Sunday, July 15, 2012

Ruth Duck - Hymnist To Be Avoided

Today at Mass we sang a song by the above author entitled "As A Fire Is Meant For Burning".  We sang a very sanitized version as the original version is heretical.  The line many might remember from Mass is "not to preach our country's customs".  What it replaced is "not to preach our creeds or customs", which is nothing more than the heresy of religious indifferentism.  However, several years ago we did sing the original heresy - well not me!  I did a little of my own substitution and would loudly sing "we will preach our creeds and customs" over the offending phrase.  I did so again today.

So who is this lady?  In short, she's a feminist.  At least she wasn't born Catholic so apostasy is not a factor in her case.  Here's a blurb on her life.  Look at page 3 for the various titles she gives to God.  "Sister Wisdom??"   How about "Spirit Guide"?  I believe that one has relevance in New Age and/or Wiccan circles.   We also have "God the loving gardener" and "Great spirit of the cosmic whole".  How does she dream up this barf?  Missing of course are any traditional titles that smack of masculinity, such as "Father" or "Lord".  The footnotes on page 4 are quite telling.  More so is the section on page 5 under "That did it!"  As we read through that section we see that "new names (for God) awaited discovery".

And I thought "not to preach our creeds and customs" was bad enough!!  This woman appears to be monkeying around with so many "names" for God that she has no clue as to Who He is.

If I'm at a Mass again when this song is sung, I will be singing my lyrics very loudly!

11 comments:

  1. What is wrong with your Archdiocese? My niece took me to Saint Teresa of Avila Church for "Mass" this morning. I don't know wht she was thinking of--she knows I am a devout Catholic. People jumping up and down, swaying clapping, drums, guitars, I refused to go to Holy Communion of course as it was nothing more than mass desecration. This would never be tolerated on our side of the river in the Arlington Diocese

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    1. "What's wrong with my archdiocese" is the very reason why I started the website over seven years ago. You can read my original letter to Cardinal McCarrick at http://www.restore-dc-catholicism.com/Letter%20to%20McCarrick%209-3-04.htm. Peruse the rest of that site for more ills of the Archdiocese of Washington (with a few others). I moved to the blogger platform as it enabled me to keep up with news.

      Long and short, we have had prelates who are politicians. Both Cdls McCarrick and Wuerl adamantly refuse to obey Canon 915. As we saw in Feb-March, Cardinal Wuerl outright punished a parish priest for his obedience to Church law. They rub elbows with all sorts of "katholyc" pro-abort politicians and personalities, turning a blind eye when they are adulated in parishes (latest being Mark Shriver at Blessed Sacrament a few months ago).

      Unless you had reason to believe the consecration at that Mass to be invalid, I'm sorry you didn't receive Holy Communion. Perhaps your devout reception might have been the only consolation Our Lord would have received amongst all the chaos there.

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    2. By the way.. St Teresa of Avila parish has quite a chequered history. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Augustus_Stallings

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  2. Why don't you discuss this with your church's music director? There are a lot of superbly beautiful hymns he or she could choose that don't have a leftist feminist political spin.

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    1. There are many issues that I can't discuss here due to prudence. They are already hearing things, as evidenced by that sanitation they did above.

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    2. As a member of the St. John Neumann parish, I did discuss this and other songs with her. She is very adamant about the songs she chooses, and generally not open to other opinions. In fact she boasts that she knows more than most priests about the Catholic liturgy... a source of conflict with many priests that have come and gone in our parish. She only changed the words to "not to preach our nations customs" after many complaints. However, she made the change after 9/11, when President Bush got involved in nation-building in Iraq. So the song was changed from being heretical to merely making a political statement.

      However, "As a Fire is meant for Burning" is not the only questionable song in her repertoire. When she first came, she made it a point to introduce the song "All are Welcome" to the parish. If you Google it, you will discover that it is a gay anthem of sorts. For example, when Episcopal Bishop Robinson, our nation's first openly gay bishop, leads services, "All are Welcome" is one of his favorite songs.

      And one of her favorite visiting priests was Father Roy, a missionary priest to Africa, who at one Mass changed the words "Our Father who art in heaven" to "Our mother....".

      So, do you think she has an agenda?

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  3. If you do a little more research on Ruth Duck, there is a lot more that you can find, for example:
    1. She is a member of the United Church of Christ (UCC).
    2. In 2003 she received the Burning Bush Award from Christians for Justice Action. This is a ministry in the UCC that is particularly involved in promoting gay marriage. So why are we singing songs from the UCC, a church that is diametrically opposed to Catholic teaching?
    3. As an associate Professor at Garret Theological Seminary, one of the programs she teaches is “Feminist Theology”.

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  4. Oh, dear. It's been a long time since I've come across such narrow-minded bigotry as is expressed in this blogs and in the comments.

    If I was a doctor, I would be prescribing a long course of growing-up tablets.

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    1. I see that you have nothing of substance to offer for a rebuttal - only snark. But in truth, I believe that's all you have to offer, as I'll explain for other readers.

      Your blogger profile indicates that you are a minister of the Uniting Church, located in Australia. Your church has a website that is quite up front about its disobedience to God's laws, going so far as to edit the Bible to remove gender-specific pronouns. The site url is: http://www.uca.org.au/about.htm. On that page we see, "t has taken a stand on environmental issues, and supports the equality and dignity of marginalised people such as ethnic minorities, disabled people and homosexual people." Of course sane people understand that to practice homosexuality is to engage in grievous sin.

      Going to the "basis of union" page we see that this bunch admits to mutilating the Bible to suit their progressive proclivities: "Yet some of the language of the Basis is clearly outdated. In 1971, when the Basis was completed, the desire for gender-inclusive language was only just emerging. Twenty years on, some of the language of the Basis sounds rather curious. More importantly, some people find parts of its language to be jarring and even alienating. "The purpose of this 1992 edition is to diminish the possibility that the non-inclusive language of the Basis is a barrier to its use in the church. The Assembly Standing Committee resolved to issue this 1992 edition of the Basis in order to ensure that the Basis is well used in the church, frequently consulted, valued and heeded. The alterations to language in this edition are relatively conservative. Traditional trinitarian formulations and references to God as Father are preserved in most cases, although the use of male personal pronouns with reference to God is eliminated. Female personal pronouns for the church have also been replaced. Generic usage of "man" and "mankind" have been changed in each instance. Very few sentences have been recast, with the bulk of the changes being of one or two word substitutions only."

      I think all this serves to put Mr One Point's comments in proper perspective.

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  5. This article makes me very sad. You can certainly disagree with Ruth Duck, but it is unchristian to demean her as a person and totally unnecessary. She is quite faithful to her own tradition's understanding of the mission and ministry of Jesus. She didn't ask to have her hymns sung in your church. So please don't blame her if you didn't like it! How do you think Jesus would respond to this hymn? Thank you.

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    1. I'm not blaming Duck so much as I'm blaming those who deemed her heresies (and that is what they are) worthy to be sung in a Catholic Church. As for "her own tradition's understanding", it is objectively incorrect as it is at serious variance against the teachings of the One True Church. How do I think Jesus would respond to a hymn that contradicts His own Words? Think "money changers in the temple".

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