www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Facing East (for fear of the West)

Greetings. I am a Latin Rite Catholic new to this forum, and I found this forum searching for information on Eastern Christianity, in general. I find myself looking East very lately, because of some of the elements of the West that I find, with all due respect and reverence, unable to allow myself to enthusiastically embrace.

In the first place, I find myself unable to reconcile my sense of what Christianity is about with what seems to me to be a hyper-emphasis on private apparitions, Marian apparitions such as Fatima, and devotions such as de Montfort's "Total Consecration". There is such a guilt trip, it seems, put upon a Roman Catholic who does not embrace all of this...stuff (forgive me)...but I'm afraid I just can't find anything valuable or authentic in any of it. In fact, I would go so far to say I find much of it disturbing.

I am a life-long Roman Catholic, however there are aspects of Roman Catholicism, such as these, that I have a difficult time appreciating. I also find myself perplexed by the rapid-fire canonizations of the previous pontificate, by Catholics who want to define Mary as Co-Redeemer of Mankind, and a few other things here and there that tend to make me wonder. In fact, I can no longer endure these things and perceive a need to put them behind me in a permanent way.

My next thought, then, was to look to the Church of the East, imagining that in Byzantine Christianity, such things are unknown or at least, not emphasized. Instead of attending Mass this morning, then, I attended the Divine Liturgy as a nearby Ukrainian Catholic Church.

I still believe that the Catholic Church is Christ's authentic Church and that I cannot leave it (for the Orthodox Church, for example). And so I would not. But I wonder, what would those Eastern Catholics among you think about my predicament?

If I were to find my place in Eastern pews, would I encounter no longer the things that seem to vex me about Roman Catholicism? How do Eastern Catholics view such things as private apparitions and daily rosaries-or-else or things such as deMonfort's excessive Marianism?

Also, is it possible, would you say, for a Roman Catholic to simply "escape" to the East, as it were, in his focus, in his worship and in his practical piety without having to formally switch his affiliation? I suppose it's all the same Church, after all, yes?

I look forward to receiving your feedback.

Dear RI

Having read you post my reaction is - what are you running away from?

You don't have to verbalize any answer but it might be something you might want to think about.

In the last twelve months I have left the Anglican Church and my friends therein because I find the OC makes more sense. In other words, I was not running away from something - I was running to somewhere else.

Lord, in your Mercy ...

Hello!

I had a similar experience to you, in that I grew up in a Latin Church environment I found uninspiring - in my case what one might call "bourgeois and charismatic-lite" - and so I looked for alternatives.

The Latin Church, comprising as it does the vast overwhelming majority of Catholics, has parishes of many flavors and spiritualities and ideas. I used to think that the whole Latin Church was like my local parishes, but eventually learned that it isn't all that way. So I wouldn't impute the concepts you list to the Latin Church writ large, in its substance, so to speak.

(Also, I feel I must add that the Mother of God is awesome!)

And in the Eastern churches you will also find people who will tell you this-or-that non-dogmatic point of spirituality must be accepted. They're just different items than in the Latin Church. Just search this forum for the word "Hesychasm."

All that said, and speaking as nothing more than a lay man on a forum, I don't see anything wrong with you being a refugee in an Eastern church, so long as you do so with gratitude and humility. As a refugee, that is to say, as someone who is a guest in another man's house, I would counsel against having public opinions about anything. Especially negative ones.

Almost every Eastern parish I have ever attended is delighted to have a visitor who shows up with natural positive interest in the church. A person who shows up disgruntled ... not so much.

If in time you decide to go back to the Latin Church, you'll at the very least have had an edifying experience, and maybe made some friends. Alternately, if you do as I did, and slowly discern that you wish to cease being a refugee and with prudence adopt the Ukrainian church as your spiritual home, all the better.

I see you're in NY. If you're anywhere near Albany, feel free to PM me. Perhaps you're in my parish. :->

God Bless,
Booth

Thank you for your responses.

I suppose I might be "running away", although I'm not sure I was looking at things that way, but you might say that, I suppose. I might, instead, characterize my attitude as one of frustration with my own inability to appreciate the things that so many faithful Roman Catholics find very important, essential even, to being a Christian. These elements of Catholicism that to me seem like peripheral distractions are things that so many others, and even the culture of the Church, generally, tend to want to elevate to the realm of the essential.

Pray that daily rosary! It's the thing that Satan is the most afraid of (he is?), and the most powerful weapon under Heaven (really?)! You must pray it every day! Woe betide him who neglects it. After all, Our Lady of Fatima made it very clear that it must be!

I'll be honest: I don't like the Rosary and I don't care to pray it. When I do pray it, it's only to make other people happy. And I say that with all due respect for the Virgin Mary, whom I genuinely do revere. It isn't as if I don't pray to her or honor her. I just don't see how the Rosary actually accomplishes that...or how it accomplishes anything at all, for that matter. What's the use of a meditation that lasts the length of ten Hail Mary's? It's of no use to me, at any rate. I simply cannot see it for that sublime, wildly potent thing that it is billed as and that the Roman Catholic culture raves about and insists upon.

I also do not place much stock (if any at all) in private revelations, such as Fatima or Medjugorje or the experiences of St. Faustina. I understand that no Catholic is obliged to pay any attention to private revelations, however just try ignoring such things in the Roman Catholic Church.

Our last pope placed what to me was an unsettling amount of emphasis on these modern private revelations, making them all but unavoidable in modern Western Catholicism. He beatified and canonized the visionaries, thereby canonizing the alleged apparitions. Then he, himself, was beatified with lightning speed. Heaven help you, therefore, if you find any of it fishy. "You don't believe in Fatima??? How can you not believe in Fatima??? Pope John Paul's life was saved by Our Lady of Fatima! You have to believe in Fatima! I hope you at least believe in the dreams of St. John Bosco!" It all becomes, for me, very tiresome, very disappointing, very frustrating...very wearying.

At any rate, I have no intention of quitting the Roman Catholic Church. I'm a Latin Rite Catholic and have been all my life. I wouldn't suddenly be able to become another sort of Catholic, and so I don't mean to imagine that it would be in my plan or best interest to do so. I only want to be free to be the Catholic that I actually am, instead of the Catholic that contemporary Roman Catholicism seems to want to guilt one into becoming.

I hold fast to orthodox Catholic doctrine and traditional discipline. I value the Scriptures and beautiful Liturgy (in any form, in any language). I prefer liturgical prayer (the Divine Office) to private devotions, and I value honest conversation with God in prayer. I don't like much in the way of rosaries or chaplets or novenas or scapulars or devotions. And I want to be able to enjoy a healthy reverence for the Mother of God without going completely overboard in that regard.

I suppose I'm just looking for a place within the Catholic Church that I can find myself perhaps more at home, spiritually, than I find myself at present. It seems to me that there is something about Eastern Christianity that is inviting and refreshing. I perceive(perhaps incorrectly; I don't know to be honest)that the Eastern Church may be devoid of alot of the things about the Roman Church that want to lift one up, only then to guilt one into...I hate to say it this way...drowning in the shallow end of the pool.

Point well taken with repect to being a respectful guest on someone else's turf. I was very careful to repect the gestures and traditions of the community during the Liturgy I attended. I bowed and did not genuflect. I made the Sign of the Cross right to left rather than left to right, and otherwise just quietly observed what the congregation did, following their lead.

Despite my sincere efforts to blend in unobtrusively, however, I must have done something that set me apart, because a man approached me after the liturgy to very kindly welcome me as he hadn't seen me before. I thanked him, explaining that I was Roman Catholic who was just visiting, to which he replied, "I know". Oh, well. I'll try harder next time.

Is it in your character to worry and analyse excessively? My own experience is not entirely unlike yours, but I consider that canon law and common sense permit attendance in a rite other than my own, and I leave it at that.

Possibly one day I will formally leave the Roman Church for the Ukrainians, but only as paperwork recognising an existing reality, should it come to be.

In the meantime, I go to the Divine Liturgy because I can and I will and I do. I see no use in hand wringing or navel gazing, despite their perennial popularity.

Just go. If you decide to go again, go again. Jesus said something about worry. Some better Christian can maybe quote it. I suggest you observe it.

[quote=JDC]Is it in your character to worry and analyse excessively?[/quote]

Possibly. Is it in your character to be such a smooth-talking charmer? When you find out what that thing was that Jesus said about worry, let me know...once you figure it out, yourself, I'll be happy to observe it. ;^)

Whatever it was that Jesus might have cautioned with respect to worry and navel gazing, I am not worried about returning to the nearby Ukrainian Church for Sunday Liturgy, neither am I worried about visiting other Eastern Catholic churches represented in this area and worshipping with them. I would, in fact, like to experience all of them. I only supposed there might be some other people who read this forum who might be able to empathize with my vexations and exasperations and who might want to share their own experiences and insights.

My newfound inquisitiveness about Eastern Catholicism represents the latest step in a recent return to the practice of the faith, following almost twenty years of having put it aside, because Catholicism was driving me crazy. I didn't exactly jump ship, but I did take an extended leave of absence. And now, having repented and returned (about six months ago), I don't want to get bogged down in the same quagmires that contributed to my flight to begin with. I know that I have to be a practicing Catholic, and an orthodox Catholic faithful to the magisterium and the discipline of the Church. I'm only wondering if it may be that it would be easier for me to accomplish that in another ecclesial environment. My suspicions that it [i][b]may[/b][/i] be so have led me here.

It sure is. Thanks for noticing.

As for "vexations and exasperations" I assure you these Eastern guys have an enormous range of matters over which they like to get their knickers in a wad. The difference for you is that you don't care about any of these yet, so they don't bother you.

You ask about experiences and insights. Here's mine: it isn't going to get better, but you might.

Go where you can pray and God is glorified. My family has found that in a Ukrainian parish. So might you. Try to assign less importance to everything else, especially if it bothers you.

I think that there are many aspects of modern Catholicism that many people find awful,revolting awkward. They are often a matter of disposition,mood education,taste and otlook.The ESSENTIAL and Truth are all that matter. I saw an article about the heart of St John Vianney being brought to England : this sickened me, not because I don't venerate him, but I dislike the materialism of this sort of devotion. I would prefer Sung Vespers in the old Monastic (PRE-1955 or even better PRE-1911)rite. Much of this comes from my formation in old style anglicanism. I urge you to find and read Msgr Alfred N.Gilbey: WE BELIEVE. He really goes into the nature of the church and the ESSENTIALS of faith.He was a traditional Catholic who brought many people into the Catholic church. I hate all the modern saints making, visions,devotions, ecumenical Pope-worship (adulation of the person who occupies the seat of St Peter). Stick to the Traditional rite of Mass, the Divine Office, the Rosary and the simple Faith and leave the visionaries to vision.It helps many but not all.

Roman,

Welcome to forum and your post. I don't know where to start, there are so many interesting topics in your posts. Please allow me to try to "read between the lines" on your quote above.

Its awesome to hear of your return to the "Body of Christ." I'm curious as to why you, like so many others, have left the Church. Obviously it is an issue that all dioceses and eparchies should be concerned with.

My gut feeling is that over your lifetime you've had conversations with people who also have issues with the prime role of the Mother of God as our Heavenly Mother and loving intercessor and has turned you off, actually rejecting her. Her intercession is Mary's vocation; to some people it's not important, others see it as a personal outreach and feel her love which brings them closer to Christ.

The primary contemplative prayer of the East is the Jesus prayer; like the Rosary and Chaplet of Divine Mercy, it isn't intellectually stimulating. Non-Christians would probably call them a silly waste of time. The goal of these prayers is not to recite them and feel a comfort or emotional high. Instead the goal is to immerse your soul into the presence of God and allow oneself to be molded like a piece of clay. This immersion is the "deification" of which the East speaks, and it is also taught in the West, but you have to seek it out.

Being skeptical is spiritually dangerous. However, just as we are "tested" by challenge, we also are to challenge (test) in a Christian way. As long as you belong to the Latin Rite you may bless yourself in the Roman way and you may genuflect. If your eastern parish can't accept this you probably won't be fully accepted later. But don't become angry if someone in the parish scoffs at your attendance; every parish has these know-it-alls who tries to present himself as someone who is "better."

I hope I haven't offered "too much information." This coming Pentecost and its octave is a beautiful time to stop and reflect upon God's plan for you through prayer and scriptural reading.

Christ is amongst us!
Fr Deacon Paul

JDC:

You crack me up. Good advice, though. And Edmundia, your reflections are also very helpful. I'm glad to know I'm not entirely alone with respect to my concerns. I'll have to look into the book you recommended.

I suppose I do have something of a complex from so much in the Roman Catholic milieu that wants to insist that if you aren't faithfully observing such-and-such private devotion or if you do not take seriously such-and-such private revelation, then you're playing with fire, you've been deluded by the devil, you're spiritually blind, you're tainted by modernism/liberalism, you have Protestant tendencies, you're Mariophobic (is that even a word?)...and, in the immortal words of the King of Siam, "et cetera, et cetera, et cetera."

Apparently, however, from what you're telling me, the East has its equivalents of the things I find perplexing about Roman Catholicism. But as you say, JDC, I'm completely oblivious to those issues, so perhaps if I just unofficially and anonymously sit in the back pew of Byzantium I can both avoid the various circus acts in Roman Catholicism that vex me and at the same time remain blissfully ignorant of all the Eastern Catholic issues known only to lifelong Eastern Rite Catholics. ;^)

Switching pews only changes the flavor of the liturgy, however. I suppose I need to investigate Eastern spirituality and discover whether there is anything about it that resonates with me more so than contemporary Roman Catholic spirituality. I would like to be able to gain some insight into the Eastern Christian's love affair with icons, for one thing.

Edmundia: as far as the "traditional" Roman Rite goes, I find all the things I can't grasp about Roman Catholic private devotionalism underscored in traditionalist communities more so than anywhere else. I do attend the Tridentine Mass from time to time, because I appreciate the ceremony and the reverence, but I can't immerse myself within the tradosphere because "traddies", more than other Catholics, seem to embrace those elements of Roman Catholicism that leave me cold. I also perceive alot of anger and mistrust amongst traditionalist Catholics. Generally speaking, they don't strike me as very happy people.

My best liturgical experience in the Roman Rite thus far was at a church where the current rite of Mass (Ordinary Form) was celebrated in a very solemn, reverent, and traditional way, so much so that it looked, sound, and "felt" rather more like the Tridentine Mass than the typical contemporary Catholic Mass. I found this expression of the liturgy to be superior to the Tridentine Rite, actually, insofar as it managed to maintain all the beauty and dignity of the Roman Rite without ignoring the congregation. Alas, such an expression of the Mass can be found nowhere near where I live.

That same sacred-yet-inclusive expression of the liturgy, however, is what I discovered about the Liturgy that was celebrated in the Ukrainian Catholic Church that I visited. To me it was both engaging and God-centered; it was reverent, yet joyful. It didn't hurt that the priest was young and obviously very happy, lacing his sermon with humor. At any rate, as the entire experience--from the liturgy, itself, to the colorful, icon-bedecked church, to the happy young clergyman--seemed to strike a chord with me, I intend to return this Sunday. You know something has gone right when you actually find yourself happy to drop money in the collection basket!

Okay...here's a dumb question of the greenest of all newbies: is the liturgy celebrated by the Ukrainian Catholic Church the same as the liturgy of the Greek Orthodox? I ask, because the annual local Greek festival held at a nearby Hellenic Orthodox Church is coming up, and they'll have tons of Greek Orthodox liturgical books, icons, and other religious articles for sale. If I pick up the Orthodox equivalent of a "missal", will that be the same text as the Ukrainian liturgy? Again, please pardon my ignorance; it's all quite new to me.

Fr. Deacon Paul:

Thank you for your response.

I put aside my practice of Catholicism a number of reasons, I suppose. For one thing, I found myself in a Catholic atmosphere dominated by an emphasis on private apparitions, predictions of immanent catastrophe based upon private revelations, an insistence about things such as the daily recitiation of the rosary, a scrupulosity about the wearing of the scapular, the any-day-now coming of the "Chastisement" (usually in the form of "Three Days of Darkness"), the inescapability of thousands of years in a fiery purgatory no matter what, the improbability that one would even make it to purgatory, and alot of other things that made the Church, for me, a very dark and frightening place.

In the milieu in which I was formed, there was much to be against, and not much at all to be in favor of. Charity and love seemed to be mistrusted concepts that were dismissed as "liberalism". It seemed that there were two Jesus Christs: the Jesus of the Gospels (who was suspect, and not much paid attention to), and Christ the King, Wrathful Judge of the Universe...who was more like it. Mary (with her mandatory scapular and mandatory rosary) was a messenger of imminent doom and catastrophe, and our only hope in holding back the wrathful arm of her Son, who apparently wanted nothing more than to destroy all of us in his anger.

After years of daily anxiety attacks, trying to make this all work, somehow, and trying to reconcile it with my own understanding of the Gospel message (which always seemed at odds with all of it), I simply couldn't take it any longer. One Sunday, in the middle of Mass, I arose during the Credo, quietly genuflected, and exited the church, never to return to that church again. I wouldn't set foot in any church, in fact, for about 10 years.

I didn't care if it was all true and I didn't care if I was going to Hell. I was already in Hell, as far as I was concerned, and so I turned away from Catholicism, completely, and turned to a worldly, material, hedonistic lifestyle. Leaving that church that day felt...wonderful. I was free. It didn't matter if none of it made sense, anymore. It was somebody else's problem to worry about now, not mine.

I never had another anxiety attack from that day on.

Of course, the worldy, hedonistic lifestyle that I replaced Catholicism with eventually caught up with me, and after a while left me just as cold and empty. I knew I had to repent and return to the practice of the Faith, but I also knew that it had to be a very different brand of Catholicism that I would have to return to...one in which I could spiritually flourish rather than become a neurotic mess in, again.

And so, having returned, I am trying to find the right atmosphere and the best environment into which to...heal, I suppose. But I've been having a hard time trying to find that environment in the Roman Catholic Church. So I'm looking East, just to see what it's like...to test the waters, I suppose. Perhaps there I can find that Christianity that I seem to read about in Scripture.

Not to oversimplify, but possibly he just thought he knew but had in fact guessed correctly.

Dear Roman Interloper: you have found awful things in "popular" Catholicism, and would probably find the same sort of things in many other places of worship, people love sensationalism (look at the daily popular newspapers) and sentimentality - a good Traditionalist RC priest told me that sentimentality was the enemy of religion. He was Eastern & monastic in his spirit.
I do urge you to look towards the Liturgical & monastic spirit,joyful,objective and free of visions and calamity. I am thinking of the writings of Dom Gerard Calvet (founder of the Benedictine Abbey of Le Barroux-----some of his writings in English, Google Translate others from the internet !!) and Dom Gueranger "The Liturgical Year", there is wonderful free and joyful art and spirit (the spirit of The Charlier brothers,Andre and Henri)out there----sadly mainly in France, but also at Clear Creek Abbey,Oklahoma). Sorry to go on and this post from a new member will probably lose me my membership of the Byzantine Forum !- but a lot of what I say about traditional Benedictine monasticism is close to the joyful and free spirit of the East.

He was probably just trying to be friendly.

I didn't mean to infer that you "visually blend in" as a guest, apologies if I did. I suppose I was just counseling against negativity.

As regards the narrow-minded ... it seems there are narrow people everywhere. It may be a particularly American vice, ha-ha.

Glory Be to Jesus Christ for His infinite mercy in bringing the narrow-minded to the salvation of His Church!

Lisa: Dad! You can't judge a place you've never been to.
Bart: Yeah! That's what people do in Russia!