thinkin’ ‘bout the Holy Trinity, and how the notion that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all the same God is kind...
thinkin’ ‘bout the Holy Trinity, and how the notion that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all the same God is kind of a personification of a translatio imperii-style succession of legitimacy, the concept that the Israelite national religion, Jesus’ cult, and the apostolic churches were all the same institution
thinkin’ ‘bout Pentecost, which I haven’t much before because my Christian background was Catholic, which I like to say is Princess Bride Christianity – you don’t read the book yourself, you just have an elder figure read you the Good Parts Version; plus they’ve got another doctrine of the succession of legitimacy from Jesus onward in Matthew 16:18 and Petrine primacy
Raised as a Methodist (/atheist), that’s interesting, since for me, Pentecost was always the coolest church service, partly because it always made me think of some scene from Ghostbusters, but partly because it seemed so weird and exciting, and nobody ever wanted to talk about how fucking weird it would’ve been, going literally from Scripture.
Also, I thought the whole bit about Catholics not actually reading the Bible was just some anachronism, weird to hear that this is still going on. I remember being given a Bible for our equivalent of First Communion (everyone can always take part in communion), and there were always Bibles in the pews, reading those were how I got through service.
I think maybe I got a Bible (and a rosary) for First Communion, but individual reading/bible study wasn’t a thing
the Masses had readings on a worldwide cycle, Sundays were a 3 year cycle with 4 readings, grouped thematically - usually an Old Testament one, then one from the Epistles, then one from a Gospel (each year of the cycle would be a different synoptic gospel most weeks but they’d do John around Easter), then a (sung) Psalm
there was a weekday cycle for old ladies and weirdos that had 3 readings – an Old/New Testament one done in linear sequence over 2 years, a Gospel one done in sequence each year, and a Psalm
I hear there were fewer selections repeating every year (in, like, Latin, to be explicated by the sermon) before Vatican II in the 1960s. Our pew backs had “missals” of cardstock paperbacks covering a few months at a time, reading those were how I got through service.