Hey girl, Good question, and one that not too many people think about... If you study history in many different cultures, and especially the history of the Church, you'll find that in the formational beginnings, our forefathers (ie., those founding fathers of the Church) and evangelizers, brought the message of Christ to various countries adapting the ways and traditions of each place they went to while still standing firm to the apostolic tradition (this was so that the people of that area would be more receptive to this new thing, rather than them feeling like they were abandoning their identity of their culture, a unique part of their region - an example is St. Thomas and other apostles, and some of the things they did - you can look it up). Even if you look back to certain practices or traditions in the Church, such as using a monstrance for Adoration and a circular wafer for communion, some claim that it originates from worshipping the pagan sun god, and hence the monstrance and wafer was made in that shape. I can't remember the details of it at the moment, but if you go to www.catholic.com, you can read their article on traditions and customs, pagan worship, etc., and it will give you a clear idea of how the Church incorporates traditions of each culture, ethnic race, etc. to better serve the people (but not simply go along with it... there are reasons...read and discover!) Another example is the exchange of rings at a marriage...there are others. Here is the link for the article on the origin of things in the Church that some consider to have pagan origin (I am giving this example so you can correlate how others say that some of the traditions in our cultures we practice as part of our Catholic faith are not truly "Catholic", but from some other origin) http://www.catholic.com/library/Is_Catholicism_Pagan.asp Another article that might be helpful is http://www.catholic.com/library/can_dogma_develop.asp (about dogma, doctrines, traditions, etc.) The section entitled "Borrowing From Paganism" is especially helpful. Looking up the Catechism's take on this is the best way to go... see the section about traditions, cultures, etc. Hope that helps. Love, Leese
"Souly" for the Son, Leese (Lisa Jose) Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now **************************************************************** This mail is generated from JOYnet, a Jesus Youth mailing list. For more info on the list visit http://www.jesusyouth.org/joynet To unsubscribe from the list send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to the list visit http://www.jesusyouth.org/joynet/join To get a standard help message on the list services send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In case of any issue related to the mailing list contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] ****************************************************************
