okay, so i was at mass today, and there is this girl who is a liberal "catholic" who was sitting next to me...

anyway, i noticed that during the apostles creed she changed the words such that the portion on the Holy Spirit went:

...with the Father and Son, She[sic] is worshiped and glorified. She[sic] has spoken through the prophets...

doesnt this constitute a violation of personal innovation in forms of mass? is there EVER a case where deliberately changing the words to something like the apostles creed, especially in such a manner, would EVER be acceptable?

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), May 02, 2004

Answers

bumping because the subject of personal innovation in forms of mass always makes me mad...

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), May 02, 2004.

No. And here's where I part company with many folks..not saying that YOU should have, because you're not me, but I would have defintely spoken to this young woman after mass and asked her what she was thinking. Not to call her on the carpet, per se, but who knows why she did that? Many young people are so incredibly misinformed nowdays that they come up with all sorts of ridiculous things. Depending upon her response,(if any),I would have strongly suggested that she speak with the priest for her OWN sake. There is never any reason to interject one's own version of ANY part of the sacred liturgy..the next time, you may hear her saying, "Thanks be to the godess".

-- lesley (martchas@hotmail.com), May 02, 2004.

Paul,

The way I see it "you" for thee, "your" for thou is fine. She for He is definitely wrong. The pronoun "she" is feminine and stands for a woman. "s/he" stands for she/he but is not pronounced "she". The pronoun "he" can stand for person or man. In the case of Jesus, He was God and man(male). The Father and Holy Spirit are referred to as "He" because they are two "Persons" of the Trinity. Even if the young lady is "liberal", it still constitutes a violation of belief not to mention language convention. Fortunately, in we don't have to problem in Vietnamese :P

Btw, brother in Vietnamese is "brother by/of the flesh", cousin is "brother by/of relation".

God Bless,

-- Vincent (love@noemail.net), May 02, 2004.

Actually to my admusement, the Catholic mass book *does* seem to change the words as I know them.

As a start: Catholic refers to a particular church. Small C catholic means universal. Catholic's mass book generally uses the large C to mean the small c word.

-- Sean Cleary (seanearlyaug@hotmail.com), May 03, 2004.

Sean, unfortunately if we can't depend on you to call the Catholic mass book the "missalette"...then

May He fill you with grace,

-- Vincent (love@noemail.net), May 03, 2004.

Sean, there were no upper and lower-case letters in the Apostles' time. The phrase "catholic church" has the same meaning whether it has capital c's or small c's.

-- Peter K (ronkpken@yahoo.com.au), May 03, 2004.

Vincint,

I did forget the word, and was typing around that memory lapse. I would rather type around it than mess it up.

Sean

-- Sean Cleary (seanearlyaug@hotmail.com), May 05, 2004.

Peter,

I am not sure that it does have the same meaning big C or small c.

Big C is an organiszation centered in the Vatacan city (sorry for spelling), Christian oriented, Pope lead, etc.

small c means universal.

Now I have been following this forum a bit, and what I got was that big C is small c because it is a full service church, with all the sacraments, not that it is universal in, say, time, space, or across christianity. Cool. But just because the title has universal in it does not mean that it achieves that goal. see universal unitarians. Also as a thought experiment pretend that a store front church has universal in its title: it does not really make it so.

Still, if one wishes to say universal in another way, small c.

And if one wishes to refer to the org, Big C.

Sean

-- Sean Cleary (seanearlyaug@hotmail.com), May 05, 2004.

Our Church has been called the One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, or simply "the Church", for 20 centuries. "catholic" as you say means simply universal, as the Church is. It is not confined to any one country or culture, anyone can join it. Even after the Eastern Orthodox churches split from it in the 11th century, they did not use the word "catholic" to distinguish those who remained loyal to the pope, they called it the Latin or Western church.

When the protestant churches began they chose to use the word Catholic to describe those who refused to join their churches but remained loyal to the existing church. This gave them a problem when they went to say the Creeed, so THEY decided to give an alternative meaning to "catholic" as it appears in the Creed. It is true that in a sense "catholic" does embrace all Christians, but only to the extent that they share (part of)the catholic faith.

-- Peter K (ronkpken@yahoo.com.au), May 05, 2004.

Peter,

Nice history lesson.

I was taught that catholic ment universal, and that the meaning in the creed was 'universal' not 'org'. So should not the spelling match the meaning?

-- Sean Cleary (seanearlyaug@hotmail.com), May 06, 2004.

Sean, I assume you are a protestant. As I said the Catholic church has no problem with the word Catholic in the Creed. If you have a problem with it in your protestant church because protestants have chosen to use the word catholic to designate non-protestants, then I suggest you have two options: - tell your church's leaders to change the words of the creed you say so that it matches your beliefs; or - become a Catholic so that your beliefs will match the words you say in the creed.

-- Peter K (ronkpken@yahoo.com.au), May 07, 2004.

I've been both Catholic and non.

I see it as either Catholic attitudes (which are as funny/tragic as Protestant ones, just very different -- yes you will not see these, a fish does not see water) or extreme divisionistic practice.

Whatever. As it is unlikely to change, I should not fuss over the Catholic church putting the org in the cread, not the word universal. Frankly, if they wanted to say universal, why should they even bother with a word that must be translated to most people away from the org?

-- Sean Cleary (seanearlyaug@hotmail.com), May 09, 2004.

The creed (and other prayers and liturgies) contain many words and phrases whose meaning is not immediately apparent to, or likely to be misunderstood by, someone unfamiliar with the Church. We retain them because they best express the desired meaning. If anyone wants to discover what we believe they can easily find out with a little effort. (We do have a version of the Creed for young children which refers simply to "the Church".)

-- Peter K (ronkpken@yahoo.com.au), May 09, 2004.