The assignment required that I visit a church of choice within the Catholic Council, and document my observation. I decided to visit the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament located in downtown Sacramento. The church is located amidst many of the governmental buildings and has easy access to Regional Transit. I chose this church because it was an ideal location to which I could get to. I attended Sunday masses and learnt a great deal pertaining to the Catholic doctrine. The Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament was built and founded in 1886, was opened to the public for the masses in 1889. The exterior is beautifully built, a rendition of the great basilicas found in the renaissance period and the remnants which derived from the classical and non-classical …show more content…
The priest read some verses from the bible in which the congregation took a stand and read verbatum. The congregation appeared to anticipate each formality, and appeared be in harmony with the priest. The priest read a few short passages from the Old Testament and the congregation anticipated the next formality.There were young children dressed in white robes carrying and delivering items to the the priest. The priest is noted to be sitting in a chair, which a young child carries a large book to the priest. The child stands in front of the priest, and the priest opens the Holy Book and begins to read aloud. The congregation states aloud their professing of faith. Shortly thereafter, the congregation picks up a pamphlet of sorts and begins to sing aloud together. Throughout the intercession, the congregation is always appearing to anticipating something from one moment to the next. The priest reads aloud “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” Amen. The congregation unites in verbatum affirming their statement of …show more content…
The council was considered the largest ever held during its time and the occasion was held to resolve the controversial issues surrounding divinity Jesus Christ being. There were many theological issues at the time, which ultimately led to all kinds of discussions. According to Gonzalez, “The ensuing theological discussions were more a search for an agreed definition of faith than a constant controversy.” (Ferguson 2013, 199) And it was announced that the bishops wanted to resolve once and for all, the subject of the Trinity, because it was such a controversial subject to the Alexandrines who “stressed the significance of Jesus as the teacher of divine truth…In order to be this, the Savior had to be a full a clear revelation of the divine…The Antiochus’s, on the other hand, felt that for Jesus to be the savior of human beings he had to be fully human…Both sides agreed that Jesus was both divine and human…The question was how to understand that union.” (Gonzalez, p.296). The Council of Chalcedon was also significant because it seeks to unify the creeds of Nicaea and Constantinople. And it condemned the false doctrines of Nestorius and Eutyches. The council affirmed the single personality of Christ and the authenticity and perfection of both His natures, human and
The direction now of my research is to begin investigating the context of the debate. To achieve this aim I will need to be consulting books of both secular and church history for the time of Jesus and the Council.
More particularly, it recognizes the authority of the ecumenical councils at which East and West were represented together. These were the councils of Nicaea I (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus(431), Chalcedon(451), Constantinople II (553), Constantinople III (680), and Nicaea II (787) (Encarta 1996). The power of teaching and guiding the community is bestowed on certain ministries, particularly that of the bishop of each diocese or is directed through certain institutions, such as councils...
On the first Sunday of April, the day that Jesus Christ was resurrected, the priest Jose Mari (Father Chema) spoke to an audience of roughly 200 people. The audience contained a variety of people from all demographics, which attended The Good Shepard church at 9:30 in the morning to honor Jesus. The speaker, Father Chema, is a certified priest and has experience reading and interpreting the Bible. When speaking he does not use notes to remind him about what he is going to talk about, the only time he reads directly from a text is when he is reading directly out of the Bible, to the audience. With the audience being as large as it is he speaks at an elevated level with nothing in front of him, so that he can be
When children are young, it can be difficult for parents to teach them certain skills and lessons to live a good life. For example, toilet training a young person is something all parents suffer through and most of the time it is hard for them to teach their young ones how to use the bathroom. Several methods have been developed by psychologists, pediatricians, and other scholarly people on the toilet-training process. In addition to this, children’s books are published that are strictly directed at teaching children about their own bodily functions, and using the restroom. The language used, the illustrations, and the delivery of the language, is directed at children. Even children’s bibles are made because children cannot comprehend, or hold the attention to the King James version on the Bible, and so the stories of the bible and its teachings are rewritten in a language children can understand, as well as presented in a manner that will hold a child’s attention. This same approach is used for Catholic stories of their saints in order to teach children about them and their lives that they lived, which reflects how the Church instructs its followers to live in order to go on to everlasting life with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Each children’s story evaluated, although directed to teach children, or to help the parents teach the child, also contains a certain sub-text, and by comparing the same children’s stories to those written for adults and the general public about saints, and by examining the authors intent, as well as the intent of the Catholic church, the importance of these different story styles and their purpose will be determined.
...tween God and Jesus. Arius was a leader of a congregation that believed, “Christians worshiped Jesus, but at the same time came from monotheistic Jewish tradition, in which God alone is worshiped (Fisher, 2008, p. 320). In other words, Arius believed Jesus did not have the same status as God because he was a human. Others believed that “Jesus is properly worshiped as the incarnation of God” (Fisher, 2008, p. 320). In order to resolve this issue, Constantine formed a general council, called the Nicene Council. They debated the issue for decades and they finally dismissed Arius’s beliefs and created the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed states that the Father came down from heaven as the Holy Spirit and he was made man through the Virgin Mary. This creed is a “profession of faith for many Christians dominations” (Fisher, 2008, p. 320) and has helped unify all Christians.
In the second chapter, the author talks about the Arian controversy and the question on who Jesus really was. Hall talks about the points of Arius and how Arius believed that Jesus was a created being. He also discusses the arguments of Athanasius who thought that Jesus was the son of God and was not created but instead coexistent. In the third chapter, the author discusses the debate on the Trinity. He talks about the argument about the Trinity by viewing it as if he was Gregory of Nazianzus. He talks about how Gregory thought that the answer to the Trinity is ultimately unexplainable from either view point of the argument because humans are not divine and lack the comprehension to truly understand the Trinity correctly. This correlates to Augustine’s
At 9:55 a man referred to as an usher greeted me and handed me a program. The room I entered into next was large and had an aisle down the center separating the seating. There were eight chairs seated side by side in each row and fifteen rows in total on each side of the aisle to provide comfortable seating for 240 people. I took a seat amongst the rest of the youth in the second row from the front of the platform. On the platform at the front of the room sat various instruments, a large podium and multiple speakers. There was a large, rectangular opening in the center wall at the back of the platform where a large tub with steps, referred to as the baptism tank, was located. Beyond the tank was a large wooden cross hanging on the wall.
‘Holy Baptism is full initiation by water and the Holy Spirit into Christ’s body the Church’. These few words are the initiatory comments in the Book of Common Prayer (1979) concerning the rite of Baptism and the purpose of the service. Within them lies an understanding that, while possibly implicit, in previous Prayerbooks had not been made clear, or was deliberate...
The children looked to be high school age and were wearing a robe over their clothing. I was sitting in the back of the church and all the young adults came walking in from the main doors, coming into the what I will call the hall. In front of the young adults there was what looked to be middle school age kids carrying down a stick with Christ on the cross and candles on a stick. Following them was Father Richard and several other Fathers’ or priests from the congregation. The child then followed behind them in two signal lines, girls on the right and boys on the left.
In “Songs of Innocence,” the children walk into the church in rows of two. They are freshly bathed and they all seem to be healthy. They sit down in the pews. This reminds the speaker of a company of lambs sitting by the thousands. The children are “raising their innocent hands in prayer” (“Song of Innocence” 8).
The Church had not been blind in its need for reform. Many of the leaders had encouraged Pope Julius II to call a council. In 1512, he called the Fifth Lateran Council. The popes had become skittish about calling ecumenical councils because of the heresy of Conciliarism. The weakness that the Avignon Papacy and the Western Schism caused the Papacy led to Conciliarism. Conciliarism held the idea that a general council was greater and than that of the Pope. In fact, a council had no authority in Church matters unless called and approved by the residing Pope. Hence, by the time the Fifth Lateran Council closed in 1517, it had failed to reform the abuses that were going on in the Church. The climate was right for the message of the Reformers.
They embraced the "hypostasis union" or the "nature union" of the Godhead and manhood to emphasize the oneness of Jesus Christ. The theologians of Antioch also discarded both Docetism and Apollinarianism. (Docetism: Christ only "appeared" or "seemed to be a man, born, to have lived and suffered and Apollinarianism: A Christological theory, explain how Christ could be both human and divine. That human beings composed of body, soul, and spirit, and in Jesus the human spirit was replaced by the Logos, or the second person of the Trinity.)
Through the various calls for response made by the priests, “let us be attentive”, “let us pray to the Lord”, “peace be with you” and “servant of God” tradition is linguistically demonstrated. Each of these and other prayers was concluded with a response or “Amen” typically by the priest or the choir. Also, we saw reminders of God’s beauty in the images of those who loved and served the Lord throughout the ages as painting on the ceilings and walls.
Growing up, I was raised in a southern Baptist church setting. Every Sunday you were required to attend church which included going to Sunday school, first service, and second service. You were also required to be active in the church whether it be ushering or singing in the choir. For my foreign experience of worship I decided to attend a Catholic church. At first I was a bit skeptical about stepping outside of my background history of worship because I thought that attending a Catholic church may change some of my beliefs or practices. I will admit before my attendance to this Catholic Church I had negative thoughts and was determined that my paper would be only about negative experience that I had. Once I entered the church all of my negative thoughts were out of my mind. Prior to researching background information I really didn’t think that Catholics and Baptist had a lot in common, besides their belief in the faith of Jesus Christ. In my essay about my Catholic Church experience I will describe the physical setting of the church, tell you about the church service, and lastly tell
The purpose of this paper is to discuss a service that I got to attend that was different from my own religious tradition. I decided to go with my chosen topic because to be honest I had never experienced or thought to experience a different type of church service other than the one I grew up in. I grew up in a Christian home and attended a non-denominational Christian church on a regular basis. I just never felt the need to experience something that was different. So I decided to attend a mass at a Catholic church. I had been to weddings in a Catholic church and even funerals with a Catholic involvement but not an actual mass.