Worship in other tongues

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  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    Zappa wrote: »
    The rite of house blessing, usually after a death in a room or house, is a key part of NZ Anglican practice. It's not quite exorcism, just a nudge in the name of Jesus for sorrows and greynesses to piss off. I always conduct the rite in te reo (the usual albeit truncated designation for Māori ... technically "te reo" means "the sound") so the said nasties which I assume are pre-European presences ... (er a few questions around that) ... get the meaning of the rite and take their leave.

    Somewhere in that superstition that is mine alone there are snatches of serious theological reflection.

    I lived in a large house where one of the flatmates hanged herself and we had a house blessing based on the New Zealand Prayer Book after that.

    On a happier note I had a house blessing when I moved into my new home.
  • Entertainment. As an audience member. Versus participant-observer. Hocus pocus versus hoc est corpus. I like them both.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    Some people in the Classics department at my local university sometimes arrange for an evening service (Protestant) in Latin in the side chapel of the university church. The Sunday compline service is usually done by rotating choirs and sometimes in non-English languages.
    Just as Welsh versions have always been produced, there was also a Latin version of Queen Elizabeth I's Book of Common Prayer for use in Universities where people could understand it, but not anywhere else. Is that what they use?

    I think so. I will note this is an American university
  • I rather like the idea of encouraging peeps to say the Lord's Prayer in their own 'first', or 'family' language, at Pentecost!

    We could muster Tagalog, Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, Yoruba (one of the Nigerian languages), Dutch, Irish, and possibly one or two others. I could contribute German or French myself, just to show off...

    Sadly, we have no Poles, Latvians, or Hungarians at the moment. I blame Bo*is.
    :disappointed:
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    As do many other churches, St Sanity observes Pentecost with the reading from Acts 2 - first verse in English and then others stand to jointly continue the reading in another language. What is moving is the different time it takes to read, with voices dropping off one by one, until there is a solitary reader left.
  • Certainly another suitable way to make the point!

    I have to ask - whose the one who takes the longest?
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Ones I can't identify I'm sorry, and it does vary. Some years, it's one of the Slavic tongues, others an East Asian; sometimes a pretty recent arrival here, others a child of someone who reached these shores in the 1940s.
  • I have attended a number of bi-lingual Spanish/English services. Parts are read in alternating languages. The Lord's prayer was said together by each in their own language. The sermon had a translator. The music is alternated between a hymn in English and the next in Spanish. It was a bit strange the first time, but soon grew to seem normal. It has been a number of years since I last went and do now and then miss the service, especially the music in Spanish.
  • I have attended a number of bi-lingual Spanish/English services. Parts are read in alternating languages. The Lord's prayer was said together by each in their own language. The sermon had a translator. The music is alternated between a hymn in English and the next in Spanish. It was a bit strange the first time, but soon grew to seem normal. It has been a number of years since I last went and do now and then miss the service, especially the music in Spanish.

    Somewhere in the MW archives is my report on the Anglican cathedral in Buenos Aires, where the bilingual service was handled very well-- most of the parishioners appeared to be bilingual Anglo-Argentines and their less Anglo spouses and children. Several traditional Victorian hymns were more poetic in Spanish, or so I thought at the time.

    I've attended a few French/English services in Canada, but the practice is now almost non-existent. I've attended weddings (both Anglican & RC) where the readings were done in both languages, for the benefit of the two families, which often had unilingual members.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    .
    Certainly another suitable way to make the point!

    I have to ask - whose the one who takes the longest?

    The one speaking Old Entish, obviously.
  • Hehe! Yes indeed - though I have yet to see an Ent at Our Place (but we do have what appears to be a small Huorn near the main door...).

    The fact that different languages run at differing speeds IYSWIM simply emphasises how wonderfully rainbow-coloured The People Of God are.
  • In Llandaff Cathedral, and maybe other Welsh churches, the service is printed in Welsh on the left hand side and English on the right of each page. So it doesn't matter what is said in which language, you can find what it means instantly. A good model for other bilingual congregations, perhaps?
  • Although we only do this rarely, we're going to have at least one hymn next week (it being St David's Day) which we will ask people to sing in English or Welsh, as they prefer.
  • A Methodist minister from North Wales once told me how a Welsh speaker in a chapel where he'd ministered vehemently complained when they introduced bi-lingual services (Welsh and English). 'Pastor Davies, I strongly object to these bi-focal services!'
  • O - did they have Welsh at the top of the Powerpoint screen, and English below?

    I'll find me own way out...
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    You may jest .... but I will now find it difficult not to mention bi-focals when, next Sunday, we will indeed have a hymn so displayed on Powerpoint! (Well, nearly - English in the top half and Welsh below).
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    Wales and NZ understand each other in this regard. Bi-glot liturgical cooperation is common in both. The cooperation breaks down a little on the rugby field.
  • I just finished watching the Pope's Easter Mass of the Day from St. Peter’s, and was intrigued that there were two deacons. One clearly Roman Rite and chanting the gospel in Italian, and the other clearly from one of the Eastern Rites, chanting the Gospel in what I assume was proper language for that rite.

    Does anyone have any idea which rite it was? and/or language it was? And, while I’m at it with questions, is it traditional for the Pope to incorporate an Eastern Rite deacon on feast days?
  • On the great festivals of the Christian year at the Papal Mass as well as a 'Latin' deacon there is also a 'Greek' deacon who sings the Gospel in Greek. This has happened for centuries if not indeed for more than a millennium.
  • I should perhaps have mentioned that the deacon and the other clergy often come from a Greek Catholic monastery just outside Rome. On 29th June the Ecumenical Patriarch has often come to Rome and at least in one of the earlier years of his papacy Francis went to Istambul on 30th November. Even if he has not been able to go to the Ecumenical Patriarch for St Andrew's day pope Francis has sent a high level delegate each year.

  • Of course when one is speaking in another language one does make howlers. After one evangelistic sermon I was informed that I'd told my listeners that "all sinners are sinners"; after one closing prayer in a youth meeting I discovered that I'd asked God "to be with us all until we get married"; while my wife informed a women's group that Jesus, rather than being hungry, "had a fat wife".

    I told people "how blesssed are the dogs that dwell in the house of the Lord."
  • But they are!
    :wink:
  • Ours certainly was (we lived then in one wing of the building, and he occasionally managed to follow his master into the sanctuary).
  • I once prayed in a Spanish service, " We are not sorry for our sins."
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    I once prayed in a Spanish service, " We are not sorry for our sins."

    God appreciates honesty, even accidental honesty.
  • Just watched and participated remotely in a very simple Mass celebrated by pope Francis in the church of Santo Spirito in Sassia,Rome. This church was designated by John Paul II as the centre in Rome for the devotion, known as Divine Mercy.
    In his speech at the end of Mass and Regina Coeli the pope sent heartfelt greeting to those Christians who are celebrating Easter today. He said he was very happy that Eastern Catholics were celebrating Easter at the same time as their Orthodox brethren.
  • ZappaZappa Ecclesiantics Host
    KarlLB wrote: »
    I once prayed in a Spanish service, " We are not sorry for our sins."

    God appreciates honesty, even accidental honesty.

    Perhaps you were channeling a certain US president?
  • GarasuGarasu Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    My German teacher claimed that I managed to declare in my oral exam that I enjoyed deflowering virgins...

    (I accept that I had used Jungfrau to mean "girl", but I'm not sure where the "deflowering" came in...")

    [Edit: code]
  • And I always thought that the Jungfrau was a mountain in Switzerland ...
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