H
hadulzo
Guest
Occams razor. Its a hard saying so the took it out.
- Status
po18guy
Well-known member
My intent was nothing of the sort. If my wording was clumsy, I apologize. I merely searched for an ancient document that would give some guidance consistent with that verse.
I was not addressing sacramental confession - only confession in the general sense as it related to reception of the Eucharist.
I was not addressing sacramental confession - only confession in the general sense as it related to reception of the Eucharist.
M
MNathaniel
Guest
I apologize for any confusion, friend, but my comment was a reply to the person who replied to you.
Your quote was just embedded in my quote of what they said.
po18guy
Well-known member
Danged software! Yeah, you have to go through the post you are replying to and highlight the quotes within that post and delete them. Although I am getting pretty good at apologizing to others.
As to forum stresses in general, life is very short - therefore I take time off occasionally - until I realize that I “might” have something to contribute.
As to forum stresses in general, life is very short - therefore I take time off occasionally - until I realize that I “might” have something to contribute.
G
Gorgias
Guest
If one is not in a state of mortal sin, then yes, this is correct.
Right. Because that’s what canon law and the catechism say. Although it’s generally true, there are a couple of exceptions to that stance. So, I speak up when someone suggests that it’s a standard that must be held without exception. That’s all.
Sure. The answer is “for a couple of reasons.”
First, the consistent teaching of the Church is that, if a person is in a state of merely venial sin, then prayer, participation in the Mass, and reception of the Eucharist each are sufficient to forgive that sin. As memory serves, Augustine wrote on this teaching, among others.
Second, in the early Church, there was a significant theological kerfuffle over how – and even whether! – those who committed mortal sin might be forgiven! (Again, if memory serves, Augustine discussed this matter in terms of the “big three” sins – adultery/fornication, apostasy, murder.). Some taught that no forgiveness was possible (look up the story of Tertullian for an example of this, as well as the controversy surrounding the ‘lapsi’). Others thought that one might be able to be forgiven of mortal sin once and once only after baptism, but no more than that. Eventually, the Church decided that not only “one strike and you’re out” was mistaken, but also “two strikes and you’re out” was in error. Penances in the early Church could be really, really harsh – but the Church decided that “70 times 70 times” meant what it said.
So, let’s look at the question at hand in light of this dynamic. It would be highly problematic to look at the text in the Didache and conclude that they were talking about mortal sin, since “confess and then go receive the Eucharist” would only have been understood in the context of venial sin at that point in the life of the Church.
So… yes. It seems reasonable to conclude that “silent interior prayer” – for the forgiveness of venial sin – would be included in the author’s intent in that document. (So would “public prayer”, as it were.) The point, however, is that it seems unreasonable that the intent is to suggest that personal (and/or silent) prayer could be taken in the context of mortal sin.
Make sense?
G
Gorgias
Guest
Yes. But – and this is critical – only if you’re unable to approach the sacrament of reconciliation. If you’re unable to do so, then there’s the possibility of receiving the Eucharist. If a person is able to do so, but chooses (for whatever reason) to not approach the sacrament of reconciliation, then this option is not open to him.
Scriptural scholarship – whether it decides to be inclusive or exclusive of a particular verse or passage – isn’t “progressive” (or “conservative”, for that matter!) by virtue of that discernment, as such!
Yep. 'Cause the Mass isn’t a Bible study, as such. Go to a good Catholic Bible study if you want a thorough treatment of book(s) of the Bible. Go to Mass if you want to hear some Scripture proclaimed and preached in the context of the liturgy itself and the community’s lived situation at that time and place.
Meh. Misuse of the ‘razor’.
Blame Chavez…
J
Jen95
Guest
?Jen95:
Yep. 'Cause the Mass isn’t a Bible study, as such. Go to a good Catholic Bible study if you want a thorough treatment of book(s) of the Bible. Go to Mass if you want to hear some Scripture proclaimed and preached in the context of the liturgy itself and the community’s lived situation at that time and place.
Isn’t the Mass supposed to be kind of like “Bible study”? The ultimate Bible study?!
I don’t know, it seems odd (wrong?) that the readings cut out little parts of the Scripture.
Do you think that most people realize that they are not getting the whole text? I think a lot of Catholics think that they get “the whole Bible” in the 3-year reading cycle (which, of course they don’t nearly get, unless they go to each Daily Mass as well).
Last edited:
Tis_Bearself
Patron
As a daily Massgoer for a few years now, I can testify you don’t get the whole Bible even if you attend Mass every day of the year. You get almost all of the Gospels but only get selected chunks from every other book. The only way you get the whole Bible is by sitting down and reading the whole Bible on your own. (I’m on my second time through it cover to cover.) Those who are interested will indeed read the Bible on their own, or take a Bible study course. Some people are not that motivated to read lots of the Bible and that might work fine for them. My mother managed to be a very good Catholic and while she was very familiar with most of the Gospels (I discovered once she had no knowledge of Jesus cursing the fig tree), I doubt she knew much of anything about the OT or the rest of the NT after Pentecost happened.
I am not a big fan of the Church cutting out verses they think are too “difficult”, whether it’s verses discussing “damnation” or verses discussing some misdeeds committed by Jewish people. (I believe we had a similar discussion on here before about the verse dealing with Paul’s escape from murderers via a basket being cut out of the readings.) However, when it comes to a specific verse, people would hear it at Mass maybe one to three times maximum over a whole year, and some of those times might well be at daily Masses that most people would miss or that might be replaced with readings for an optional memorial, so it’s hard to see a big effect on the congregation from either including or omitting the verse. Even if the verse was included, the homilist could choose to preach on some other aspect of the day’s scriptures.
The main reason why people usually object to this Corinthians verse being cut is because they see it as evidence that the Church is just allowing all kinds of sinners to receive unworthy communion, without them repenting and confessing first. In reality, I’ve still heard priests give occasional homilies on the need for confession and the need to be properly disposed to receive Communion, without needing to reference this particular verse.
Last edited:
G
Gorgias
Guest
No, it’s not. Not as such, or at least, not in the way that we think about dedicated Bible studies. The purpose of the Mass isn’t “Bible study”, it’s: prayer, praise, worship, the celebration of the sacrifice of the Eucharist, all in the setting of the body of Christ gathered as one. Proclamation of the Word of God is part of that context, but it isn’t the raison d’etre for it. (Protestant worship, on the other hand? Generally, it’s hearing the Word and hearing a lecture on it.)
Right: if your concept of the liturgy is “big ol’ Sunday Bible study”, then that makes sense. However… that’s not what the Mass is.
I wonder. I think that this meme is out there (and it’s as inaccurate for folks who go to daily Mass as it is for folks who only go to Sunday Mass!).
Tis_Bearself
Patron
Right. From a practical standpoint, daily Mass has 2 readings per Mass, plus Psalm, and Sunday Mass has 3 readings per Mass, plus Psalm. If we were actually going to devote the homily to a true “Bible Study” and cover all the readings and Psalm per Mass, it would require probably 30 minutes to an hour for daily Mass, and 45 minutes to 2 hours for Sunday Mass. And that’s minimum. I’ve seen Protestant ministers who can speak for 2 hours about one short reading. Obviously when the whole daily Mass is fitting into a half hour or less, and the homily is like 5 minutes on weekdays and maybe 15-20 minutes on Sunday, we barely scratch the surface of the readings, and the main point is to give the congregation some insight that they can take away and use to be better Catholics in their daily life. It’s not to explore all the nuances or stuff going on in all the readings for a given day.
If Mass were the ultimate Bible study, we would not need Great Adventure and Walking with Purpose and Women of Grace and all the other Catholic Bible study programs out there. People who wanted to study the Bible could just go to Mass regularly.
J
Jen95
Guest
Woah woah woah.
Is that a totally acknowledged normal thing? We know that the Church cuts verses out of the lectionary that “they” think are too “difficult”?
Does everyone know this? It’s openly known and acknowledged? Is everyone supposed to know this?
Considering that Catholics traditionally are not known as big Bible readers, it’s a little disturbing - - like the Catholic Church has its own expurgated version of the Bible that we use as the lectionary?
Last edited:
J
Jen95
Guest
?!Gorgias:
Right. From a practical standpoint, daily Mass has 2 readings per Mass, plus Psalm, and Sunday Mass has 3 readings per Mass, plus Psalm. If we were actually going to devote the homily to a true “Bible Study” and cover all the readings and Psalm per Mass, it would require probably 30 minutes to an hour for daily Mass, and 45 minutes to 2 hours for Sunday Mass. And that’s minimum. I’ve seen Protestant ministers who can speak for 2 hours about one short reading. Obviously when the whole daily Mass is fitting into a half hour or less, and the homily is like 5 minutes on weekdays and maybe 15-20 minutes on Sunday, we barely scratch the surface of the readings, and the main point is to give the congregation some insight that they can take away and use to be better Catholics in their daily life. It’s not to explore all the nuances or stuff going on in all the readings for a given day.
If Mass were the ultimate Bible study, we would not need Great Adventure and Walking with Purpose and Women of Grace and all the other Catholic Bible study programs out there. People who wanted to study the Bible could just go to Mass regularly.
So I kind of have this view of Scott Hahn in the back of my mind - -
I think of all those Bible studies as “extra” - - people didn’t have that stuff for centuries.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
I don’t think the Church goes around announcing it, but there’s a significant amount of stuff in the Bible that didn’t make it into the lectionary. It’s my understanding that the current Lectionary has a lot more Scripture in it than the pre-Vatican II reading cycle, so it’s a bit hard to complain if a small section here or there is omitted. But when you look to see what gets omitted, especially from New Testament (since it would be impossible to cover the whole OT in a 3-year readings cycle unless you did a lot of abnormally long readings), it’s invariably because it’s either boring or “difficult”/ confusing.
The Paul-in-a-basket business came up because we were discussing the story and how exciting it was for kids and looking at a children’s book of it, and it occurred to me I never remembered hearing the thrilling tale of Paul’s escape at Mass my whole life. I checked the lectionary index and the story was pretty obviously omitted from the associated reading.
When Paul escaped from Damascus in a basket Sacred Scripture
The Lectionary indices by Fr Felix Just, SJ are helpful to see just what got left out of the current Lectionary. They’re at the link BartholomewB posted above in the Analyses section.
If people aren’t aware stuff gets left out, I would guess a lot of people aren’t interested/ don’t care and a lot more people read the Bible on their own and aren’t overly focused on which parts are read/ not read at Mass. The Lectionary indices are not a secret though. Anybody who’s truly interested can look them up online.
The Paul-in-a-basket business came up because we were discussing the story and how exciting it was for kids and looking at a children’s book of it, and it occurred to me I never remembered hearing the thrilling tale of Paul’s escape at Mass my whole life. I checked the lectionary index and the story was pretty obviously omitted from the associated reading.
I don’t know if the Church would come up with some “gloss” type justification, but it sure looks to me like the basket story went because it states the Jews were conspiring to kill Paul, which to today’s ears sounds anti-Semitic.
The Lectionary indices by Fr Felix Just, SJ are helpful to see just what got left out of the current Lectionary. They’re at the link BartholomewB posted above in the Analyses section.
If people aren’t aware stuff gets left out, I would guess a lot of people aren’t interested/ don’t care and a lot more people read the Bible on their own and aren’t overly focused on which parts are read/ not read at Mass. The Lectionary indices are not a secret though. Anybody who’s truly interested can look them up online.
Last edited:
Tis_Bearself
Patron
With respect, Scott Hahn does some good work, but he’s coming from a Protestant background and specializes in Bible study. I’m fine with reading his analyses of Scripture; there are a few Protestants or former Protestants who I find very insightful in that regard.
But I don’t need him to tell me what the liturgy is, or how Scripture fits into it. The Mass is the unbloody sacrifice of Jesus, it’s not Bible study. And we have had Bible study since the days of the Church fathers and St Jerome. They didn’t do their main work at liturgical services.
Here’s how much of Scripture you actually get to even HEAR at Mass. With the exception of the Gospels and a few other NT books, it’s not much, though it’s lots more than pre-Vatican II.
If a person isn’t a daily Massgoer, it’s quite a small amount one hears at church.
https://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Statistics.htm
But I don’t need him to tell me what the liturgy is, or how Scripture fits into it. The Mass is the unbloody sacrifice of Jesus, it’s not Bible study. And we have had Bible study since the days of the Church fathers and St Jerome. They didn’t do their main work at liturgical services.
Here’s how much of Scripture you actually get to even HEAR at Mass. With the exception of the Gospels and a few other NT books, it’s not much, though it’s lots more than pre-Vatican II.
If a person isn’t a daily Massgoer, it’s quite a small amount one hears at church.
https://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Statistics.htm
Last edited:
J
Jen95
Guest
If you look at a thread like this, many Catholics do seem to think that a lot of the Bible is covered in three years. Only some people dig in to the fact that that’s pretty inaccurate.
Reading the Entire Bible in 3 Years at Mass? Sacred Scripture
J
Jen95
Guest
I’m imagining a new marketing campaign from the USCCB - “we actually don’t read that much of the Bible at Mass, and we leave the challenging stuff out of the lectionary, just to be clear”.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
Well, lots of people come here with lots of misinformation, and the best we can do is post a good source and try to set them straight.
Last edited:
M
MikeInVA
Guest
The breadth of the Bible is covered, even if not every verse is included in the missal. From what I understand, there is no protestant denomination that can match the systematic diversity of readings in the Catholic lectionary.
- Status