www.byzcath.org Forums Who are EC's evangelizing?

domilsean,

I don't know. I think Roman Catholics will always have more to worry about than the Traditionalists. I'll let the faithful Roman Catholics express their own concerns about cafeteria Catholics and bishops who don't lead. That's their business. What we must do is simply make ourselved visible so that when God moves people will come. But I will still go door to door.

Dan L

Please, let's all take a deep breath here and count to ten. We are not enemies to each other.

In my experience, Roman Catholic priests are not ignorant of the Eastern Churches.

When my son was confirmed a couple of years ago,
one of the kids who was a student in our parish school and a member of the class receiving Confirmation was a Byzantine Catholic and in attendance at the Confirmation. After the final candidate was confirmed, our pastor announced that we had a special guest who is a classmate of the newly confirmed and is a Byzantine Catholic. He went on to explain that she was confirmed in the Byzantine Church at the time of her baptism and was asked to come forward to be acknowledged and received a blessing from the Bishop, at which time those in attendance gave her a rousing applause.

The older priest who was the pastor at the first church I attended after I was married used to sometimes end his sermons with the Trisagion prayer or the Jesus Prayer and explain they were prayers from "our brothers and sisters in the Eastern Churches".

In Christ, Bill

He would cross himself right to left because "that's how they make the sign of the cross". A wonderful, humble Irishman and servant of God of blessed memory.

Bill

Bill, you are right. Last St. Josaphat day my RC confessor gave a wonderful homily on the need for the existence of the ECs and even put me on the spot to give a talk and clearly identified me and my family as EC in communion with Rome, etc. But that is the minority.

We as ECs do have work to do, and part of that is to do a better job with outreach and education.

Dear Friends,

I'm sure no Catholic today will want to target another Catholic from another tradition to get them to join him or her in theirs!

But the point remains that there could be Latin Catholics who may wish to join the Eastern Catholic Churches.

And vice-versa.

What about Latin Catholics who want to become Eastern Catholics?

What do you suppose are some reasons that would prompt them to become Eastern Catholics?

Should they be told by EC authorities to "stay where you are?" Should they have the freedom to become EC?

Alex

As far as I know to go from an Eastern Catholic Church to the Latin Church or vice versa you have to ask the permission of your local hierarch.

Myles, it's a bit more complicated but you have the gist. One writes to the EC hierarch one wants to be received under.

The EC eparchy, if accepting, then must determine if there are any canonical impediments (unresolved marriages, priestly incardinations, etc.) by requesting concurrance from the RC diocese.

If everything checks an official rescript is prepared by the EC eparchy, witnessed and signed in the EC parish receiving the person.

Dear Myles,

Yes, of course.

But why would an RC wish to become an EC? What is it about the EC Churches that would prompt an RC to join, to make application to leave the RC Church?

Any ideas?

Alex

Alex,

"Reverence" I think is at the heart of it. Many Catholics can find this through the Trindentine mass but if none is available reverence can readily be found an most EC Churches.

"Beauty" may be another reason. That makes it very important that we build Eastern Churches and not BUILD Latin Churches and try to force them into our use.

The emphasis upon the "Condescension" of God to us. This is scene in everything we do including the fact that the priests face God just as we all do. Facing the priest as he worships tends to make the priest one who blocks our access to God. Facing God together with the priest makes us all facing God.

This may be anecdotal and doesn't apply universally, but one of the things that impressed us the most and still impresses us is the ratio of men to women in Divine Liturgy. It is almost 1:1 at Annunciation despite the fact the woman generally outlive men. I think it has to do with all of us facting God together.

Dan L

I would like to know if in the earliest days of the Church the celebrant, when consecrating the Eucharist, was facing the people or not. Does anyone know? My guess is that he was. Is facing the people or not facing the people Tradition or tradition? To me, at this point in my life, I really don't care, I'm used to the priest facing me, and never think twice about it.
I'm just wondering.

Take this for what you will, but was Christ not facing his disciples when he instituted the Eucharist? Was he not facing his Mother and disciples when he spoke to them from the the cross?

If one finds their faith deepened by experiencing the East and all it has to offer, then I say go for it, I love everything about the Eastern Churches. I hope though that if one wishes to leave one tradition for another it is for internal reasons and not external. As much as I like chant and incense and all the rest of the externals, I hope one finds and has Christ in their heart, soul and mind first. But then I'm one of those nutballs who is head over heels about Vatican II too.

In my time on this forum I often find that some here,east and west, are of the mind that the post VII Latin Church is inferior to the Eastern Churches and the "traditional" Latin Church. Rather than pulling me eastward or to "traditional" Catholicism I have found this attitude has only pulled me closer to the Church I was reared in and practice my faith in.

Bill

My understanding, and it comes mostly from the Gamber book on the liturgy, is that priest and people originally faced East.

Bill-

Well said. Moreover, the lover of Gregorian chant should also be head over heels about Vatican II.

To answer your first question, the answer is inconclusive. Look through the evidence and different people will tell you differently. The task is complicated by the fact that few Churches survive, those which survive are usually no longer furnished, and that historically there have been some strange arrangements for priest facings.

Still, I do believe that the majority opinion is that worship has for the most part always been facing the East.

[/QB][/QUOTE]

From what I remember of the Council documents on the Liturgy, they highly recommended the chant and only advocated that the altar be detached from the wall (again an Eastern Christian influence I believe) so that celebrants could be able to move around it. I don't believe the Council itself recommended that the celebrant face the people.

Does anyone have the documents on the Liturgy handy and confirm this?

Brian, perhaps you are looking for this from the Vatican II Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium:

I don't know about anyone else, but I joined for Ruthenian plainchant!

I agree with Archbishop Joseph Raya, who wrote in his work, "The Face of God", that the Byzantine spiritual path is one that is most suited to modern man - or post-modern for that matter.

Most Latin churches today seem to mirror popular suburban American boomer tastes and fads in worship and faith, with a healthy sprinkling of perpetual adolescent rebellion against good taste and the faith of their parents! Many have squandered the great heritage of the RC as a result.

As a passionate Gen X'er, I know that I was seeking something that reflected more of what Chesterton called "the democracy of the dead", that is a living and dynamic Christian tradition. At the same time, I couldn't stomach the joyless rigidity of some of my Latin trad friends for whom the law became an end in itself, instead of a means for preserving charity and the common life. (I was of the same mindset a number of years ago!) With my background growing up in the Charismatic renewal, though, I knew that the Holy Spirit was the animating and energizing Principle of the Christian life, which was expressed primarily through praise. The Eastern churches have done a far better job of developing this spirit, IMHO, reflected especially in the writing sof the Fathers and the experience of Divine Liturgy. I love the Byzantine balance, and feel quite at home in her temples!

Many years -

Gordo