Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
We still have the Divine Hours, although not as commonly as you do, probably. None of our local churches do it (though we certainly can do it privately). No incense at daily Mass, but some Sundays get the works. I think the catechumen dismissal stems from the re-instalment of the RCIA rituals after Vatican 2. This was part of the ancient practice of the catechumenate. Before Vatican 2, adults were trained individually by the priest and brought in more privately. Now, it is a community affair and knowledge of the faith is only one aspect of RCIA. Do you also have RCIA in the Orthodox?
I would imagine the Mass is uniform no matter where it is served.
I don't know if you are familiar with McDonalds, but they are more uniform, I think! There is more leeway given to Liturgical groups to adhere to local culture, as the Mass is not only a sacrifice but a meal... This, while a good reasoning in theory, has led to abuses that have not been entirely curbed yet. The majority of the Mass is pretty uniform, and priests are required to speak certain words at certain times. No ab libbing! But music is not uniform, the Eucharistic ministers and Lectors are not uniform, and I think one can detect a difference between liberal and conservative parishes on their emphasis.
I went to one parish and I saw the Blessed Sacrament reserved in a Temple surrounded what looked to be chicken wire... I suppose it was supposed to be modern art. And I had a hard time finding the priest after Communion. He didn't sit in the President's chair, but in a chair in the nave along with the rest of the "peons"! "Where's that priest"? It was a bit strange for my taste. I don't advocate a return to Latin, but I think we can clean up some of this a bit.
Regards
Me too!
"I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" Gal 2:20
As I have labored to express, we must keep two truths in mind. First, we can do nothing pleasing to God without God's grace. And second, God expects a response, one of love and obedience to His commandments. YOU will be judged based on how you respond to God's gifts. Naturally, this can only be accomplished by Christ living in us - as we can do nothing without the "vine"
I ask you to meditate on both of these truths expressed in the following verses:
"work out your own saving health with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure" Phil 2:12b-13
Regards
I guess people who can't read are in big trouble. I suppose the majority of people who didn't have a bible the first 1500 years of Christianity are eternally in hell because they didn't study their commentaries enough...
I hope that is not what you are saying. "knowledge puffs up, love builds up". I don't think the Scriptures tell us that we will be saved by intellectual knowledge.
Regards
Regards
Joh 10:14-15 "I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. ... Joh 10:26-29 "But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
This, or the end of Romans 8 does NOT say anything about OURSELVES. It is only talking about outside forces, be they demons, principalities, other men or whatever. However, it is clear from the context and from other Scriptures that one can turn away from God.
Regards
Please quote the decree that prohibits reading or owning the Bible.
I thought that's what you would quote. The problem is that this verse says nothing about what happens if we turn away from God, if we "jump" out of His hand. +John Chrysostomos in his VI Homily on Phillipians addresses this question:
"For, “woe unto you,” it is written, “through whom the name of God is blasphemed.” (Isa. lii. 5, LXX. nearly.) For if, when we have a son, (and what is there more our own than a son,) if therefore when we have a son, and are blasphemed through him, we publicly renounce him, turn away from him, and will not receive him; how much more will God, when He has ungrateful servants who blaspheme and insult Him, turn away from them and hate them? And who will take up him whom God hates and turns away from, but the Devil and the demons? And whomsoever the demons take, what hope of salvation is left for him? what consolation in life?
As long as we are in the hand of God, “no one is able to pluck us out” (John x. 28.), for that hand is strong; but when we fall away from that hand and that help, then are we lost, then are we exposed, ready to be snatched away, as a “bowing wall, and a tottering fence” (Ps. lxii. 3.); when the wall is weak, it will be easy for all to surmount. Think not this which I am about to say refers to Jerusalem alone, but to all men. And what was spoken of Jerusalem? “Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching His vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill, and I made a fence about it, and surrounded it with a dike, and planted it with the vine of Sorech, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also dug a wine press in it, and I looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth thorns. And now, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, judge between Me and My vineyard. What should have been done to My vineyard, that I have not done to it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth thorns? Now therefore I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be for a prey, and I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will leave My vineyard, and it shall not be pruned or digged, but thorns shall come up upon it, as upon a desert land. I will also command the clouds, that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of Sabaoth is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant. I looked that it should do judgment, but it did iniquity, and a cry instead of righteousness.” (Isa. v. 1–7, LXX.) This is spoken also of every soul. For when God who loveth man hath done all that is needful and man then bringeth forth thorns instead of grapes, He will take away the fence, and break down the wall, and we shall be for a prey. For hear what another prophet speaks in his lamentations: “Why hast thou broken down her fences, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth ravage it, and the wild beasts of the field feed on it.” (Ps. lxxx. 12, Ps. lxxx. 13.)...."
This is thw Faith of the Church. Your interpretation of +John is doubtless the basis of Luther's "sin boldly".
FK, meant to ping you to 7827 (Continuing Orthodox Ed.)
Not a Presbyterian, but he was a Dutch Calvinist who was educated in Calvinist Geneva, Switzerland. He moved back to Amsterdam and was ordained. Later he became a professor of theology. Over time, he moved away from many Calvinsist ideas.
The Remonstrance was in direct opposition to the heresy arising in the Reformed churches.
The Remonstrance was a declaration of Arminius' views issued by his followers after his death. It departed from orthodox Calvinism on serveral points.
"Versus Trent that stated it was forbidden to read or own the Bible."
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It just occurred to me the other day so don't flame me too much, but how did people hear the truth when the Roman Catholic Church had a monopoly and it was forbidden to read and own Bibles. The Roman Catholic Church does not believe in justification by grace alone through faith alone, so how did people in general hear the GOSPEL?
I do believe the reformers were directed by the HOLY SPIRIT.
We believe that too — except He does that at the end of ours lives, based on what we have done with them.
That sounds Orthodox to me. No wonder some call us "semi-Pelagian!"
We certainly do not believe that we are born with some inherited "guilt." We do baptize for the remission of sins, for those who have sinned (adults).
The positive solution on the nature of original sin was noted at the Council of Trent – the death of the soul...
We believe the souls are wounded, not dead, and in need of a Healer.
I understand, jo. Thanks for sharing this.
Of course we do; you yourself mentioned a requirement about getting "approved" through the study of the Scriptures, although so far you have not answered me when I asked how is that different from salvation (by grace, of course) with works (see 7796). The gospels and the epistles are filled with excoriations what to do and how to behave. These are all calls for cooperation with grace.
If you say so... But the issue is whether it is grace alone that enables our good works. The Church teaches that it is; Pelagianism teaches that free will can accomplish good without divine grace. This is what the Council of Carthage (418) stated vis-a-vis pelagianism:
- Death did not come to Adam from a physical necessity, but through sin.
- New-born children must be baptized on account of original sin.
- Justifying grace not only avails for the forgiveness of past sins, but also gives assistance for the avoidance of future sins.
- The grace of Christ not only discloses the knowledge of God's commandments, but also imparts strength to will and execute them.
- Without God's grace it is not merely more difficult, but absolutely impossible to perform good works.
- Not out of humility, but in truth must we confess ourselves to be sinners.
- The saints refer the petition of the Our Father, "Forgive us our trespasses", not only to others, but also to themselves.
- The saints pronounce the same supplication not from mere humility, but from truthfulness.
- Some codices containing a ninth canon (Denzinger, loc. cit., note 3): Children dying without baptism do not go to a "middle place" (medius locus), since the non reception of baptism excludes both from the "kingdom of heaven" and from "eternal life".
Note 5.
Sounds like one of those great Reformation myths. Can you source this claim?
The Church certainly did defend the faith from inaccurate, incomplete and outright misleading translations, such as Tyndale's. As it should have. It never prohibited approved translations. What power grab?
I recall Campion and Vladimir posting specifics on this many times.
As others already noted, nothing in that excludes the possibility of falling to sin through one's own fault and therefore losing salvation. Not merely is it not stated, but if we were to impute such subtext in the Good Shepherd passage in John 10 we would break the metaphore carefully constructed by Christ.
I don't know if any of you ever raised sheep. No, I did not either, but this is what Christ is referring to. Shepherds would have a corral into which they would herd their sheep for the night, in order to protect them from predators and thieves. It had a single entrance, buit typically no gate. Instead a shepherd would lie down across the entrance and that way serve himself as a gate. Hence "I am the gate". Now, it would sometimes happen that several herds share the same corral, for example, near a marketplace. The shepherds would then have the task of separating their sheep from someone else's. In order to do so thay would trend their sheep to respond to a particular call. In the morning they would take turns calling their sheep, who would "know their master's voice" and come out of the corral.
There are two scenarios how a sheep may be "snatched": a predator or a thief may catch it, but the shepherd at the gate would prevent that; or a sheep may respond to the wrong shepherd and get out into the wrong shepherd's possession, but those who know their masters voice would not do that. But there is nothing in that system that prevents a loss of a sheep that mistakes a wrongdoer for its master, which is exactly analogous to sin committed by a free will.
Was not.
I do believe the reformers were directed by the HOLY SPIRIT.
Another superstition, like sola scriptura. Was Luther's lying about Romans 3:28 directed by the Holy Spirit? Was mutilation of the Christian Canon directed by the Holy Spirit? Believe what you will and god is your judge, but these were acts of outright fraud. The Holy Spirit does not lie.
thay would trend -> they would train
Momentarily, I slipped into my sheepherder patois.
"Do the Orthodox make the same distinction between venial and mortal sin as the Catholics?"
No, not really. We do view sins on a sort of continuous spectrum, for all practical purposes. There are no categories of sins. Sin is sin, but yet some sins are more dangerous than others.
The difference is this: Catholicism (and indeed the West in general) traditionally looks on sin as something for which payment or punishment is due.
Orthodoxy looks on sin as something that injures ones soul and body, makes us spiritually sick, and puts a wall between us and God of our own making.
Obviously, while sin is sin, some kinds of sins are far more destructive to our souls than others.
Penance in the Catholic approach is a debt owed, and can be categorized and quantified and tallied -- and if not "paid up" at the time of death, that's where purgatory comes in, and indulgences, and all of that.
"Epitimia" in the Orthodox approach have a purely pedagogic function, and in those cases where a priest may bar one from communion for a period of time for a very serious sin, it is not for punishment or payment, but rather with the motivation of protecting the person from injuring himself by taking communion while in a state where one is not prepared.
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