www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Wanting to move east, but have some questions.

Rose gardens can be beautiful places but there are always more thorns in them than roses.

The Cloud of Unknowing and other "western" practices advise sternly against imagination in prayer. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises are a late innovation.

Elliot, that's very sad. Please try another parish, if one is available. Were it not for Latins, our parish would not exist.

Elizabeth

Glory to Jesus Christ!


Yes, my wife never knew anything of the Christian East until she met me.


I am glad you have been attending the Divine Liturgy for a month and half and the people were friendly. I must agree and disagree with the priest. For one a month and half isn't a lot of time and I am sure that many Latin’s have come and liked the D.L. but after a while burnt out. This does happen. So I would keep going and after a few more months reproach him.

Also what he said about the past is true. Some of the Latinizations we did to ourselves but for a long time Greek Catholics were second class Catholics (some may say we still are). Now there has been many since Vatican II who have come to our Church to escape what they don't like in the Latin one and have no interest in our Tradition, theology, patrimony, and the like.

So you have to understand where he is coming from. You may not agree or like it and maybe he presented it wrong but you need to understand where he is coming from.

Now, I disagree that Roman Catholics shouldn't get involved in our parishes. They should if they wish to fully accept our Church. There can be no halfway- either accept it fully or leave us in peace. Just as a Roman priest wouldn't want us to come to a Latin parish and try to change it. I am not saying you were trying to but you should understand the historical reality.


Yes and I would approach the priest again but after a longer period of time. Really show that you are there not just for the pretty Liturgy but because you want to be fully immersed in the Byzantine Tradition.


I am soryy about that. Maybe after some time she will feel different. Or look for another local Byzantine Catholic parish?


All Catholics and non-Catholics are welcome at our Churches. I can't stress that enough.


Many Byzantine Catholics hold this and in fact recent Ecumenical meetings that Rome participated in like the Ravenna Document alludes to this. For an Ecumenical Council to be truly Ecumenical it must be received by the whole Church (not just the Latin). Since the latter general councils of the West have not been universally received then they are not true Ecumenical Councils, IMHO. If you want to come East you need to be prepared for this as we try to live out our Authentic Traditions which yes are at odds sometimes with Rome. The centuries of Uniatism will take a while for us to break free from.

I pray you can continue your discernment Eastwards.

I would like to leave the only 7 councils thing to one side, although it is something I would like to discuss at length at some point.

I want to ask though, why a priest of an aging parish, where it is clear that in ten to fifteen years there won't be enough people left to sustain a parish, would stand in front of a young family, husband, wife, and six children, and tell them Latin rite Catholics are not wanted in the parish. Who is he going to have in his parish, or who is the parish going to have, ten years from now?
I was there when this was said to Elliott in front of his family. When I told the priest at the end of this conversation that I was a Latin rite Catholic who had been attending the parish for 5 years (the priest has been here only a few months) and he said "Isn't that sweet?" which seemed to me to be sarcastic and kind of a condescending put down, but perhaps he didn't mean it that way. But why would he want to drive an obviously devout growing family from his parish? I can understand if they came and tried to insist that we engage in Latin devotions, but they did no such thing, and had no intention of doing any such thing. Why wouldn't he say something gentle like "We Eastern rite Catholics are proud of our traditions the way you are proud of yours, and if you decide to attend here, we hope you will learn to love our traditions also." I think he spoke without thinking of the effect on the people he was speaking to.

I don't intend to be driven away because this priest said this. I know a Latin rite Catholic has the right to join an Eastern rite parish and worshipping that way enables me to worship which I have great difficulty doing in most local Latin rite parishes. But if I had heard this when I first started going there, I am not sure I would have been able to get over the initial hump of the strangeness of the whole thing, and of joining a place where everyone already knows everyone else and has the same cultural heritage.

The odd thing is, I went there because my son became Orthodox and I visited an Orthodox church with him and loved it. I am way less likely to resist this priest's attempts to move us farther along in Easternization than are the people already in the parish who strongly identify as Catholic as distinguished from Orthodoxy. And honestly, the people were thrilled to see a young family in our parish; they remember the church when it was full and full of young families and were happy to see Elliott's family there.

I wonder if Father understands the effect his words had. And if there is any point to my saying something to him. I am really grieved about this.

Susan Peterson

Take your time and make sure of your leanings. There isn't a rush. You can continue to attend both RC and the eastern Catholic churches at the same time for as long as you want. Why not enjoy both and the variety of blessings they offer. You can always decide to change Rites later if you continue to feel strongly pulled east.

I pray you get the answer you are seeking.

Well, Susan, maybe if you understood just how wrong all that sounds to us, you would be more attuned to the priest's concerns (which I have tried to explain to you elsewhere). Just calling us "Easter rite Catholics" is something of a putdown and an insult; at the very least, it shows a highly defective understanding of who and what the Eastern Catholic Churches really are.

Now, as I told you, I did not hear the conversation, and am not willing to judge either what the priest said or how the people in question responded. But I will say that if a Roman Catholic family presented itself to me asking to change their particular ritual Church, I would certainly tell them their move is entirely premature. We're more than a pretty Mass, and we're more than Roman Catholics with a cabaret license. If you really want to become Greek Catholics (an irrevocable change, by the way), then you need to demonstrate your commitment to living as a Greek Catholic--accepting more than just the Liturgy, but also the theology, spirituality, doctrine and disciplines that flow out of and inform the Liturgy. Keep coming to Liturgy. Get involved in parish activities. Enroll your kids in Eastern Christian Formation (and don't give the teachers a hard time when they start pushing authentic Eastern doctrine and practices into their heads), and maybe you should consider joining an adult education group yourself, since, to a large extent, you are very much in the catechumenate stage of your journey to the East. If you do that, in a couple of years we can talk. In the meanwhile, feel free to be here, remembering that you are guests in our house; please follow house rules.

And as I explained to you elsewhere, no one was asking about a formal change of rites. They were at the stage of having attended a few times and wanting to know more about it. And there is something wrong with a church which makes those who inquire feel unwelcome. Not the people, who did make them welcome, but the priest, who I think spoke without thinking of the effect on the people he was speaking to.
Susan Peterson

It was a sad story.

May be the Priest did not mean negatively with his words. Previously I have ever experienced the same thing. I realized that usually EC priests are very careful when the Latins show some interest to the Eastern Christianity, most probably to take care good relationship with the Latin hierarchy so it won’t give bad impression to the Latin hierarchy that they intend to grab the Latins, and therefore they “challenge” the Latins who show some interest to EC to make sure that they come with seriousness. Because once a Latin intend to change Church, the Priest (and the whole Church) will be involved, and take risk consequences. As we all know, usually EC community is small, so that they are more focus on survival. But anyway, this is my assumption.