My parents dragged me along to the Stations a few times when I was a kid. I didn't mind it too much. The version that formed me in the Stations - gave me the baseline idea that this is what the Stations consist of - were similar to, perhaps the very same ones as, those that are still celebrated most of the time in our parish today. They are prayed out of little brown booklets entitled "The Way of the Cross", with the sub-heading "with text from the Scriptures". Based on that personal history, I consider them the "traditional" version of the Stations. Yet according to the rather scanty information provided in the Foreword to the booklet, they don't seem to have a very ancient legacy:
The Second Vatican Council in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (art. 13) directs that popular devotions be in some fashion derived from the Sacred Liturgy and lead back to the Liturgy ... this booklet is an attempt to provide some liturgical orientation to the Stations of the Cross.To give you some idea of its flavor, here is the text from one of the stations:
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SEVENTH STATION
Jesus fall the second time
Pr.: We adore you, O Christ, and we praise You.
(GENUFLECT)
All: Because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
Pr.: It was our weaknesses that he carried, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one struck by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins; upon him was the punishment that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; but the Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all. (Is. 53, 4 to 6)
(KNEEL AND PAUSE)
All: Though he was harshly treated, / he submitted and opened not his mouth; / like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, / he was silent and uttered no cry. / When he was cut off from the land of the living, and smitten for the sin of this people, / a grave was assigned him among the wicked and a burial place with evildoers, / though he had done no wrong nor spoken any falsehood. (Is. 53, 7 and 9)
Pr.: Let us pray. Lord Jesus Christ, You shared in our weaknesses and accepted our guilt. Grant us the favor of rejoicing over our human weaknesses, so that in all we do, Your strength, dwelling in us, may be shown to all others.
All: Amen.
(STAND)
Sing: May our sympathy for Jesus
Turn to those who here now need us;
May we see Christ bruised in them.
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The lyrics at the bottom of the page are sung to the tune STABAT MATER and accompany the minister (and servers if any) as s/he/they process to the next station.
It seems that the 40-50 parishioners who attend the stations of the cross each Friday also view this format as traditional, or at least are sufficiently comfortable with it that they look dimly on anything that varies from it. This was brought home to me during diaconate formation, when one of our older and more grizzled deacons told me that he once made the mistake of varying from the printed text and extemporizing some of the content. He was confronted afterward in the sacristy by a parishioner who stuck an open booklet in front of his nose, stabbing it with his pointer finger to illustrate where the deacon had deviated from the standard text.
And so it wasn't greeted with unalloyed joy when our former pastor took it upon himself to purchase a different version of the Stations. He did this a year or two ago, apparently following his own counsel; at least he didn't seek the advice of the Worship Commission, of which I am a member. He simply bought them, tossed them in the same cupboard where the other edition is kept, and pulled them out and used them whenever he was scheduled to lead Stations and the whim took him to use the new ones.
From a literary point of view, the new booklet, entitled Everyone's Way of the Cross, is quite different. Here is the same station in the new booklet:
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Station Seven
Jesus Falls Again
Christ speaks This seventh step, my other self,
is one that tests your will.
From this fall learn to persevere
in doing good.
The time will come
when all your efforts seem to fail
and you will think,
"I can't go on."
Then turn to me,
my heavy-laden one,
and I will give you rest.
Trust me and carry on.
I reply Give me your courage, Lord.
When failure presses heavily on me
and I am desolate,
stretch out your hand
to lift me up.
I know that I just not cease,
but persevere in doing good.
But help me, Lord.
Alone there is nothing I can do.
With you, I can do anything you ask.
I will.
-----------
I suppose the difference in style and content is clear from these samples. A few of the regulars told me that they hate these new booklets. People don't like change, and attendees of the Stations typically aren't seeking novelty.
It would make for a more colorful anecdote if I could report that the attendees rose up spontaneously and told the old pastor in no uncertain terms what they thought about these books. But they didn't. Whenever the new booklets were used, they just frowned and bore it, and then shuffled out, grumbling to each other. Part of that is because the old pastor had a strong personality and these folks are trained to say, "Yes, Father". And part of it, I think, is that after four+ decades, they've been cowed by a long series of changes imposed upon them which they didn't request and don't particularly care for.
These "new" booklets aren't actually much newer than the "traditional" ones: the older booklet is copyright 1965, whereas the newer one is 1970. But there were a lot of things percolating in the church in the immediate aftermath of the Council, and these two quite different versions of the Stations illustrates that the Council unleashed more than one stream of spirituality.
As it happens, I could easily have told the old pastor, had he consulted the Worship Commission, what the reaction to the new booklets would be, because I had lived through a poor reception of the very same booklet when I was in middle school in the early 1970's, back when the new booklet really was new. Those parishioners in that town hated the booklet, too. People don't really change very much.
I went to the Stations once at the local parish. It's weird if you're not used to it. It was also interminable, and I cannot get up and down for the kneeling and genuflecting. I ended up feeling sorry for my back and knees instead of for Jesus.
ReplyDeleteAt the Cross in the Woods (northern Michigan) there is an outdoor Stations. You go through it on your own or with a group. As with so many things, once I could break free of the drag of "doing it correctly," I found it very moving.
I prefer the newer version, and I think it much better to use with kids and those going through RCIA.
I understand re: backs and knees. My knees tend to stiffen up (arthritis, I'm pretty sure). It is kind of physically demanding to do the stations. I'd advise anyone with physical issues to not try to do more than your body permits.
DeleteI also agree with you that different versions are appropriate for different groups.
We have stations, too. This past Friday we had to hunt for a parking place, the lot was filled up and we finally found one after driving around the block twice. They were all at the fish fry of course. There were maybe a dozen people at Stations, not counting the four servers, the deacon, and choir members. Sounds like we are using the same brown booklet. I have seen several other versions, including the older one by St. Alphonsus Liguori. That one is a bit florid. I actually like the scripture version, it draws a lot from the suffering servant in Isaiah. What I like a lot less is the Stabat Mater. All. fourteen. verses. of it. But I guess it's supposed to be penance. Wish I could say I went all the time. But I only go when my choir is singing.
ReplyDeleteJean, the outdoor stations sound nice. I also would prefer to do it on my own that way. Not everybody gets up and down all the time in our parish. My husband calls it "aerobic praying".
I enjoy the outdoor stations. Took a friend with leukemia there one day. We didn't get through all the stations. But was a lovely day. We sat in the church for awhile in contemplation after. Joked on the long ride home about our "pilgrimage" and whether we got any indulgences. Then she died six months later. I like to go back every year. Not this year, though. Easter comes early, and the weather is too dicey. Snowing today.
DeleteI had the pleasure (?) of "doing the stations" on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem this past summer. If your faith can survive that, it can survive almost anything .... but beware the challenge of the "Holy" Sepulchre!!!
DeleteJim, your parish do Benediction at the conclusion of Stations?
ReplyDeleteWe don't. Didn't know that was a thing, but I take it from the comments that it is.
DeleteAt one time our parish did Eucharistic Adoration followed by Benediction once per month, on a weekday during the day. It went on for some years but I think it's died out now.
I'm sorry to admit, I think I've only been to Benediction one time in my life. I'd need someone to walk me through it in order to be the minister for it.
Jim, I'm pretty sure you could wing it if you had to, and do just fine. It seems like every parish does it a little different. I don't know what publisher your parish uses, but the basics are on the inside back cover of both the OCP and Paluch missalettes.
DeleteSorry, should have read, "Does your parish do Benediction..."
ReplyDeleteJim, Every Lenten Friday at 3 p.m. from grades 1 though 8 you would find us in church for Stations, which took 15 minutes. The words to the Stabat Mater were in the booklets (in Latin, of course), but we did not sing them. The book you prefer seems much more modern (and scriptural) than the one I remember.
ReplyDeleteOur parish currently has adoration from the end of the 8:15 a.m. Mass to the start of the 5:30 p.m. Mass every Friday except Good Friday. For Lent, adoration ends at 4:55 with Benediction, followed by Stations (and the fish fry) followed by the 5:30 Mass, and the fish fry continues until 7, when the Stations in Spanish begin. My wife and I usually go for the last 55 minutes of adoration and Benediction and then go to opt for baked fish at the fish fry -- even though it is not called a fish bake.
I have found private Stations preferable to group chants. The Stations should be a meditation, and meditation doesn't regiment well. There's one exception: For a few years the youth group did very contemporary Stations, with the kids performing the scenes. Opening in the dark with the song "The Via Dolorosa" by a great singer was a perfect scene setter. (When the singer tried out a convent, half the boys at Newman High School were said to have considered suicide. The convent didn't stick. She got married, is the mother of two and can still sing up a storm.)
I have to admit I don't know how the Stations can be done in 15 minutes. I walk from station to station (and invite others to walk with me if they'd like - the spirit of the whole thing is that it's supposed to be a procession). It takes me 35-40 minutes to make the circuit.
DeleteJim, You have to really bounce out of the genuflections.
DeleteBut back in the days of Latin most priests were very good at praying without punctuation or leaving space between the words. That is why I laugh hysterically when I hear someone say Latin is "more reverent."
For instance, compare:
Delete"For by thy holy cross thou has redeemed the world" with "bolycrossdeemed the world," as we used to say it.
Tom - that is very funny. :-) We do something similar when we say grace before meals: "Blessusolord nthesetheygifts." Don't the Germans make words by concatenating a string of nouns and adjectives? I guess it's our Teutonic roots coming through.
DeleteI was forced to go to the Stations of the Cross when I was growing up - first at parochial school, then by my mother, after we moved and I was in a public school. I absolutely hated them. I went to a Catholic college, but never went to stations. I decided to try again once when I was in my 30s, went once, and remembered how much I hated them, and never went back. Perhaps if they had used version 2 instead of version 1 I would not have developed such an antipathy to them. I don't know since you only gave one example. I never made my own children go, nor did the Catholic elementary school they attended (an independent Catholic school founded and run by lay people.)
ReplyDeleteI have serious issues with atonement theology, and maybe that's where my doubt about it started - with the Stations.
Anne, I agree that the spirit of the first version is that Jesus took our sins upon himself. I am not sure if that is what you have issues with.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBtw, the foreword to the brown booklet I alluded to in the post notes that "a plenary indulgence may be gained by praying the Stations of the Cross."
ReplyDelete(That is the first time I've deleted one of my comments. I see those notations here from time to time, that "This comment has been removed by the author". Naturally, my interest always is piqued: "What did s/he say that necessitated that it be deleted?" In my case, it was a boneheaded misspelling: I wrote the "forward" rather than the "foreword". It would be even cooler if we could edit and correct our comments, but this is still better than having dopey spelling errors and typos memorialized for posterity.)
Do you honestly think posterity is going to look at what a few honest souls thought about the Stations decades from now? Raber and The Boy don't even bother. The group enriches my life now, and I am very forgiving of typos.
DeleteI delete if I see someone has made the same point, if I feel I have responded too tartly, or have made many errors.
Jim, I sometimes edit and then don't "preview" again before publishing, only to later realize that I accidently cut out words or phrases or whole sentences! So I delete.
ReplyDeleteI figure minor typos can stay - this group is bright enough to know how the word should have been spelled.
Jim, I don't believe that Jesus took human sin "onto" himself nor that person of the Trinity known as the Father would have continued a vendetta against the human race had Jesus not been tortured to death. If that is the type of God christians have, then maybe I will become a Buddhist.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that God is cruel and vindictive, nor that he wishes suffering on anyone, nor that "he" would demand that Jesus suffer an unspeakable death in order for human sin to be forgiven. This understanding of God is one of my main problems with the OT also.
I tend to agree with Marcus Borg's views of of scripture, so I don't read it literally. Putting scripture into the context of the cultures of the times in which it was written, and within the context of the cultures of the people who wrote them (the ancient Jews and ancient first followers of Jesus) is the only way I can read scripture.
The meaning is there, but I don't accept literal interpretations. That leads to shallow and misconceived interpretations of scripture, something that evangelical and fundamentalist christians seem particularly prone to.
I don't believe Jesus came to "atone" for our sins, but to teach us how to live, and to teach us that living "rightly" might lead to rather serious consequences. His death gives us a prime example of courage, of potential consequences when speaking "truth to power", but it was not necessary for him to die in order for God to forgive human sin.
So, since the one example of version 2 that you provide seems to reflect this idea somewhat, version 2 stations may have been less off-putting to me growing up than the stations I endured through my youth.
Plenary indulgences - indulgences period - are another Catholic teaching that I see as betraying an almost unbelievable arrogance on the part of the very human men of the RCC .
So, as I have realized over the years how many RCC teachings I find problematic, I have also come to realize that the EC is better for me as a church home. The list of "MUST believes" is very short. They also don't claim God-like powers for the human beings who lead the church as does the RCC. (infallibility, indulgences, etc etc).
But I still hang with a lot of Catholics - in "real" life and online, as the discussions are always interesting. These types of conversations are impossible though with our EWTN Catholic relatives and with a couple of evangelical christian friends and family. (Not) coincidently, they are all Trump supporters too, and I find it almost impossible to spend much time with them at all.
"I don't believe Jesus came to "atone" for our sins, but to teach us how to live, and to teach us that living "rightly" might lead to rather serious consequences. His death gives us a prime example of courage, of potential consequences when speaking "truth to power", but it was not necessary for him to die in order for God to forgive human sin."
DeleteAnne - it seems to me that much the same could be said about Martin Luther King. No doubt there have been labor leaders who were killed because they spoke truth to power. All of these are admirable people - heroic people who can inspire us, and after whom we can model our lives. But Jesus was much more than this.
John Duns Scotus had a little different slant on the Incarnation; that Christ was always Plan A and not Plan B. From this article by Richard Rohr: "Scotus taught that the Enfleshment of God had to proceed from God’s perfect love and God’s perfect and absolute freedom (John 1:1-18), rather than from any mistake of ours." I tend to lean more this way, and realize that I don't understand the mystery, but hopefully someday I will.
Deletep.s. Thanks for not kicking me out of your discussions.
ReplyDeleteAnne, I enjoy the fact that there is another person on here sort of treading water between Rome and Canterbury.
ReplyDeleteSubstitutionary atonement is repellent, I agree. I believe that Jesus died BECAUSE of our sins, and that creation, and God's presence in it continues to suffer because of them.
What happened at Easter was that God opened the way to heaven for us, and showed God's dominion over death and the pains of hellfire. The harrowing of hell, which gets skated over by "he descended to the dead" in the creed, really fired the medieval imagination. In many ways, that myth/tradition/embroidery is a response to substitutionary atonement.
I do agree that ECUSA is very clear in rejecting this notion. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, Episcopalians were adamantly opposed to fundamentalism and TV preachers. I once heard a sermon in which the ECUSA priest flat-out said, "Fundamentalism is lies."
Anne - I agree with your point that God is not carrying out a vendetta against the human race. I would say that humans are mired in sin because of our own stupidity and fallibility. God who is loving and gracious beyond our imaginings sent his son to reconcile us with him. But it was we sinners who put Jesus to death. For his part, he freely embraced this death, out of love for us. The suffering servant in Isaiah, passages of which are quoted in the "older" station in the original post, prefigured this sacrifice. It is this same act of love that is made present in the Eucharist.
ReplyDeleteI don't claim to know a lot about the Anglican Communion, but I'd be really surprised if they believe anything other than this. This is pretty boilerplate Christianity.
At the end of Jesus's life there were three things: Passion, Death and Resurrection. For most of my young life, we emphasized the first, probably at the expense of the other two. OTOH, when you try to explain the Holocaust and God, it helps to have the Passion.
ReplyDeleteAfter Vat II there came a heavy emphasis on Resurrection, probably at the extent of the other two.
Jean mentioned the "harrowing of Hell," which is what Jesus did on Holy Saturday, after he was good and dead and buried. We hardly know, to this day, what to do with that. But, fortuitously, Orbis has just published Michael Downey's The Depth of God's Reach, which is 127 pages of the meaning of Jesus's death, the descent into the world of the dead (i.e., the 1st Century version, not the Medieval Hell) and why and how we should observe Holy Saturday instead of saying, "That's over," and popping a beer.
You realize that that second "probably at the" is also "expense," not "extent."
DeleteTom, I agree that if all one does is go to the three evening Triduum celebrations, one completely misses out on Holy Saturday - we skate right from Good Friday to the Easter Vigil.
DeleteOur parish celebrates communal Morning Prayer only three mornings of the year, on Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. That Holy Saturday instance is really important because it's our parish's only liturgical acknowledgment of Holy Saturday, i.e. the harrowing of hell.
(I'd quibble about the Holy Thursday one because, technically, on the morning of Holy Thursday, we're still in Lent; Triduum doesn't begin until the evening of Holy Thursday. But if the parish wants to do communal morning prayer, I'm not going to stand in their way!)
Jim, That's good news about at least one parish doing something on Saturday. Downey, of course, has a dog in this fight, but he says almost everybody in the Church stands around without a clue on the very day when kenosis -- which they can talk about -- is finally completed.
DeleteWe might have covered this before, but was a specific liturgy for Holy Saturday and the harrowing that got lost at some point. I found this from the Greek Orthodox Service for Saturday morning service:
DeleteToday Hades cried out groaning: “Would that I had not received the One born of Mary; for He came upon me and loosed my power. He shattered the gates of brass; the souls, which I held captive of old, as God He raised up.” Glory O Lord to Your Cross and Your Resurrection.
Today Hades cried out groaning: “My authority is dissolved; I received a mortal, as one of the mortals; but this One, I am powerless to contain; with Him I lose all those, over which, I had ruled. For ages I had held the Dead, but behold, He raises up all. Glory O Lord, to Your Cross and Your Resurrection.
Today Hades cried out groaning: “My power had been trampled on; the Shepherd has been crucified, and Adam He raised up. I have been deprived of those, over whom I ruled; and all those, I had the power to swallow, I have disgorged. He, Who was crucified has cleared the tombs. The dominion of Death is no more.” Glory O Lord, to Your Cross and Your Resurrection.
Jean - that is fantastic!
DeleteAh, the other lung heard from. We miss a lot in the Latin West by persisting in our ignorance of the Orthodox/Uniate East. Downey (sorry to keep citing him, but I am reading him even as I am following this) notes that the Orthodox icons (one of which is his cover) show the Resurrection as starting from Hades. In the West we just pop Jesus into the tomb on Friday and find the stone rolled back on a glorious Sunday. But both lungs of the Church has always insisted on the harrowing of Hell, even though one lung hasn't puffed up about it very much recently.
DeleteJim/Tom, medieval plays in the west have some of this same language and imagery, thought to be taken from earlier Latin Holy Saturday liturgies. So at one time both lungs were full.
DeleteReligious art, Roman and Eastern, is full of images of the harrowing from Anglo-Saxon times (Jesus uses his cross to stab devils in hell" as late as Durer. His engraving would make a nice meditation for Holy Saturday.
https://www.wikiart.org/en/albrecht-durer/harrowing-of-hell-1512
You can see one of the earliest plays here. Sound quality isn't great. But it's all pretty clear. Shows you what we have lost, especially when you remember that there are several local versions of this play in England alone.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18XN41y9K2Q
Maybe someone has already mentioned this excerpt from an ancient sermon from the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday. I have always liked it. I don't really try to parse the theology, to me it is more of a poem than a theological treatise. The point I take from it is that that those who died before Christ's time on earth are nevertheless included in salvation.
DeleteOne of the large differences between the Byzantine Rite and the Roman Rite is that the Byzantine Rite does not loose conscious of the passion when it focuses upon the resurrection and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteThe Byzantine Rite does not suppress the alleluia during Lent. In fact at Forgiveness Vespers which begins their Lent, during the ceremony of mutual forgiveness in which each person forgives every other person during an embrace of peace, they sing the Paschal Praises, an exuberant song that serves much the same function as our Paschal Proclamation. One of the verses sings" Let us embrace each other. Let us forgive each other. Let us treat all men as brothers even those who hate us. For by the Resurrection..." The resurrection is their motivation to fast, pray and give alms.
The Eastern name for Easter is Pascha, which is related to Passover. The whole passion, death, and resurrection is experience as a unity.
Our Roman Rite tends to hide the Incarnation during Advent, and the Resurrection during Lent, and Holy Week. Our rite tends to falsely become like an historical reenactment whereas the true reality is that we experience all the mysteries of salvation at the same time.
The Roman Rite (in its original and reformed forms) emphasized 'noble simplicity' rather than being complex and ornate. However with that simplicity came a tendency to be linear in its thought and expression.
Yes! Real good point about simplicity becoming linear and what's lost when you lose complexity.
DeleteJack it's an interesting and important point. Probably some of the paraliturgical rites like Stations of the Cross tend to amplify the tendency to think in terms of historical re-enactment.
DeleteThe "brown booklet" version (the more scriptural version) I wrote about in the post includes an optional Closing - almost a 15th station - that is a resurrection account. Our parish liturgist asks that I don't do it. But when he's not there I do it. :-) -- for the reason that you mention: we're not play-acting the historical events, but rather celebrating the spiritual mystery, and there is a unity among the passion, death and resurrection. Christ is risen, even during Lent.
Jack - having had the good grace to agree with you in my previous comment, I hope you won't consider it bad manners if I play devil's advocate for a moment. It occurs to me that the mainstream scholarly view of the Gospel of Mark is that the "original ending" or first ending of that Gospel is with Christ in the tomb, with the resurrection account and the rest of the "second ending" as a sort of subsequent appendage, perhaps not even by the same author. If that view is correct (and it's not unanimous), that may provide some rather powerful scriptural support for the tendency to focus on the passion and death as one unit, and the resurrection as a separate unit.
DeleteThere is/was an idea that when the life of a saint paralleled the life of Christ, that event was happening simultaneously to Christ. There is no time in heaven, so these events are all happening at the same time, and we get glimpses of the life of Jesus piecemeal through the saints, who have given their lives to God.
DeleteWhen Jesus tells his disciples to eat his body, he has already died and become present in the elements. When Jesus tells Peter he will betray him, he knows this because, on Heaven Time, it has already occurred (and Peter has repented it).
I'm a literal and linear thinker, so most of this stuff just hurts my head.
Re Jim's comment on Mark. The second ending doesn't fit, or at least it doesn't seem, to me, to fit. For a long time I thought some zealous scribe simply added it. But then it was pointed out that Mark's Gospel begins:
Delete"The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
No reason why that can't mean, simply, "Chapter 1." But perhaps it refers to the full Gospel, as we have it, and Mark didn't "end" it because he saw Christ's work as continuing beyond the end of his life and of his book.
P.S. Jean, I don't see how you can say "God" and think literally or linearly. But maybe I'm gullible.
Well, Tom, I never made any bones about being anything but a piss poor Christian and Catholic. I didn't encounter any Christian thinking until I was 27. I'm trying to catch up most of the time ...
DeleteThe Lord's Day is the original feast day. It is not that the Lord's day is a small Easter; rather Easter is a big Lord's Day, as is Pentecost. (There were some early Christians that celebrated Easter on the day of the month that they calculated that it happened, not the nearest Sunday).
ReplyDeleteThe Byzantine Tradition (which comes from the way the Liturgy was celebrated in Constantinople which was heavily influenced by the Jerusalem liturgy, remember Constantinople build all the shrines) always celebrates the Lord's Day beginning with Vespers on Saturday followed by Matins (either on Saturday after Vespers in the Russian tradition, or in the morning in the Greek tradition) followed by the Eucharist (the Divine Liturgy).
In the Byzantine tradition as in the Jerusalem tradition one of the Gospels of the Resurrection is read at Matins. Many scholars think that in the Jerusalem tradition which was a all night vigil the whole Passion was read before the Resurrection Gospel. So each Lord's day celebrated the whole paschal mystery at the weekly vigil.
Jim,
ReplyDeleteI would not put a lot of stock into theories of the ending of Mark's gospel. Maybe the original ending was lost; it is easy to lose the last pages of a codex.
We are on firmer ground regarding Mark's Gospel as written at a time of threaten persecution. Mark wrote his Gospel after Paul wrote his letters. Paul essentially experienced the resurrection on the road to Damascus. He became a part of a very charismatic movement in which prophets as well as teachers played important roles.(As witnessed later on by Luke in Acts as a "Gospel of the Holy Spirit."
So from Pauls Letters and Acts we see that the Resurrection and Pentecost were essential to the post Jesus movement from early on not a later invention. From my view point as a social scientist the questions are the reverse. Why did Mark (and John likely independently) emphasize the Passion, and why did Q, Mathew, Luke and John emphasize Jesus teaching.
I think Mark emphasized the passion, and the terrible example set by the Apostles in betraying and abandoning Jesus, because he was convinced the church leadership of his day was going to do the same thing. Mark gave us only the Transfiguration as hope. Now once Matthew and Luke reworked Mark they were on more solid ground in optimism about the future of the Church.
Both those writers were also a part of the transition to a more rabbinic like leadership strategy rather than a charismatic, prophetic strategy . Since they wrote after the fall of Jerusalem they understood their competition.
Anyway these are the viewpoint of this social scientist who has spent a lot of time taking scripture courses at ND and elsewhere and reading a lot of the scholar literature. I have a much different framework though than historians, literary analysts and theologians.
Jack, thanks for that comment. I really can't disagree with anything you wrote.
DeleteThis conversation prompted me to dust off a couple of books and take a look at the endings (plural) of Mark. In a previous comment I had mentioned that there are two endings, and that isn't exactly wrong, but there are actually as many as four different endings offered in various manuscripts. The footnote on Mark 16:9-20 (the so-called "Longer Ending" and the one considered canonical by Catholics, per Trent) at this NAB page gives a brief overview of the Longer Ending and two alternative endings. And it seems there is at least one manuscript that just ends it at 16:8, with the empty tomb. I believe one theory about ending the Gospel there is that Mark's community, experiencing the risen Christ in their followship, worship and evangelizing, and probably in their suffering and persecution, didn't need to be told about the resurrection.
http://www.usccb.org/bible/mark/16
Jim, the EC teaches basic christian doctrine (without all the "enhancements" added by the RCC), but there is a wide range of interpretations, and few are "must" believes. For example, they believe in the "Real Presence" but don't define it the way RCs do and leave it up to the individual to figure out just how Christ is "present" in the bread and wine (spiritual food as they call it). They say the Creed, but again, there is broad latitude in interpreting the phrases. When I say it, I include only this "I believe in one God...creator of heaven and earth and of all that is seen and unseen". Then I stop talking!
ReplyDeleteI once was full of certitude. As I got older, my doubts and questions multiplied and my certitudes became fewer and fewer. I am at the point where I will probably be "living the questions" for the rest of my life. I won't live "into the answers" until the (maybe not so distant) day that I live into another life. If there is one!
Since I doubt I will ever live into the answers, I guess I need to start trying to love the questions, as Rilke advised.
I envy those of you who have so few doubts and uncertainties. It must be very comforting.
I don't think that anyone on here has few doubts or uncertainties.
DeleteThey're just not ready to become Episcopalians.
Jean, you seem to have a few questions about more fundamental understandings of christian orthodoxy even though you apparently have some issues with specific RCC teachings.
ReplyDeleteI have problems with both RCC specific teachings and much of christian orthodox teachings, such as atonement theology. Most people I know who are still active Catholics just ignore their questions and doubts and stay Catholic. Most protestants stay protestant, although they move around more than Catholics - not from protestantism to Catholicism or Orthodoxy (capital O) or non-christian, but from denomination to denomination within protestantism. According to Pew and others, most Catholics who leave Catholicism become "nones".
Anne - I have plenty of doubts - or, as some would prefer, I struggle with a lot of difficulties. I'm sure you're right that there are a lot of Catholics who just set all the difficulties aside. There are others like me who struggle and stay Catholic :-)
DeleteI hang with a bunch of guys on Wednesday morning who have been meeting like this for nearly 20 years. We have a long necrology, and occasional news guys, but the core has been dedicated enough to their faith to show up at 6:30 a.m. weekly. Hard core, huh? So what did we discuss this morning? Problems with the sacrament of Penance.
DeleteI am at a point where I wonder what good all the religious navel gazing and striving/struggling for belief has got me.
DeleteAbout half my "spiritual journey" (sick of that term) strikes me as having been a waste of time, possibly self-aggrandizement, desire to be "in the club" and find a replacement family.
Before I was Catholic, the Church was a source of inspiration and imagination. I could romanticize it. As a Catholic, I have felt little but worry, sadness, embarrassment, and regret.
I don't presume to fault the Church for this.
I also don't ever expect to feel comfy, either in or out of the Church, but at least now I don't feel like a fraud and a hypocrite. And some of the inspiration I used to feel seeps back now and then.
Jean, was it a waste of time, if you learned something in the process? Even if what you learned was what didn't fit for you?
DeleteWas it not a fit for me, or was I not fit for it? I guess we'll find out!
DeleteI am often stymied about what I learned. Sometimes I think I have fewer illusions about myself. Most of that I learned in 35 years of marriage and 22 years of parenthood.
But God sees the the smallest atomic particles your and the whole universe, knows what has happened, is happening, and will happen. All at once. So what insights compare with that?
Probably my best moments have been spent in thanks and awe. A few of those moments occurred in churches. More of them were spent in the bathroom stalls of hospitals!
In my parish #2, we write our own Way of the Cross -- a different person does it every year.
ReplyDeleteClaire, that would be interesting, to hear other people's insights.
DeleteWhat a great idea! In our Unitarian youth group, we had to write our own gospel. I have been revising mine for nearly 50 years. It's an interesting exercise.
DeleteSo, Tom, what kinds of problems do the hard core have with Penance?
ReplyDeleteAnne, Hard to summarize a free-wheeling conversation in which one party had been to Confession three times in his life and another has never been more than five weeks between Confessions since high school.(The assemblage sat in wonder.) But the talk started with the proposition: Isn't it really an offense against God to promise a firm purpose of amendment while knowing next time the sins will be roughly the same as this time? It wandered through lousy catechesis on Penance, the difficulty of any American to admit doing anything really bad when "s*** happens" can explain everything, the widespread ignorance of social sin (back to catechesis) and concluded, sort of, that some of us had had run into a good confessor and others had never had more than an ATM machine on the other side of the grill. I'd say those are the high points. We ran 10 minutes over.
DeleteCurious if anyone in your group felt that the old Confession was more conducive to participation than the current many-confusing-options version. Going to tell on yourself is hard enough without any clear idea of what's going to happen in there.
DeleteI think I may have felt an unstated longing for dark and quiet in "the box" but nobody went there explicitly.
DeleteJean: I am at a point where I wonder what good all the religious navel gazing and striving/struggling for belief has got me.
ReplyDeleteI relate to this 100%.
As a Catholic, I have felt little but worry, sadness, embarrassment, and regret.
As a cradle Catholic, it took decades for me to reach that point, but I did reach it - in my 50s.
I also don't ever expect to feel comfy, either in or out of the Church, but at least now I don't feel like a fraud and a hypocrite. And some of the inspiration I used to feel seeps back now and then.
Again, I relate to this.
Tom, so it was pretty much what most Catholics feel about confession. Some have no use for it, some are dependent on it for whatever reasons, and others are.......
ReplyDeleteIt would be nice if the RCC placed more emphasis on "social sin" than it does - especially when it comes down to how greed is destroying so much in our country. But also they need to examine their own collective ecclesial consciences.
It would be a good thing for the PTB to admit to its own corporate sins in how it handled sex abuse of minors. They still haven't owned up to that and held anyone who was in charge accountable.
Isn't it really an offense against God to promise a firm purpose of amendment while knowing next time the sins will be roughly the same as this time?
Priest molesters did this - confessed and then said mass and then molested the altar boys again. Over and over again. And bishops let them get away with it. Some bishops transferred these men to other unsuspecting parishes, and kept their mouths shut while the priests found new victims. Neither the priest molesters themselves nor the bishops who protected them have ever mended their ways.
They claim that they have repented, but it seems that it is just empty words. Without real action (defined policy from Rome in what will happen to bishops who protect criminals), it's a tragedy that will happen again sometime in the future.
Anne, if cheating the employees on overtime ever occurred to a cheater as a sin (which is not likely in this era), the employers would do what you say the priests did: Confess and do it again. But, it turns out, we all have sins, albeit not all criminal offenses, that we do that with.
DeleteAs for repentance, I think I went on and on about that here recently. "Repent" was practically the first word out of Jesus's mouth (Mark 1:15) If you don't believe in, or reject, repentance, all you have left is "**** happens."
I think it goes deeper than "shit happens." Americans fear guilt and accepting responsibility for their sins because it looks weak. We have a prime example in the White House whose chief fear seems to be that people are laughing at us and that we are weaklings.
DeleteLike their prez, Americans shift the blame to external forces beyond their control. I've seen people blame sins on mental illness, medication or substance abuse, stress, illness or disability, age, money problems, job woes ... and that's just in my own family.
I do take very seriously the need to repent and take responsibility. But I have never found Confession to be much help in this endeavor.
I suppose Confession could help lead someone to that realization, learn to say they're sorry, and try to address their own sins. But that presupposes that you have, as you eloquently put it, more than an ATM spitting out fivehailmarysandanourfather.
What then is the point of 'going to confession"? Since it seems that everyone just keeps confessing a routine list of sins, commit same sins, repeat.
ReplyDeleteThe men in clerical collars who constantly urge the laity to go 'go to confession" are not exactly leading by example.
"What is the point of 'going to confession'"? I guess everybody has their own reasons. I don't go really often, maybe 3 to 5 times a year. And yes, I do tend to confess the same ones; which isn't surprising, considering that they are along my personal fault lines. Kind of like earthquakes and tremors happen along geological fault lines. And some of the ones I used to confess every time, I don't any more. So maybe I am making some progress. The fault lines are still there, but it feels like it's a little easier. Sometimes. Granted, there are priests who don't lead by example. I think there are far more who do. I am fortunate enough to be able to choose my confessor; I will admit that there are priests I would prefer not to confess to. Not because they are bad people but because they seem kind of hard-line and legalistic. I have been lucky to be able to keep the same confessor for about 22 years. He's one of the good guys, but he's nearly 80 now and won't be around forever. I do believe that the sacrament is an occasion of grace and an encounter with the Holy Spirit.
DeleteAll of this reminiscing of the Good Friday and Lenten devotions make me feel very, very old .... which I am rapidly approaching. Good Friday was one of the biggest challenges of Lent. Focusing on the Stations which the priest whipped through the repetition in Latin (Oremus. Flectamus Genua. Levate) and THEN the stripping of the alter and THE Benediction. I used to envy the Protestants with their understandable 3 hours activities.
ReplyDeleteYes: it is ALTAR, not alter.
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