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I really wish Traditiones Custodes had not happened

The Liturgist

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I really love the Traditional Latin Mass, and thriving and enthusiastic communities had popped up around TLM sites since Pope Benedict XVI authorized Summorum Pontificum. I know many of my Roman Catholic friends will agree with me on this issue, that the reversal of that decree has been problematic. Now to be clear, I do appreciate Pope Francis standing firm against the Synodical Way movement in Germany which would cause a schism, and I appreciate his efforts to crack down on liturgical abuse, which is laudable. I also happen to reside near a parish where a TLM is available that does not always conflict with my own schedule of duties. If Pope Benedict had remained Pope or if there was more continuity, I probably would have joined the RCC, given that it offers the unique prospect wherein priests can be certified to serve multiple liturgical rites, for example, I know of a standard Novus Ordo Roman Rite priest who received permission to learn and officiate the Armenian liturgy due to a lack of Armenian priests. That would probably be too challenging for me as the Armenian Catholics like the Armenian Orthodox, as far as I am aware, are among the last of the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches to do everything in Classical Armenian, since recently the Assyrians have started English liturgies in Australia in addition to Classical Syriac Aramaic, and I believe the Ethiopians or Eritreans are doing liturgies in English rather than the ancient Semitic language known as Ge’ez, which is the ancestor of Amharic, not to be confused with Aramaic, which is the primary language of Ethiopia.

However there are other rites done primarily in English or in languages I have a working knowledge of, like Latin and Syriac, for example the traditional Latin mass, Byzantine Rite or the Syriac Catholic and Maronite liturgies.
 

The Liturgist

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Give me the Bible... and keep it simple. I will be happy to read the words of Christ and His prophets.
Well that is not an issue in this case because whether one is using the traditional Latin Mass or the Novus Ordo, the Scripture Lessons are read in the vernacular (and also chanted in Latin in the TLM), which was called for by Vatican II, and the Roman Church also has the Office of Reading specifically for reading scripture.

Also while I maintain it was not a success due to omissions, the three year lectionary introduced by the Roman Church which later became standard across most Western denominations, with a few minor alterations, as the Revised Common Lectionary, was intended to increase scripture reading.

If we look at the Byzantine Rite used by the Eastern Catholic churches in communion with the Roman Catholics, and which is the primary liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox, who are of course not in communion with Rome since 1054, the liturgy reads straight through the entire Bible in the course of one year, and the Book of Psalms is read twice per week in Lent and once per week outside of Lent, with some Psalms repeated.

And if we look at the liturgy of the Coptic Rite used by the Coptic Orthodox and Coptic Catholics, there are five New Testament lessons during the main liturgy, which is always prefaced by the Hours, in which the entire congregation is assigned at random two Psalms to read from their pocket Psalters, or Agpeyas, and a fixed Gospel lesson is read for each Hour, except during Holy Week when this changes. And then the Old Testament is read in its entirety at Psalmody celebrated nightly or on Saturday Night, and the Coptic Rite churches also read the entire Book of Revelation on Bright Saturday, in which the supreme Sabbath in which our Lord, God and Savior rested in the tomb before His resurrection is commemorated before the celebration of the Paschal Liturgy occurs in the evening.

Also, if we look at the text of these traditional liturgies, virtually every word from every service is taken from Scripture. In the case of the Byzantine Rite, it is about 93%. Also the traditional Eastern liturgies and some of the Western liturgies are arranged so as to present the entire history of salvation by our Lord in every liturgy.

These measures greatly reduce the scope for a pastor to inadvertently mislead the laity through ill-advised preaching.

Now it should also be stressed that the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern churches and the Masses of the Western churches such as the Lutherans, Anglicans and Catholics (and everything I have written is also applicable to the traditional editions of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, and also the Lutheran liturgies), these services are equivalent to the monthly or quarterly celebration of the Lord’s Supper and Foot Washing done in the SDA. However, if for some reason a priest is not available or Holy Communion cannot be celebrated, in the Anglican, Byzantine and other rites, there is a provision for an alternate service that in the Traditional Latin Mass is known as a Dry Mass, in the Anglican liturgy, Ante-Communion, and in the Byzantine Rite, the Typika, in which all the Scripture appointed to be read during the Eucharistic liturgy is read despite the lack of the Holy Communion, and this service can be celebrated by laity if a priest is unavailable.

This is in addition to all of the scripture appointed to be read in the Divine Office at Matins, Vespers, or Morning Prayer or Choral Evensong, or the Liturgy of the Hours in the Roman Church, or at Psalmody and the Hours in the Coptic Church, et cetera. Because all of that still has to be read in church.

And that is in addition to the scripture included in services like the Annointing of the Sick with Oil, which is done for the whole congregation at least once a year on the last day of Lent, the Friday before Lazarus Saturday, which commemorates the raising of Lazarus and is followed by Palm Sunday, in both the Coptic and Byzantine Rites; this service includes a massive amount of scripture, with seven Psalms, seven New Testament lessons and seven prayers in addition to even more scripture in the portions preceding it. And the same is true for marriages, funerals and so on.

This approach works better than Lectio Continua or arbitrary lectionary selections by the pastor, because it ensures that more scripture is read, and precludes the pastor from prioritizing his personal favorite portions.
 
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chevyontheriver

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I do know that when there is no specific Anglican Ordinariate priest available, any priest from the diocese where the Ordinariate Divine Liturgy is requested may say the Divine liturgy. So there is another allowed instance of priests who can be multi-rite.
 
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chevyontheriver

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Give me the Bible... and keep it simple. I will be happy to read the words of Christ and His prophets.
Hey, I got one of those. And it has Jesus and the prophets and even the patriarchs and apostles and psalms and stuff.
 
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The Liturgist

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Hey, I got one of those. And it has Jesus and the prophets and even the patriarchs and apostles and psalms and stuff.
Indeed, reading the Bible is not a sacrament or ordinance according to any Protestant denomination I am aware of. Whereas most at a minimum subscribe to a memorialist interpretation of the Lord’s Supper combined with credobaptism, the rare exceptions being the Salvation Army, some Friends (Quakers) and a few other denominations, including some Restorationist cults.
 
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chevyontheriver

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Bible reading alone does not a liturgy make. The liturgy is Biblical, but more than Bible reading.
 
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The Liturgist

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Bible reading alone does not a liturgy make. The liturgy is Biblical, but more than Bible reading.

Speaking of which, the Adventist Church in Ukraine uses a version of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and I have an exquisite recording from their choir, which also includes the only good recording I have of Bortniansky’s sixth Cherubic hymn, as opposed to the much more common Seventh Cherubic Hymn which is ubiquitous in albums of the Eastern Church. I recall mentioning that to you @BobRyan . And also the traditional hymns and organ music still largely prevalent among Adventists I am extremely supportive of.

The issue in this thread Bob has to do with a decision made by the Catholic Church which makes their traditional Latin mass with the beautiful Gregorian chant much harder to access.
 
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BobRyan

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I never argue that all tradition/hymns etc are bad. My argument is for the Bible. It reveals what is good and what is not good.
The issue in this thread Bob has to do with a decision made by the Catholic Church which makes their traditional Latin mass with the beautiful Gregorian chant much harder to access.
When we spread the gospel it is much more effective to do it as Christ and Paul did it - in the language of the people they addressed.

When the Catholic church is addressing populations that speak ancient forms of Latin - then by all means have the service in an ancient form of Latin.
 
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The Liturgist

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Firstly, the preaching and scripture lessons at these Latin masses is in the vernacular. Only the prayers and hymns are in Latin, and there is a book called a Missal in every pew with a translation. Secondly, unlike many Novus Ordo masses, those parishes where the Traditional Latin Mass is still offered tend to be packed, with lots of families. So it is an effective form of evangelism. If you visit a website like New Liturgical Movement you can see the love people have for this form of worship.
 
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BobRyan

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Firstly, the preaching and scripture lessons at these Latin masses is in the vernacular. Only the prayers and hymns are in Latin

Ok so that looks like an indication to me that the part that needs to be understood needs to be in the vernacular. Why not have prayers and hymns included in the part that needs to be understood when reaching the local people?

Admittedly they could go through some sort of Latin-to-local documents to help then decipher what is in the hymns and prayers -- but apparently they know that preaching and scripture lessons need to be easier to understand than that - I do appreciate that part..
 
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The Liturgist

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Ok so that looks like an indication to me that the part that needs to be understood needs to be in the vernacular. Why not have prayers and hymns included in the part that needs to be understood when reaching the local people?
Because this may come as a shock but there are extremely large numbers of Catholics who like the Latin Prayers and Hymns. Not only that, but Lutherans historically worshipped in both Latin and the vernacular, and to this date there are some Anglicans who do this.

And of course, Copts worship in Coptic and the vernacular, Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Russians and Belarussians including Adventists apparently worship to various extents in Church Slavonic and the vernacular, and the Greek Orthodox read the Gospel lessons in Koine Greek, and Syriac Orthodox use Classical Syriac despite having very few people who still speak Aramaic dialects in the vernacular (and technically none who speak Classical Syriac); the Assyrian Church of the East has the largest population of Aramaic speakers in the world, nearly a million of them. But what the Syriacs, Copts, Greeks and so on are doing is ensuring that the next generation learns these important ancient languages starting in pre-school. In fact it is the stated policy of the Copts and Syriacs to eventually discontinue the use of Arabic in the diaspora in favor of only using Coptic or Syriac and the local language.

And the Ethiopians worship in Ge’ez, which is the ancestor of the modern Ethiopic Semitic languages like Amharic, and are absolutely committed to preserving this.

The retention and promotion of ancient languages for prayer is also not exclusive to Christianity. Hebrew was only in use as a liturgical language when our Lord was born; its revival in modern day Israel is a direct consequence of the Jews having preserved it rather than having completely switched to Old Testament Aramaic, or the Judean and Gallilean vernacular Aramaic spoken by our Lord, or the Talmudic Aramaic of Seleucia-Cstesiphon, or Yiddish, or Ladino (Jewish dialects of German and Latin).
 
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chevyontheriver

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Ok so that looks like an indication to me that the part that needs to be understood needs to be in the vernacular. Why not have prayers and hymns included in the part that needs to be understood when reaching the local people?
You would think. But then again singing the Sanctus isn’t all that mysterious and people DO know what it means even in Latin. Likewise the Agni’s Dei. Likewise the Pater Noster. It’s not all that hard. Latin is an easy language, unlike English which is crazy hard. A few times of being exposed to these prayers in Latin, prayers already known in English, and you’ve got it. For the canon of the mass it would take a bit longer, but in a few months that would be second nature too. So really only the changeable parts need to be in English. And they are.

If you walk int a Latin mass you would be lost. But grab a translation and in a few months you would get it as well as if it were in English. A bit of work but not too much. Young people and young families crowd these masses for some reason.
 
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The Liturgist

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Indeed. Some phrases from the Latin mass have been incorporated into the English lexicon of common phraseology.
 
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BobRyan

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You would think. But then again singing the Sanctus isn’t all that mysterious
I don't mind reading it in English.

And I think there was something like the death penalty at one time for having the Bible , the Sanctus , etc in English - or in any given vernacular. So it is not like all this "just so happened". It has a history. Neither OT or NT saints wrote scripture in Latin because that was not the common language all over the realm even though in the NT Rome had it yet the Greeks had already set the lingua franca standard. So instead of sending out the NT text in Hebrew or Aramaic - they sent it out in the language most readily available for all. So then ... not Latin.
 
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chevyontheriver

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I don't mind reading it in English.
And that is fine. It is a holy song in any language. The angels sing it. Point was, for the OP, that singing it in Latin has become more difficult recently because pope Francis wants to stomp out the traditional Latin mass that has stood virtually unchanged for over 1500 years. I’m good with you experiencing the Sanctus in English. I’d be good with it in Klingon if that’s what you want. Some of us want it to stay available in Latin.
 
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