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Greetings from a newbie!

You all seem to be very well informed, and I'd like to ask you a question. This is gonna be a long one, so get comfy...

I'm a cradle Byzantine Catholic. Even went to a Byzantine Catholic gradeschool until 8th grade. Then, I moved down south after I got married.

The nearest Byzantine Catholic church is more than 3 hours away in Atlanta.

I found and attended the Greek Orthodox church here in town for a while. When I went there to find out what time mass was held, the priest tried to convince me to convert to orthodoxy. I wouldn't. Then every time I went to mass, the priest made a point of telling me that becuase I wasn't baptized Orthodox, I couldn't receive communion. (I already knew that.) Well, after about 3 months, I got the hint and didn't go there anymore.

Then I found an RC church. I haven't been attending on a very regular basis, though. I really have to admit, I'm not very comfortable there. I always wear a three-bar crucifix, and have received many strange looks from others there when they see it. Or when I bow instead of genuflect. Or when I bless myself differently than they do. When I explained to a few people that I was Byzantine Catholic, they looked at me like I was making up stories or something. Anyway, the uncomfortable feeling has kept me from calling up and becoming a member of the church. I really feel I need to join one since there are no Byzantine churches close by.

Am I permitted to take communion at an RC church? Go to confession? Etc?

I know that when my son was born, the RC priest told me that he could not baptize my son, unless it was as RC. (That's how I found the church in Atlanta.)

Also, I would like my son to attend the Catholic elementary school here. But, what would they do when it comes time for the RC kids to make their Frist Holy Communion, seeing as my son has already received his at his baptism? I'd hate for him to feel left out.

The church I grew up in was more like a family. My father went to the same ByzCath gradeschool with alot of the parents of the kids I went to school with there. We were taught Carpatho-Rusyn dances and songs. There just seems to be so much more to it than the RC churches I've been to. I don't want my kids to miss out on that.

My other problem is my husband. He was baptized a Lutheran, but never went to church a day in his life. (His father is from Ireland, and was never even baptized, and really isn't fond of Catholics.) He has problems with organized religions of any kind. "They're all hypocritical", and he won't support them. He is a very good, upstanding, moral man who fully believes that God will judge him based on how he acts on a daily basis, and not how many Sundays he attends church.

I've been pondering this for a long, long time and feel I need to do something NOW. I just don't know what?!


Thanks for listening to me rant. I feel better just getting all this off my chest.

Beth

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Hello Beth,

I will be brief and perhaps others can help you with better information.

As a Byzantine Catholic you are entitled to receive all of the Holy Mysteries at any other Catholic church, even the Roman Catholic church .

You should discuss your ritual church with the local RC priest so that he is aware that you intend to maintain your affiliation with the BC church. I think your bowing, etcetera should not be a problem, the priest can also make sure that the Eucharistic ministers, ushers, etcetera are fully aware that Eastern Catholics are welcome to worship in the church and receive communion, in fact all Orthodox are entitled to receive communion as well (they are advised to respect the wishes of their bishops). This information sometimes does not filter down to the people on the floor.

The children will follow the ritual church of the father. If the father were Byzantine there would be no question, your local priests would be able to baptize your son and the child would be Byzantine anyway. But in your case the father is not Catholic so the issue is more complicated. I cannot explain but I could speculate a little. The church may possibly regard the Lutherans as a western body and theoretically he might be have been a Roman Catholic if he were not a Lutheran.

Also please be aware that many priests will not baptize a child in a home where there is some question whether the child will be raised in a committed Catholic environment. My own children fell into that category, they were all baptized but my spouse interfered in their Christian upbringing. Today to my great regret they are mostly ambivalent to religion and one does not regard himself as Christian.

I would like to suggest that you contact the nearest Byzantine parish and register there (even though it is 3 hours away), making occasional pilgrimages (a few times a year) to recharge your spiritual batteries and use the local Roman parish for your weekly sacramental needs. You could enlist the support of the Byzantine priest in solving your problems about the baptism. If you choose to do this be sure to mail an occasional support check to the Byzantine parish, so you should average out your contributions to each parish so that there is always something left over for the parish in Atlanta.

Do not overlook the possibility that there are Melkite, Ukrainian or Romanian parishes in your area. There are other Eastern Catholic churches as well, such as the Maronites, Armenian Catholics, Coptic Catholics etc. It�s a long shot but I feel that you will receive better understanding and support from an Eastern Catholic priest who will have a better understanding of your needs .

Good luck,
Michael

Christ is Risen!

Michael,

I believe you have misunderstood Beth's post. Her son has already received the Mysteries of Initiation.

Beth,

I have children at a RC parochial school. I've explained to the principal and the children's respective teachers the practice of our Byzantine Church with regards to infant communion, and there's been no problem. All my children have received the Eucharist under both species at the school's weekly Mass. Look at this as an opportunity to educate our RC brothers and sisters on the Byzantine Church.

In a case where one spouse is an unchurched Protestant and the other is an Eastern Catholic, there is no question - the children are also Eastern Catholics (unless, of course, on reaching maturity a specific child decides to do something else).
It might be possible to have the church in Atlanta (or elsewhere, for that matter) supply video tapes of Divine Liturgy and other services on a regular basis. Not ideal, obviously, but if it helps to maintain a link, that's better than nothing (in fact, it would be nice to organize such a service; there are many people who for various reasons would appreciate it).
CHRIST IS RISEN!
Incognitus

I suppose I have, thank you Father for the correction.

I feel deep concern for people in Beth's situation. It is partly cultural, missing the environment of home and wishing that same for the young ones. That cannot be helped much in our modern world when we must travel so far chasing careers, but the dismay can be compounded by losing the closeness of a smaller parish.

I really appreciate the village sized parish I belong to, and regardless of the fact that I did not know these people as I was growing up, I love them as my own.

He hope that Beth and so many others like her resolve these situations. God bless her.

Indeed He is Risen!
Michael

Dear Sahm:

Since other have answered well, your questions regarding Byzantine and Catholic, I will address the other few concerns.

As regards family activities in the RC�
It differs from place to place. Here in New England there are plenty of family activities in most RC churches. Especially the ethnic ones (Polish, Italian, etc..). Ask your priest and if there are none - well - why not you - begin some? Someone has got to answer the call - why not you?

As regards your husband�
>I've been pondering this for a long, long time and feel
> I need to do something NOW. I just don't know what?!

Relax.

Given your husbands background, his views are understandable. We are all, only human. God knows that. He knows well our limitations. If your husband believes that God will judge him by his actions in adherence to his own conscience, and he makes good effort to live by the voice of God within his conscience - then God will judge him according to these limitations.

The mis-use of religion your husband was exposed to for such a long time� is not his fault. What your husband sees no value in - is this - misuse of religion - which had masqueraded as real religion when it was not.

In as much as he apparently places no hardships on you for being a part of religion, that would speak of his great love for you and that love could not come about unless he found it within his conscience. Do you understand that? His love for your good has overridden his own experiences.

His own, internal battles to form a good conscience, may have been far harder than yours (a cradle Byzantine) given what he had been bequeathed.

Wouldn�t you be surprised, if, when you get to heaven, you received a higher place in heaven on account of what your husband did to overcome - far harder trials than you were given?

You have been protected. Bless the Lord.

Your husband has been less protected. Perhaps the Good Lord has seen in him more capacity? And so the Lord has tried him harder. Perhaps, what may seem little advances to us by our measurements - are actually huge strides in God�s eyes.

Pray for him as you would pray for all loved ones but do not obsesses that you husband should do the things that you, yourself, would tend to measure holiness by.

If his heart is good - I see no need to disturb - what progress and what work the Lord has been doing within your husband.

Relax. The Good Lord is quite flexable and seldom consults others on how he should be working with any particular soul.

If I were to be poetic for a moment� I would tell you that it is apparent to me, by way of a little assistance, what God has done by putting you (a good Byzantine girl) together with your husband.

While the world has �programmed� him to believe that religion is empty and for the foolish - here he sits! - finding the love of his life - in a good Byzantine girl!

Now - imagine that!!!

While your husband may say with his lips �Religion is nonsense� he has said otherwise with his heart by his choice of - you!!! - so well formed by Byzantine faith and life.

Do you see? Do you see how the Good Lord has made an �end run� around his brain and given to him the Byzantine faith (within you) directly to his heart??

There are things about you (His Byzantine Princess) which the Lord has given as a gift to your husband - and things about your husband which are a gift to you!

The good Lord is a trickster and not to be out witted by the failures of people who should have carried his message forward in clean ways.

If I were a poet - that is what I would have said to you.

-ray

Beth,

Welcome to the Forum.

Yes, you can take the sacraments in a RC Church and the priest was wrong in declining to baptize your son unless he was going to be raised as a RC.

As to your son attending RC school and the issue of First Communion. Perhaps, if you can find someone (priest, nun, lay teacher) in the school or parish knowledgeable about the Eastern Churches, you could work with them to allow your son to participate in their First Communion as a "renewal" of his reception of the Eucharist as part of the Rites of Initiation. He might even feel more special because he will have received the Sacrament before any of them.

Although there are no Eastern parishes of any of our Churches in SC that I know of, I thought someone posted recently of a mission there, ebing served on an intermittent basis. My recollection may be incorrect and I couldn't find anything on a quick search; hopefully, if I'm right, someone else will remember and provide the info.

There are a Ruthenian and a couple of Maronite parishes in NC, not sure if they'd potentially be closer to you than Atlanta. The info on them is here:
Eastern Catholic Churches in NC [crosslink.net]

Many years,

Neil

Dear Sahm:

When I awoke this morning, the very first think that came to my mind was your situation, and I saw very clearly the similarities between your own situation and your husbands.

Please pay attention to what I wrote last night.

You, yourself (read your own post) have intuitively made that connection yourself. Read your own post as if someone else had written it and you do not already know what it was suppposed to be about.

You wrote first of your own situation, and then you wrote of your husbands. The reason you did this is because they are similar.

The Good Lord often takes something which troubles us in heart (and is invisible) and reflects it - on the outside (exterior) to make it - visible - to us.

Both you, and your husband, are not able very easily �to get to� the church you love so well. For you, it is that you are not able to get to the Byzantine rite. For your husband, it is that he is not able to get to the spiritual church of which the Irish and Lutheran experiences - should have - but failed to provided for him.

Both you and you husband need to get beyond the externals. You need to get beyond the externals of the rites, and so does your husband.

Your husband (drawn to the true church which exists in the conscience and the heart) needs to get beyond his experiences of the Irish (orange vrs green) of his father and his disappointment with the Lutheran experience.

Keep in mind that your husband is drawn to the true church (which God erects within our hearts) which is in you - from your good Byzantine experience. He would not be drawn to that (by way of you) unless that same church of the heart existed in him also. At the same time, as good as your Byzantine experience has been for you - these externals of varied rites they are not �the church� itself but remain just the externals of one particular rite of the universal church.

This was relatively easy for me to 'diagnosis' because your, yourself, directed me to the answer, by the way you formed your questions. You were almost �there� yourself so God prompted you to write your question and form it in such a way that would give the opportunity for someone else to just �nudge you over the top�.

The good Lord is inviting you and your husband to yet a closer union with himself.

When we look at a painting of a beautiful sunset, and we purchase the painting and take it home, do we do that because we believe the sunset exists, some how, in the painting itself? No - we purchase it because of the reality that the painting reflects and reminds us of. It would be foolish of us to prefer the painting to an actualy experience of a really beautiful sunset (�Hey mom - come outside and see this wonderful sunset� - �No dear, I have my painting to look at.�).

Do not worry - everything will be fine. God is already taking care of you both in your real needs that he is more aware of than you yourself are.

Isn't the sacrement of marriage amazing!? it joins us in such mystical ways where the two becomes the one.

To say things in a more practical summation for you...
Place you trust in Providence (a living Jesus who arranges events for us our daily events). You do not have to create your own church (ways to feel comfortable within the RC rites). Go the priest and tell him all your concerns and, like Jesus himself (who will work through that priest) he will make you comfortable and assist you even deeper into the treasure of the universal church.

As for your husband, do not worry, in any obsessive way, about his soul.

-ray

-ray

Thank you all so much for your replies. You've all made me feel so much better.

Michael: Yes - my son did receive his Holy Initiation at the parish in Atlanta. My next child (when born) will be receiving his at the church I grew up in, since we will be in the area for a family reunion anyhow. (Talk about the Lord moving in mysterious ways!)

RayK: Thanks for all of the encouragement. My husband doesn't believe that people who practice a religion are foolish. He just convinced the people who run them are hypocrites (i.e. the Catholic churches view on birth control, homosexual bishops, gay marriages being blessed). I try to explain to him that churches are run by human beings who make mistakes, and he agrees on that point. He is much more interested in having a faith now, I think, because he's become a father, and doesn't really know how to fulfill his responsibility to his children's spiritual welfare. Especially, since while growing up, he was never really given one.

Neil: Thanks for the link to the churches in NC. Unfortunately, the ones in Cary and Raleigh are even further away for me. I did see something about the possibility of a mission being started in Charlotte, NC. It had a name and number to contact, so I will do that. Charlotte is a little less than 2 hours away for me(depending on exactly where in the city the mission will be located). While I still won't be a weekly attendant, it's a lot more doable than a 3.5 hour drive to Atlanta (especially with kids!!!).

Thank you all again so much for all of your help!
Mnohaja L'ita!

Beth

Hi Beth,

As said before, yes, of course you are. Just as you would at a BC church.

I am not the expert here, but my opinion is that, given the father is not Catholic, the rule of following the father's church is moot, and if this is true, even if your son was baptized at a Latin church, following the Latin ritual, your son would still be a Byzantine Catholic.

But it is the other way around! We are the ones who leave our children out by spiritually starving them for 8 years, some times even more!

What can the Latin children receiving their First Holy Communion do, that your son receiving his 427th one can't do?

Have him attend the classes and workshops, have him make his first confession with his class, have a party after the "First" Communion mass. If you want to give him the whole enchilada, by all means do so.

Love him, pray for him, give thanks to God because you have him.

Many Catholic wives married to Catholic men would throw their right arm into the deal if you'd be willing to trade.

Witness your faith, show him how your faith makes you who you are, and how that is far better than who you would be without your faith.

Respect him and his time as God does, and one day his time will come.

Shalom,
Memo.

Sahm,

As Father Deacon mentioned, do not cancel out the idea of going to a Catholic Church that is not the one you received the Holy Mysteries in. Your message says that you are in South Carolina and I noted you are about three hours away from Atlanta. Knowing a little about the area, St. Ignatios Melkite Catholic Church in Augusta, GA immediately popped up in my head as a viable parish to go to-it is Byzantine rite, so you are closer to your "Home" there than you would be in a Roman Church.

Cyril, In the West but faces East

This sounds like a sincere and wonderful man.

I am so glad you did not misunderstand me. I often write, well, in confusing ways

Cheers.
-ray

Beth,

Although the point is moot now, for future reference, if ever needed, Memo is absolutely correct.

Many years,

Neil

Hi, Beth!

The number of similarities between your story and my own are striking! I, too, am a cradle Byzantine Catholic. I, too, was educated through the eighth grade in our parish Byzantine Catholic Grade School.

I married a RC girl (29 years ago next month) and our wedding ceremony was in the local RC diocese cathedral - I applied for and received permission to do so ahead of time from my BC bishop. He granted permission, with the understanding that any and all children be baptized Byzantine (interesting sideline... our parish priest refused to intercede on my behalf and initiate contact with the bishop unless I first volunteered to cantor some upcoming liturgies which our regular cantor could not make... some would call it blackmail; he called it an "exchange of favors!").

We currently have three children, 22, 20 and 14 years. True to my agreement, all three were baptized and chrismated in my home Byzantine parish (all three, however, celebrated their First Holy Communion in the RC church).

The first 15 years or so of my family's existence were spent by dividing our time between my Byzantine parish and an RC parish very near our home. As it came time for the older two children's formal Religious Education, we enrolled them, admittedly out of convenience, in the RC program (with "Dad" tossing in the Eastern flavor on my own whenever appropriate - this was enhanced by numerous Sunday visits to the old BC parish on the other side of town).

When it came time for each of the two older kids' RE classes to be confirmed, I had to remind their teachers that both had already received the Sacrament of Confirmation and, therefore, could not be confirmed again. In both cases, we made prior arrangements with the confirming RC bishop that as my children approached to receive the sacrament, they instead received a blessing from the bishop. This was great because it allowed the kids to fully participate in the ceremony with the rest of their classmates! Our youngest (14 years) is currently enrolled in RC RE classes and will, undoubtedly, go through the same routine when Confirmation time rolls around for his class! Of the three kids, he seems the most proud of his Byzantine heritage and has fun flaunting the fact that he's already enjoyed more sacraments than his classmates! I find this interesting because, of the three, he's had the least first-hand exposure to the Byzantine Church!

About ten years ago we moved towns, making it more difficult to get back to the old BC parish with any regularity. On top of this, during this time the BC parish itself moved, again increasing our geographical distance and decreasing the "convenience factor" (I know, I know... lame excuse, but certainly a reality of life!).

We are currently enrolled at a wonderful RC parish in our home town, where my wife and I are very active. We were heavily involved in the building of our new Church building a few years ago. My wife is currently active on the Church Decorating Committee and I sing in the Church Choir and am active in our relatively new Knights of Columbus council (you just gotta try our fish fry!). I even taught RE for a few years (eighth graders... whooo-BOY! Never again!!)

Despite our attachment to and attendance at the RC parish, the fact that I am a Byzantine Catholic has not changed, nor will it ever. Same goes for my kids and, by her marriage to me, my wife. The kids all cross themselves right-to-left, despite the "against the tide" nature vis a vis their contemporaries (my wife, a cradle RC, has never been able to adjust her hand to move the "correct" way! ).

As fulfilling as life in our current RC parish is, I admit to recently feeling a very, very strong pull back "toward the East," hence my interest in and involvement on this board. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is telling me to think about returning "home" with my worship... I don't know, but I pray daily for His guidance. I love the community we currently worship in and would truly miss it were I to leave but, as I said earlier, I've never considered myself anything but a Byzantine Catholic... nor, by the way, does the Catholic Church.

I will say this - I believe that there is a place for a Byzantine Catholic in a Roman Catholic parish. At the risk of sounding as though I'm tossing roses at myself, I enjoy taking EVERY opportunity to educate fellow parishioners (and even, on occasion, the clergy!) on the existence and specifics of Eastern Catholicism - it's amazing how many of them (no fault of their own) haven't got a clue! Believe me, I'm out there, one-on-one with our brothers and sisters, spreading the Eastern Catholicism Word - and lovin' every minute of it!

Maybe that's what the Holy Spirit wants out of me... someone in the trenches with the rest of His flock, reminding them that the Church is, indeed, a Two-Lunged Body.

I may have strayed a bit from your original question, but the point I wanted to stress is that as a Catholic (East or West), you and your children are entitled and encouraged to partake of all the Sacramental Mysteries of the Holy Church, regardless of which "Lung" they are presented in!

Christos Voskrese!

a pilgrim

Dear Pilgrim:

That's the most compelling, and, certainly, the most edifying, story ever told on how a BC should interface with those "incorregible" and "arrogant" (?) RCs like me!

And it helps, a lot, if you are married to an understanding cradle-RC wife, who is in the know, and an RC Bishop who knows and implements the "rules."

I have been met with quizzical looks from my own relatives and acquaintances re the "Easterns" in the Catholic Church!

Keep up the good work!

AmdG