Not ‘consubstantial’, please!

The changes in the liturgy are most disappointing and seriously retrogressive. The English is poor; few people in my parish understand the word “consubstantial”.

The wording of the Nicene Creed is bad; it assumes there are only men in church when in fact there are usually far more women.
The grammar is incorrect. For example, the sentence beginning “And in the Holy Spirit…”  Was it written by a person for whom English is a second language, or are there misprints?

In the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the priest has to say: “it will become for us the spiritual drink”. If changes had to be made, it  was a pity the ICET text of the Our Father was not used, though even in that I would prefer “and save us from temptation”, rather than “and lead us not into temptation”, as if God would deliberately lead us into temptation!

I could go on, but your contributors, including the cartoonist, have made other points.

Several people have said to me they do not find that the changes help them to pray. Is there any possibility of letting our voices be heard on how we want to pray to God as a community?

The SACBC letter about trafficking read in our church today is to be commended, but by comparison with this dreadful problem, the time and energy spent on reviving archaic language seems highly inappropriate.

Sr Cora Richardson, Midrand


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