Glory to Jesus Christ!
This post is one of frustration and puzzlement. I apologize if I am adding fuel to any particular fire. But doesn't it seem that, on this forum, we are all in agreement in what needs to be done, but our respective churches many times think differently. I can only regard my own situation, in my own small parish. We talk here of the restoration of traditions, the Liturgy, fasts, and other ascetic exercises, but day to day in the Byzantine Catholic Church, the reality is very "watered down". I guess what most frustrates me is the legalism, the attitude that we are Catholics, "above all" and that gives us license to cut corners and be sloppy. The most stark thing in this regard is the discipline of fasting; what brilliant bureaucratic mind conceived of just not eating meat on Friday as something sufficent to the Byzantine ascesis? It's all fine and dandy to talk about icons and Byzantine theology, but our Faith is not about theological conferences and icon writing workshops. Our Faith is the healing of the soul or nous. Metropolitan Hieotheos once wrote that, if Christianity appeared in the 20th century and not in the first, it would probably not be classified as a religion but rather as a medical science similar to psychiatry. But how can we have healing of the soul when we want to cut back services, legalize fasts, and adjust the Faith to meet our own (sick) modern senibilities (ex: gender inclusive language)? How do you heal a person who wants to water down their medicine or simply not take it?
The most brilliant view of the Byzantine Church that the modern world needs is that our religion is not about hoops we need to jump through in order to get our reward in Heaven, but rather a therapy that, if followed, will conform us to the image and likeness of God from which we have fallen. This is the real meaning of Tradition, it is not something we want to restore for aesthetic or sentimantal reasons, but because they are tried and tested medicines for our sinful passions. Many of the people on the forum I think have gotten this. But who else needs to understand this in order for things to start changing? When will we stop preaching to the choir and preaching to those who need convincing?
Sorry if I have offended anyone by this post. But it is just a question I need to get off my chest.
Arturo
