Posted on 05/30/2024 1:46:02 PM PDT by ebb tide
So says the creeps.
Looking back in the OT with the Levites with breastplates and there was some show back when they had the Ark. I'm sure it was awesome because God was really present. You could feel it. Now, we have the Holy Spirit and it speaks softer. I've been to Catholic services. It felt creepy to me. If you were raised in the Catholic Church, you would be drawn to it.
FYI, God, in the form of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, is really present at every Catholic Mass.
Thank you for that. I was talking about visibly as a cloud covering the tent and filling it and a pillar of fire by night experience. Got any of that going on at your Church service?
Don’t need it.
We have the True Faith.
It’s “scripted” because the basic order of Mass comes to us from Christ’s words at the Last Supper through the Apostles and the greatest ancient saints (Gregory, Ambrose, Chrysostom). I guess you think some random preacher dude going “off script” is a plus. I don’t.
And is it theatrical and ostentatious...or just making use of everything in creation to glorify God? ...whether it is architecture or music or...yes...the senses.
Proof by blatant assertion? We don't know how the Apostles kept the Sabbath. We do know that Ignatius of Antioch, who knew Peter, Paul, and certainly John, wrote in his epistles (on his way to martyrdom) congratulating his readers on "no longer sabbathing". Paul opposed imposing Jewish ceremonial practice on Gentile Christians, and that's exactly what Sabbath-keeping is.
You are correct that both liturgy and Scripture were known in the West in Greek before they were translated into Latin, although we don't know anymore just how much of the Roman Rite is a translation of a Greek original, and how much was composed de novo in Latin.
Which is why I don’t get the big issue on whether the mass is in Latin or a language people could understand.
You have conflated Gods Holy law with the temporal ceremonial laws which were to point to and remind them of the coming Messiah. The Ten Commandments were permanent. They were wrote in stone by Gods Finger. They were instituted at Creation. Re-instituted at Mt. Sinai. Lived out in the life of Jesus Christ on earth. Jesus kept the Sabbath in life and death. He is Lord of the Sabbath. He came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. Not one jot or tittle will be changed until earth and Heaven passes away and that has not happened. So it is still in force.
Edersheim's "The Temple, Its Ministry and Services" would be a good place for you to start, I think. It's a free PDF. (The author is not at all a Catholic, FWIW.)
Study up on the blood, gore, and hundreds of exacting rules involved in actual Biblical worship instituted directly by God through Moses, and get back to us.
The Saturday Sabbath is as much a part of the New Law as circumcision, keeping kosher, and not mixing fibers in garments. I have no issue with Christians who are of Jewish heritage keeping those things as a remembrance, but they were never required of Gentile Christians. If you think otherwise, you need to re-read Galatians.
Just compare Gregorian chant with any of the "worship music" produced by Oregon Catholic Press and your ears will show you the difference.
Without the Law, there is no sin. God cannot allow sin to flourish in Heaven. The Law will be there as it was written on Mt. Sinai. Same Law. From Creation until eternity the Law will exist.
The ceremonial laws were wrote by Moses. They expired on the cross.
I don’t like the so called “praise music”. It’s very shallow from a theological perspective. It tends to border on a “me” performance.
Re Hebrew. Didn’t Pilate write in Hebrew at the Crucifixion?
And just to add to what Campion said, there would be much less issue with Latin vs. English in the Mass, if:
a) the English was the same ecclesiastical dialect as what people were already used to in their hand missals (Lasance, St. Andrew, etc.)
b) the ritual remained the same
They muddled the issue by using very casual, badly-translated English liturgy that was also radically different than the original.
Lots of die-hard Latin Mass folks I know, including me, are enthusiastic supporters of the Anglican Ordinariate and its English liturgy.
How is the Mass unBiblical?
I can see how the Latin Mass might seem “creepy” to someone who has no clue what is happening or understanding of what the various aspects mean, especially if it is a Low Mass and done at a brisk pace.
But knowing what is happening and why it is happening is very helpful, because then you are not startled when after a period of silence, the priest suddenly speaks aloud, or that repeating something three times, as Jesus did in the Garden, means that you really, really mean it and that is why especially penitential parts are repeated.
We often use the word creepy to mean something ghostly or other-worldly— these things we call creepy are often related to horror films and the like, but there is a flip side to the bad supernatural we see on TV, and that is the angelic and very God-oriented other-worldliness. I think you felt the supernatural and didn’t understand it.
| John O' Brien, Roman Catholic Priest in the Faith of Millions. | Hebrews 9:24-28 | Hebrews 10:11-13 |
| When the priest pronounces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne, and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the Victim for the sins of man. It is a power greater than that of monarchs and emperors: it is greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of Seraphim and Cherubim. Indeed it is greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary. While the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven, and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal Victim for the sins of man—not once but a thousand times! The priest speaks and lo! Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows His head in humble obedience to the priest’s command. | 24For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. 26Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, 28so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. | Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; 12but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, 13waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET. 14For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. |
Thanks for the synopsis. The Bible keeps unmasking some of the unBiblical practices.
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