All right, let's get down to the nitty gritty...
I love my church. Love it a lot. I love my parish a lot, too, given that it's the church I grew up in. But lately there have been some things that are, well....irritating.....
We have a visitng priest that comes in sometimes to fill in Mass slots when our (one) priest/pastor can't do them. That's fine, I'm cool with that. But could we please have a priest who is going to, um, "go with the flow"?
For example:
--He still doesn't seem to have come to terms with the whole "God the Father" idea. In the Doxology, he says, "Through Him, with Him, in Him, in the Unity of the Holy Spirit (notice all those "Him"s?), all glory and honor is your, Almighty God , forever and ever." Hmmm. So "Him" is OK in the Gloria, the first part of the Doxology, and everywhere else, but not here? Are we uncertain that God is a man? I think that was settled about, oh, 4,000 with the Jews on Mt. Sinai...or with Joseph...or Abraham....hmmm....I'm sorry, but this just irritates me. Stick to what's in the book, please! It's there for a reason. The Vatican's approved this version, not the version you have in your head. Grrr.
--And it continues with the part after the Lord's Prayer, when the priest says "and protect us from all anxiety." Well, Fr. Visiting Priest adds " undue anxiety." One of these days I would love to ask him just what constitutes "due" anxiety, since I seem to remember Jesus saying something about not to worry about the future because tomorrow has enough problems of its own, and that worrying didn't do any good because God will take care of us. But according to this priest, um, that's not the way it is and we should have some "due" anxiety. Whatever that means....
As for the rest of it? Some of the folk groups take the music much too slowly and change the keys (which irritates me, but probably no one else) --otherwise it's good. And my parish really does quite a nice job with Masses and our pastor is excellent at giving a good Mass and preaching well and he always has the right amount of reverence. But I just get irritated when people change things on me to be "politically correct." Does this bother anybody else? Feel free to share stories....
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6 comments:
yes, that sort of stuff does bother me too!
I don't like it when Priest change the words of the Mass prayers. I also don't like it when Priests make themselves the centre of attention of the Mass, and try to put on a show, like they need to entertain the congregation because otherwise we might get 'bored'.
I am very lucky in that my Parish priest is increadible and never does anything like that, but I've seen it done.
I've seen is when a Priest let a nun read the Gospel (I didn't even know she was a nun till someone pointed it out! She certainly wasn't dressed like one!). Ironically, the Mass was being celebrated as part of a day of prayer for vocations..
Also, in a parish near me, apparently the Priest consecrates the hosts IN the Eucharistic Minister's hands.
sigh!
poor Jesus!
We can only pray for them!
-x-
Uhm, God is not "a man," as you say. Especially the person of the Trinity whom we know as "The Father," who has never taken on a corporeal state.
Jesus refered to Him as The FATHER on numerous occasions.
'Our FATHER, who art in Heaven...'
If Jesus refers to Him as the FATHER, then who are we to change it?
That still doesn't make God a man.
You can go back and forth all day on whether God is actually a man...but the fact is that Church tradition has always held God as The Father, Jesus as The Son, and the Holy Spirit as, well, Spirit. Jesus called God "father". Mary is the "mother" of God. If Jesus was to come into being as a fully-realized human, He had to have both a mother and a father. With Mary fulfilling the mother part, God fulfills the "father" part. It is not the goal of the Church to be patriarchal and exclude women; on the contrary, by giving Mary special status in the church, you could argue that the Church does more for women than most other Christian denominations. (But that's another argument)
The fact is that the Church calls God "Father" within the context of her prayers and theology. A priest is supposed to be in line with all that. And by changing it to the neutral "God", the priest is substantially changing what the Church believes and teaches. I know some Protestant Churches (and, alas, some Parishes) do this as a matter of course. But in the Catholic church it is not acceptable.
All that you say is true, Emily, but it doesn't challenge the main point that the transcendent God goes beyond human distinctions. We worship and pray to God as if a father, but God is much much more than that.
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