Competing ideals and philosophies

[MoreCoffee]

I was thinking a bit about devotional books and wondered what folk think about devotions prepared by a denomination or a church in contrast to devotions prepared by individuals. Which do you prefer. Which do you trust. Is this a little bit like the contrast between capitalism and free market economics and centrally planned economics except applied to prayers and songs and poems to inspire personal faith?

 

[NewCreation435]

Most of the time I don't use devotions at all, whether they be denominational or otherwise. I simply read my Bible. Most of the devotions I have seen at church that you can use lack much substance.

 

[Lamb]

I'm not too huge on devotionals unless it's during the Advent or Lenten season. Then I like to read a variety of them but they're mostly from Lutherans, not the denom, but individuals who belong to the WELS or LCMS denominations.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I'm not too huge on devotionals unless it's during the Advent or Lenten season. Then I like to read a variety of them but they're mostly from Lutherans, not the denom, but individuals who belong to the WELS or LCMS denominations.

I like Catholic Church devotional books. I am not so keen on individually authored ones because some of them are a bit strange. I use The Liturgy of the Hours and an excerpted edition of the liturgy of the hours called Morning and Evening Prayer

 

[Lamb]

The big Lutheran denominations have their own publishing companies and the one for LCMS is Concordia Publishing House. They review all the materials they agree to have on their site so even though the books are written by individuals they are approved for use in the LCMS.

 

[MoreCoffee]

The big Lutheran denominations have their own publishing companies and the one for LCMS is Concordia Publishing House. They review all the materials they agree to have on their site so even though the books are written by individuals they are approved for use in the LCMS.

I cannot help but think that there may be a deep philosophical and theological divide between the individual's devotional and the devotional produced by the Church. Of course if the individual's work is centered upon the Church's devotionals then the divide will likely disappear.

The liturgy of the hours is liturgical in content, corporate in spirit, and ancient, very ancient, in history.

 

[Arsenios]

This last is the "Great Horologion" which is very large and comprehensive, and $114...

Like you, I am a sucker for a prayer book...

My favorite is the Psalter... I has a weekly prescription for reading it entirely each week... According to the Kathismata...

The Service Books you show above are what we pray daily, except Orthodox versions of them...

Arsenios

 

[MoreCoffee]

Nice books Arsenios. The three volume Liturgy of the Hours is about 7,000 pages all up (in the USA they publish it in 4 volumes) But it is really meant for priests and the religious in orders that are obligated to say the prayers of the liturgy daily. I have a copy because I like to read and pray the Office of Readings in it. I use Morning and evening prayer for my daily prayers and I also pray many times apart from the liturgical books.

...

Morning and Evening Prayer contains the Psalter

 

[Albion]

The Book of Common Prayer. We invented the idea of putting such materials into the hands of every parishioner.

 

[JRT]

I pray silently. My very best prayers are wordless.

 

[MennoSota]

This last is the "Great Horologion" which is very large and comprehensive, and $114...

Like you, I am a sucker for a prayer book...

My favorite is the Psalter... I has a weekly prescription for reading it entirely each week... According to the Kathismata...

The Service Books you show above are what we pray daily, except Orthodox versions of them...

Arsenios

I prefer this one...

 

[MoreCoffee]

I prefer this one...

I read that one a long while ago. It is a morality tale with a lot of theology in it.

 

[MennoSota]

I read that one a long while ago. It is a morality tale with a lot of theology in it.

It's an allegory. You should like it. It also oozes with great theological truths. It's the most read book after the Bible. I encourage you to read it again.

 

[MoreCoffee]

It's an allegory. ...

Allegory can be tiresome.

 

[MennoSota]

Allegory can be tiresome.

Not as tiresome as you and Arsenios appealing to your traditions when speaking of grace...

 

[Arsenios]

OK - This one is my all-time favorite - My response to it is what motivated my Christian Baptismal name, Arsenios.

https://www.amazon.com/Father-Arseny-1893-1973-Narratives-Concerning/dp/0881411809

It was my first Orthodox book when I first encountered this Faith, and some 16 years later we did a re-read of it aloud in catechism class, and it was even better than when I first read it... As good as it had been, it was much better the second time through... It is the Faith of Christ without the smells and the bells and the beautiful Churches and Cathedrals... And it gives their basis and validation... He was sent to a labor camp in the gulag of Siberia where one's papers weere destroyed, because you were not intended to ever survive and return... It shows the Faith in action where the Church is no longer functional, but the greatest of the faithful just pour themselves out even more... For the sake of those weak in the Faith who are just traumatied by the horrific conditions of existence there...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Not as tiresome as you and Arsenios appealing to your traditions when speaking of grace...

Do you have a care-taker to clean up your little spit-ups like this?

Your commentaries lack pith...

And abound in drool...

Arsenios

 

[RichWh1]

Allegory can be tiresome.

It’s more a parable than allegory. And parables are based upon a truth.


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[MennoSota]

Do you have a care-taker to clean up your little spit-ups like this?

Your commentaries lack pith...

And abound in drool...

Arsenios

From which EO tradition did you copy and paste such words?

 

[MoreCoffee]

It’s more a parable than allegory. And parables are based upon a truth.


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You may want to take that up with MennoSota since he said it was an allegory. I said it is a morality tale with a lot of theology in it.