sight, concealed (and thereby simultaneously ensured and protected) in the most simple, ordinary and for-granted things. Cf. any of the parables.

 

[Jordan_Rizk]

It sure was!

 

[CatholicGeek1]

Coolest. Word. Ever. Had to say it. And as ever, thank-you Brother.

Now to the OP/subject:

“May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of His Name; for our good, and the good of all his holy Church.”

'nuff said.

My Protestant best friend since high school was over this weekend. He attends (rarely) a very modern Protestant mega-church. He was shocked (in Catholic: scandalized) to hear the Beatles and other older/early rock songs being played in their service, and told his very faithful mother, “Mom, you realize these guys were probably high when they wrote this, right?”

He’s been to an Italian OF Midnight Mass and one or two other OF Masses. Here’s what he said to me about it:

“… Now [you] Catholics. You do religion.”

There’s just something about the Catholic Mass that seperates it from the herd, even the most modernized versions at least to, e.g., Protestants. For my Protestant friend, even very (by Catholic standards) modernized and “toned-down” Masses constitute a ‘boat-load’ - a “whopper” - of “religion”. The priest’s chanting at some parts made him feel as if he was being transported interiorly (not his actual words, because he didn’t know how to describe it) into a certain ‘something else’. For him, contact with the holy and the eminently spiritual could only be described as “religion” in his vocabularly: i.e., something profoundly different and new. Something touched his soul, and because it was simultaneously radically new and radically intimate, his instinst was something like the “fight or flight” instinct.

Now imagine what my Protestant friend would have said if he walked into an EF in full solemnity: it would have been a “religion” overload and it would have been the first and only time he was willing to attend a Catholic Mass. Next Sunday, he is coming with me to our city’s most spectacular and beautiful Church -designed after Notre Dame in Paris- for the simple reason that it is our city’s landmark and he feels somehow duty bound to experience it as such, partly as a denizen of the city and partly as a Christian. “Walking” him through all that “religion” in the OF is going to be work enough. I couldn’t possibly walk him through the EF: there’s just too many layers for a beginner in all of this “religion” experience.

**1366 **The Eucharist is thus a sacrifice because it re-presents (makes present) the sacrifice of the cross, because it is its memorial and because it applies its fruit…

**1367 **The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice: “The victim is one and the same: the same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered himself on the cross; only the manner of offering is different.” "And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner. . . this sacrifice is truly propitiatory."190

That’s from the CCC. Reading it and the paragraphs around it make it absolutely clear what happens at Mass, as it has always happened in every valid Mass throughout history. If Protestants as such were consulted at any point, at these points their opinions were certainly taken simply as such: their opinions. If there was a coup d’etat at Vatican II, it more than failed; indeed, it completely back-fired: in fact, never in history has the truth and beauty of the Mass been so plainly and clearly described as it is, e.g., by the modern CCC; moreover, what I quoted from the OF above absolutely explodes any possibility of misconceiving Catholic doctrine or belief as it regards the Eucharist, especially because we are expected to express it - to actually say, even pray it - (to the priest) and in the vernacular. Ony wilfull blindness or a spritual curse (the state of spritual blindness) could possibly cause someone to see the OF as being “Protestant”. No Protestant would ever beg God to accept a Eucharistic “sacrifice” at a priest’s “hands”.

 

[Cristiano]

It sure was!
http://www.traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/Images/090_PaulVIandProts.jpg

Please read post #3 and tell me in which category you are putting yourself, the heretics or the ones making derogatory and sinful thus statements about the Church?

 

[1AugustSon7]

Question your logic.

Go back to the mid-16th century and contrast the number of people becoming Protestant in stupendously and overwhelming Catholic Europe to the numbers becoming Catholic.

Modern secular culture is often deliberately, lethally poisonous to Christianity; and it’s most venomous exactly where the potential fruit would be most abundant. In those places you mentioned the enemy fights all the harder; in fact, if you want to measure the Church’s strength and vitality, take a cue from where her enemies concentrate their energies and efforts. They perceive the threat and, if it wasn’t a threat, they wouldn’t waste their time and resources trying to stiffle it. Christianity in Europe has been under seige for centuries and it still remains. That’s a miracle enough for me: a single ordination is a miracle. A single relatively intelligent, affluent young European male giving his life to God in celibacy when the world woos and tempts him into a very realistic possibility of perpetual indulgence in every comfort and pleasure conceivable is a miracle.

Hi again OraLabora,

Something else occurred to me since my earlier reply to you. (note that I do fully accept the logic in your point above).

How about comparing the vitality of traditional organisations (say SSPX and FSSP) with the ‘mainstream’ (if you will) church.

France is expected to ordain 76 priests in total in 2013
dici.org/en/news/france-96-diocesan-priests-ordained-this-year/

“England and Wales” is expected to ordain 30 priests in 2013.
cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=31857

These are pretty low figures. About 35 million French people in the modern day are Catholic. France has fallen from ordaining ~1000 priests per year in the 1950s, to less than 100 per year now.

And while Catholics are a minority of ~5 million in England and Wales, see how the link provided excitedly raves about a mere 30 ordinations. (though of course, as it a rising figure, I do not dispute this is good news).

In contrast, look at the comparatively miniscule, (compared to the Catholic populations of the nations above), traditionalist organisations performance:

The FSSP (a small, fully canonical priestly organisation of just 236 ordained priests; HQ in Rome (I think)):

Since 2001, they have ordained an average of 12 men per year.
fssp.org/en/chiffres.htm

The SSPX (trad group with just less than 1,000,000 worshippers; HQ in Switzerland)

Since 1999, they have ordained approximately 20 men per year (I worked it out as 19.7 )
sspx.org/miscellaneous/sspx_statistics_12-21-2012/sspx_statistics_12-20-2012.htm

These figures compare very favourably indeed with the mainstream Church in western European nations, especially when you consider the traditional groups are like specks of dust, size wise, compared to the large Catholic populations mentioned.

If they were multiplied, pro-rata, for some equivalence in size of the potential pool of vocations,they would most comprehensively eclipse the numbers of novus ordo ordinations.

So while I take your point that, at the time of Vatican II, there was a very high degree of social flux which also must have had some influence on religion in society - meaning it is hard to isolate the effect of liturgical change for analysis - how do you explain the very noticeable different in modern vitality, in terms of priestly vocations, of the traditional groups compared top the novus ordo Church?

What is it that these groups are doing differently, apart from the obvious?
How do you explain their comparative success?

Given the ageing priesthood in many western nations is facing a desperate crisis of new recruits, if I were a Bishop, looking at these figures, I would be screaming for the traditional way of doing things.

 

[1AugustSon7]

If we’re looking somewhere else to satisfy the shortage of vocations, I daresay the part of the world that will be really fertile will be Africa. FSSP and SSPX? Peanuts in comparison! Your next parish priest may be African. I’ve already seen it here in Quebec (and also some Polish priests).

It’s the same thing here in Ontario, brother

And my goodness, I never got quite the same shriving as I did from my first holy Polish priest who reconciled me to God and His holy Church! Will never forget it.

 

[Cavaradossi]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases_(O

I suppose, but then we run into the problem of believing that the Latin Vulgate used by later Latin Fathers, the Septuagint used by the Greek fathers, and the Syriac versions of the New Testament Epistles are all corrupted. I don’t think translation must necessarily lead to corruption, because even though the translator must first interpret what he wishes to translate, those steeped in the apostolic tradition would not manage to corrupt the gospel and the true faith through misinterpretation in the process of translating the Scriptures

 

[ProVobis]

“May the Lord accept the sacrifice at your hands, for the praise and glory of His Name; for our good, and the good of all his holy Church.”

'nuff said.

Hmmm. If we’re just going to go with the usage of the word “sacrifice” I offer this from the Book of Common Prayers, 1549,

(at the Consecration)

“…who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world: and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death and sacrifice, until his coming again.”
…

“And we earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness, mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; most humbly beseeching thee to grant that, by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, and through faith in his blood, we, and all thy whole Church, may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion…And although we are unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer thee any sacrifice; yet we beseech thee to accept this our bounden duty and service;…”

Comments?

Some more background, if you have time:

forwardinchrist.org/?p=270

 

[Annabelle_Marie]

Yes indeed, but I was limiting the comparison to performance specifically within the western / developed world.

Why the marked difference?

No doubt, but the liturgical change has also caused big changes in attitudes and how people live the faith.

For example, when I visited an SSPX church recently, they were going to do Benediction after the mass.

I dont even know what that is. Why? Because its never something I have personally encountered in the novus ordo church, in practice or discussion, or been taught about by anyone.

I find it hard to believe that a traditional worshipper could possibly be as ignorant as I am, (and as so many novus ordo Catholic are), about the full spectrum of the Catholic faith.

I don’t know about that…I attend an OF church…and we have Benediction EVERY Wed night:thumbsup:

 

[ProVobis]

I don’t think translation must necessarily lead to corruption, because even though the translator must first interpret what he wishes to translate, …

Even using synonyms and paraphrasing corrupts the thought. Take Shakespeare, for example. Does Cliff’s Notes or some Chinese translation really do it justice? Now he may understand the plot, but can someone reading only Chinese have a real and deep appreciation for Shakespeare and the very words he carefully chose?

It’s especially corruptive when translating from an inflective language to a non-inflective one. When I used to translate Polish to English in the labs, I would usually put in a disclaimer to the effect that this is only my understanding of the original, that it not be used as gospel truth. Nevertheless they had nothing else to go on so the work essentially belonged to me. It wasn’t a very comfortable situation so I left.

By the way, I believe it was the Clementine Bible which was used as the standard which was submitted to the Gutenberg printing press. The Vulgate had been copied and recopied many times by the monks and all kinds of writing errors crept in. These were consolidated as much as possible and produced what Trent officially recognized.

 

[OraLabora]

It sure was!
http://www.traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/Images/090_PaulVIandProts.jpg

Sorry, I don’t buy your conspiracy theory.

 

[TimothyH]

It sure was!
http://www.traditioninaction.org/RevolutionPhotos/Images/090_PaulVIandProts.jpg

And the picture below proves equally well that Summorum Pontificum was created by Barak Obama.

http://dawncompk.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/obama-pope-ap-670.jpg?w=670&h=350

-Tim-

 

[EphelDuath]

it appears as though the Holy Father is chuckling at your rebuttal

 

[JReducation]

The Doxology to the Pater Noster, for one? Not to mention using a modernized version of Henry VIII’s Our Father in the English Mass.

Actually, the Doxology is not Protestant. It’s Pauline Theology. It was in use by the Augustinians from whom Martin Luther came. If one observes, it’s not appended to the Our Father in Catholic circles. The Lutherans did not have a setting as did the Augustinians. The Doxology ended being appended to the Lord’s Prayer.

The English translation of the Lord’s prayer is very accurate. I says what is said in Aramaic. The fact that the Anglicans had the first English translation does not make it Protestant. English is not a Protestant language.

Neither of these make the mass Protestant.

Coolest. Word. Ever. Had to say it. And as ever, thank-you Brother.

No Protestant would ever beg God to accept a Eucharistic “sacrifice” at a priest’s “hands”.

Not likely.

 

[sw85]

Brother JR for Pope?

Think about it, folks. He’s holy. He knows his theology. I’m pretty sure he speaks many languages. And he’s already tech-savvy – he’d be the first Pope with a blog!

Long live Pope Francis!

 

[JReducation]

Brother JR for Pope?

Think about it, folks. He’s holy. He knows his theology. I’m pretty sure he speaks many languages. And he’s already tech-savvy – he’d be the first Pope with a blog!

Long live Pope Francis!

Son, I love you to death, but I have to tell you the truth. YOU’VE LOST YOUR MIND!

By the way, there is a historical precedent. Every Franciscan pope has been a holy soul, but a lousy administrator.

A Pope Francis I Sounds nice. I have no idea why it has never occurred to anyone to be called Francis, Augustine, Dominic or Ignatius. Of the big religious reformers we’ve only had Benedict.

 

[Oneofthewomen]

His Holiness Pope Ignatius I (“Iggy 1”) sounds awsome to me!!!

Son, I love you to death, but I have to tell you the truth. YOU’VE LOST YOUR MIND!

By the way, there is a historical precedent. Every Franciscan pope has been a holy soul, but a lousy administrator.

A Pope Francis I Sounds nice. I have no idea why it has never occurred to anyone to be called Francis, Augustine, Dominic or Ignatius. Of the big religious reformers we’ve only had Benedict.

 

[JReducation]

His Holiness Pope Ignatius I (“Iggy 1”) sounds awsome to me!!!

Pope Iggy, Pope Frank, Pope Dom, or Pope Augie.

It’s funny, because in more informal conversations I’ve heard Pope Benedict referred to as Benny and Ben and Pope John Paul as JP II; but I never heard John XXIII referred to as Jack.

If I were ever to change my name again, I would choose Joseph. I have a special friendship with and admiration for St. Joseph.

 

[ProVobis]

The English translation of the Lord’s prayer is very accurate. I says what is said in Aramaic.

Br JR, nonetheless at least one or two websites call the translation rather “curious.” I suppose at the time Henry VIII mandated it, there were other, arguably better English versions, but Henry’s was accepted as gospel truth so I’ll let it go at that.

English is not a Protestant language.

Well, checking the number of English speakers and their religions, I would say it’s not much of a Catholic language either.