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Ping!

This is a nice meditation but it also provides an opportunity to point out a couple of Western/Latin problems.

Notice that the author writes “...but deliver us from evil....” and goes on to speak of various demons. The Greek of the NT reads “deliver us from the Evil One”. The distinction is not a fine one and has had a great impact on the way the West views the world, to its detriment these days. Because the West does not comprehend the nature of the Evil One, we find ourselves lead by men like George Bush who trumpet that the demonic Mohammedanism is TROP and extremism isn’t endemic in that cult. The East understands Evil, the West doesn’t.

“In You, O Lord Jesus, have I hoped; let me not be confounded forever. You alone are good. You alone are powerful. You alone are eternal. To You alone be honor and glory, love and thanksgiving forever and ever.”

Though I doubt the author intends to express a heretical viewpoint, ascribing these attributes of God to Christ “alone” and not in union with the Father and the Holy Spirit, is a denial of the Trinity. The Church has been plagued by Anti-Trinitarianism throughout its history. Sadly, especially since Vatican II, the Roman Church has used these sorts of exclamations with a degree of regularity which is alarming. Hopefully it is merely an indication of sloppy and/or pretentious religiosity and not real heresy.