CHAT Liturgical thou/thee etc. (was: Thorn vs Eth)

On Wednesday, July 10, 2002, at 11:18 , John Cowan wrote:

> Ray Brown scripsit:
>
>>> Protestant Christians say "Hallowed be thy name" rather frequently;
>>
>> So also this side of The Pond do Catholic Christians    :)
>
> I excluded Catholics simply because I didn't know if that version
> of the prayer was still current among them.  Forty years ago the
> only difference was "trespassers/those who trespass against us"
> (Protestant) vs. "debts/debtors" (Catholic),
This side of the Pond, Catholics have always and still do say
"trespassers/those who trespass against us".   "debts/debtors" occurs
AFAIK only in translations of Matthew - I've never come across it in
liturgical use over here.

"Thou", "thee" etc has, indeed, almost entirely yielded ground to "you" in
the vernacular liturgies which are now mainly used among us anglophone
Catholics (tho happily Latin is not entirely abandoned :)

There was an attempt many years back to eliminate "thou", "thee" etc
entirely
and a common modern form of the Lord's Prayer was devised to be used
jointly by Protestants & Catholics.   But neither community took to it,
people
clinging to the traditional form they were brought up with.  AFAIK there's
been
no further attempt to 'modernize'.

About 30 years back, I recall seeing Catholic prayer books with prayers
such
the 'Hail Mary' (Ave Maria) and the 'Hail Holy Queen' (Salve Regina)
printed
with 'you' and 'your' replacing the older 'thou/thee' and 'thy'.  But these
forms never caught on over here in these traditional prayers and the older
forms persist.

I can well believe, however, that US Catholics may have been less
conservative
than us over here.

> plus "evil" (most Christians)
> vs. "evil one" (conservative Protestants).
I'm pretty certain conservative Protestant here just have 'evil' like most
of
the rest of us.   'the evil one' appeared in 'The New English Bible' and, I
believe, gained some currency in some Anglican circles.
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On Wednesday, July 10, 2002, at 11:36 , Tristan McLeay wrote:

{snip}

> never heard it said with 'evil one'. (And thou/thee/thine etc. The only
> difference I know of is 'For thine is the kindgom, the power and the
> glory' I think in some church I've been too (Anglican perhaps?) and 'For
> the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and for ever' in the
> Catholic church. And the Catholics don't have it as part of it, but
> rather say it afterwards only at Mass.)
It's never formed part of the Lord's Prayer in Catholic tradition; and,
despite its inclusion in the King James Version, the doxology was not
part of the original biblical texts.   It was the practice in the early
church to add doxologies to prayers, psalms etc taken from the scriptures.
This particular one got written into some later editions of the NT.

In the post-Vatican II reforms of the liturgy it did get added after the
embolism to the Lord's Prayer in the Mass.  After everyone has said (or
sung) the Lord's Prayer together, the priest adds the embolism:
"Deliver us, Lord, from every evil,
  and grant us peace in our day.
  In your mercy keep us free from sin
  and protect us from all anxiety
  as we wait in joyful hope
  for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ."
To which the congregation respond by saying (or singing) the doxology
"For the kingdom, the power......etc".
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Ray.

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