Posted on 04/05/2005 6:39:32 PM PDT by sionnsar
Excellent advice.
I think that Catholicism is also radically incarnational. We are a sacramental people whose whole basis for understanding ourselves and the world is through the incarnation itself. This is not to exclude Orthodoxy, of course. It is highly mystical, and I am sure that it must be experienced to be appreciated. The same is true, however, of solemn Catholic liturgies, not the ones that are all too conventional these days in the West. United to the Western (Latin) Rite are the Eastern Rite Churches. The late Holy Father called them the other lung of the Catholic Church, whose emphasis on experiencing the Lord through the solemn mystical liturgy is something that we should all seek. There is a rich tradition of mysticism in the Catholic Church, and I think that it is here that Catholics and Orthodox have so much in common. But I do have a deep and abiding admiriation for Orthodoxy. It is so solemn and liturgically rich. I am sure that we Catholics need to respond more to the example given us by the Churches of the East.
I dare say, if the whole world lived this prayer, our Great God wouldn't make us spend another day down here on Earth. He'd take us all home, kiss us on both cheeks, & give us our crowns of glory. Sounds heavenly, doesn't it? ;-)
"I have to say that over the course of my years in the Orthodox Church I have determined that there are two issues that divide the West from the East on such a fundamental level that they must be overcome for any real reunion to take place. These are the Latin (Augustinian) doctrine of original GUILT..."
Unfortunately, the writer starts from a totally false premise. There is no such thing as "original guilt", the Latin Church teaches the doctrine of Original Sin - the consequences of which all people suffer including separation from God. However it would be totally false to speak of any "personal guilt" for Original Sin.
I have no problem with people wanting to offer critiques of Latin theology, but it is very tiresome to hear these pathetic whines about theology which the Church has never taught in the first place!
Is the Anglican Use Liturgy valid for Sunday Obligations, similar to attending Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy Masses?
How is it that I have "no personal guilt" for the original sin of Adam & Eve? All of humanity was within the physical bodies of the first two human beings in minute form. I was there, you were there, and we were a part of those bodies that reached for and ate the forbidden fruit.
With every fiber of their being (in which we were physically included), they CHOSE to disobey God. We were there.
Some of the very very Augustinian faiths do have the kind of view that he mentions.
Actually it is Satan. And a human agency which has fallen to a temptation.
Having just had this discussion with my spiritual father yesterday during a confessional time....my questions were directly related to this statement.
"Never confuse the person, formed in the image of God, with the evil that is in him, because evil is but a chance misfortune, illness, a devilish reverie. But the very essence of the person is the image of God, and this remains in him despite every disfigurement."
St. John of Kronstadt
In the Orthodox church we know that our clergy are human and sinners. They come before us at every liturgy and bow to us, saying "Forgive me my brothers and sisters and pray for me, a sinner".
Please forgive this clergy member of our church, who has been so offensive to you. I am deeply saddened to hear of his illness and how it has been displayed.
"Is the Anglican Use Liturgy valid for Sunday Obligations, similar to attending Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy Masses?"
Yes. I have attended Mass at two Anglican use parishes. Both had pastors who were incardinated priests of the local Catholic diocese.
MarMema, thank you for the offer. I will keep it in mind, but I must also note it is very hard for us to get away. My wife is our church organist, and we have nobody else in case she's gone. (It's difficult for me to get away too, but that requires much more explanation.) For a couple of years now we've wanted to visit a new sister Anglican church further north, and have never gotten there.
"How is it that I have "no personal guilt" for the original sin of Adam & Eve? All of humanity was within the physical bodies of the first two human beings in minute form. I was there, you were there, and we were a part of those bodies that reached for and ate the forbidden fruit."
You have no personal guilt for the Original Sin because you did not commit it.
Because we are all (prior to adoption as sons of God) in Adam's family, we all suffer the consequences of Original Sin, i.e. death, sickness, concupiscence, and being born outside of God's covenant family - dis-graced. It prevents us from participating in the divine life of God until his free and sovereign action of grace subjectively redeems us from it.
However, while the consequences of Original Sin apply to all humanity, that is not the same as saying that it is a personal guilt as though we had committed the sin ourselves.
"Actually he said west from east, and in that context he would be correct. Don't be so defensive. :-)"
Fair enough - with a very judicious helping of context! ;)
"Some of the very very Augustinian faiths do have the kind of view that he mentions."
Yes - the ones that are more Augustinian than Augustine.
Actually, the fondness of English speaking peoples for the BCP (and Scriptural translations into Early Modern English, like the Coverdell Psalter, which is used at St. Michael Skete, a small OCA men's monastery in New Mexico, and the King James Version) is understandable--it is the highest (in the literary sense) form of English, and thus resonates with the natural desire of Christians to offer God our best.
More to the point of the thread, there is a wonderful story of a wise Orthodox priest who was asked by a Latin what the biggest difference between their churches was. The priest said, "Ah. . .the biggest difference is that whereas you have St. Augustine and Blessed John Cassian, we have St. John Cassian and Blessed Augustine."
Read a bit of the two Fathers and you'll see how that little shift in emphasis is, indeed the root of all the differences.
For Orthodoxy, theology (and economy--the study of God's interaction with His creation) are positive sciences, while the West, from Augustine on, has seen them as synthetic sciences. The Latin 'maximalist' penchant for making definitions when no controversy born of heresy was besetting the West and for setting out one-size-fits-all moral guidance full of legalistic exceptions, and the protestant minimalism, trying to figure out by rationalistic study of the Scriptures what are the fewest things which must be done to be saved, are the opposite sides of this coin.
For the Orthodox, the Church is a hospital for those sick with sin, not a law court, not even a merciful law court which offers forgiveness along with penance. Both Latin and protestant are concerned with rules and legalisms--either creating them, be it the Papal Magesterium or the Baptist rule against dancing, or denying them under the heading of "sole fide" or "sole [fill in the blank depending on the protestant sect]".
Holy Orthodoxy is concerned with what works, what actually overcomes the passions, what actually brings true repentence, what we know of God from experience, whether that of ancient Israel, of the Holy Apostles and others who were with Christ during his earthly ministry, of the saints in all the age since, or our own--which must be checked against the accumulated experience of the Church (a.k.a. Holy Tradition, of which incidentally Scripture is a central part)--to be of any value.
(Anglicanism suffered greatly from having dissected Holy Tradition into Scripture, Tradition and Reason--or perhaps vivisected, since it did sort of alright until the modifier "God-informed" got dropped from Reason, after which Tradition supplemented by Experience not checked against Holy Tradition, and was thus effectively jetisoned, and the modern apostacy set in.)
I would be interested in a link to an official statement of Catholic faith that specifically rejects the idea of original guilt. Are you saying that the Catholic church now teaches that unbaptized infants who die go straight to heaven, since they have not sinned?
Orinial Sin is not actual sin. Original Sin is a condition into which humans are born as a consequence of Adams disobedience. Remember the words of St. Paul: "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive." We suffer the consequences of sin. Sin impacts all people regardless of their having committed it. Hence, the Virgin Mary suffered in life and died. Hence Jesus suffered and died. And they were sinless. But more than that, what Adam's disobedience did was leave him incomplete, half-created, unable to be pleasing to God. We, as descendants of Adam on the natural order, have inherited incompleteness. Had Adam cooperated with the Word of God and been obedient, we would have all inherited Original Justice, which is the condition in which Adam and Eve were created. Through the Son, who became the only true man to ever live, and the life of grace, we are capable of pleasing the Father and entering into the intimacy with Him from which sin excludes us.
It is true that the ordinary means by which we are cleansed of Original Sin is baptism, the Sacrament by which we become members of the Body of Christ and adopted sons and daughters of God. That is not to say, however, that God does not offer an extraordinary means by which He operates to save children who die at or before birth and have no guilt of actual sin. We simply do not know what God does. Similarly, Confession is the ordinary means by which grave sins are forgiven, but God can still offer perfect contrition by an extraordinary grace to a sinner. We do not presume that our inability to understand God's mercy binds His activity in any way.
Official Catholic Explanation
d. Para. 404: How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam "as one body of one man" (St. Thomas Aquinas, De Malo 4, 1). By this "unity of the human race" all men are implicated in Adam's sin, as all are implicated in Christ's justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam has received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state (Cf. Council of Trent: DS 1511-1512). It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed"—a state and not an act.
link to official Church teaching:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/visible4.html
Yes. It is the Anglican Use of the Roman Rite and each priest is incardinated in the local diocese. The parish, however, is 'personal' in terms of its erection by the local bishop/archbishop and its boundaries extend to those of the diocese or archdiocese rather than fitting within the parochial bounds of the normal Latin rite parishes.
Absolutely, and those pining for liturgical dignity will not be disappointed. Texas is particularly rich in Anglican Use parishes.
Others have freepmailed me, there is one possible in PA, but mostly TX has enjoyed Anglican Use Liturgy parishes. Parish boundries are not very strong in FL, and people seem to ignore them freely.
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