Z
ziggernaut
Guest
Hello Everyone! Glory to Jesus Christ!
I am, by rite, a Byzantine Catholic, in fact a convert from Judaism. By circumstance (and God’s will for me now) my wife and I worship in a Latin rite Catholic church. I know this sounds really unusual, but I really love and feel equally comfortable with either liturgy, when celebrated as they are meant to be. (I also feel equally comfortable with and love both Eastern and Western spirituality. Guess that makes me be a little schizoid
).
Unfortunately, our local parish Catholic “community” is rife with illicit practices. Nothing that, as far as I am able to tell, invalidates the Mass, thanks be to God! However, if illicit were invalid, the Mass would be invalid many times over. Interestingly enough, there is also a high degree of irreverence amongst the parishioners before, during, and after the Mass, there have been very, very few vocations emanating from the “community”, it’s devotional and pro-life activities are very minimal, and even the church architecture, both interior and exterior are incredibly bare and stark. At least there is a Perpetual Adoration chapel. But nothing is ever mentioned about it except when there are time slots needing to be filled. Sigh.
With regard to the illicit practices, I did send a detailed email to the pastor about it. He surprised me by responding and saying he’d like for us to meet. To make a long story short, we had a very pleasant, cordial meeting, and virtually nothing will be changing. Sound familiar to anyone? Is anyone surprised?
Well, recently, we attended Mass at another parish, about 16 miles from us, in the same archdiocese as the above-mentioned “community”. We had been meaning to do so for some time, and finally made it there. It was like night and day!! It is in a relatively new building, which actually looks and feels Catholic both inside and out. It really is beautiful, in a new-ish kind of way. But even better than that, every single one of the practices that are done illicitly in the first “community” are done properly, and with great dignity and reverence in the second “church”! And no one even broke into a sweat or started having conniption fits. Amazing! Even the altar servers were dignified, reverential, and knew what they were doing.
There was much greater respectful quietude in the church at all times, there have been a number of vocations that have come out of that parish, there are more Masses (2 daily, 1 Sat. evening, 5 on Sunday) in a parish that is roughly the same size as the other, if not a little smaller, they have an active pro-life ministry, Rosary after one of the daily Masses every day, and Divine Mercy chaplet every Thursday at 3 p.m. And the priests actually genuflect at all the appropriate times, as per the rubrics! Astounding!
It all just goes to show that even the N.O. Mass CAN be done beautifully, properly, respectfully, and reverentially. And with very little extra effort or pain or what-have-you. All that is needed is the will and humility to do it. Guess where we will be going to Mass as often as we can from now on! That is, until we are able again to attend Divine Liturgy at a Byzantine parish.
Please pray with us for ALL priests!
Jeff
I am, by rite, a Byzantine Catholic, in fact a convert from Judaism. By circumstance (and God’s will for me now) my wife and I worship in a Latin rite Catholic church. I know this sounds really unusual, but I really love and feel equally comfortable with either liturgy, when celebrated as they are meant to be. (I also feel equally comfortable with and love both Eastern and Western spirituality. Guess that makes me be a little schizoid
).Unfortunately, our local parish Catholic “community” is rife with illicit practices. Nothing that, as far as I am able to tell, invalidates the Mass, thanks be to God! However, if illicit were invalid, the Mass would be invalid many times over. Interestingly enough, there is also a high degree of irreverence amongst the parishioners before, during, and after the Mass, there have been very, very few vocations emanating from the “community”, it’s devotional and pro-life activities are very minimal, and even the church architecture, both interior and exterior are incredibly bare and stark. At least there is a Perpetual Adoration chapel. But nothing is ever mentioned about it except when there are time slots needing to be filled. Sigh.
With regard to the illicit practices, I did send a detailed email to the pastor about it. He surprised me by responding and saying he’d like for us to meet. To make a long story short, we had a very pleasant, cordial meeting, and virtually nothing will be changing. Sound familiar to anyone? Is anyone surprised?
Well, recently, we attended Mass at another parish, about 16 miles from us, in the same archdiocese as the above-mentioned “community”. We had been meaning to do so for some time, and finally made it there. It was like night and day!! It is in a relatively new building, which actually looks and feels Catholic both inside and out. It really is beautiful, in a new-ish kind of way. But even better than that, every single one of the practices that are done illicitly in the first “community” are done properly, and with great dignity and reverence in the second “church”! And no one even broke into a sweat or started having conniption fits. Amazing! Even the altar servers were dignified, reverential, and knew what they were doing.
There was much greater respectful quietude in the church at all times, there have been a number of vocations that have come out of that parish, there are more Masses (2 daily, 1 Sat. evening, 5 on Sunday) in a parish that is roughly the same size as the other, if not a little smaller, they have an active pro-life ministry, Rosary after one of the daily Masses every day, and Divine Mercy chaplet every Thursday at 3 p.m. And the priests actually genuflect at all the appropriate times, as per the rubrics! Astounding!
It all just goes to show that even the N.O. Mass CAN be done beautifully, properly, respectfully, and reverentially. And with very little extra effort or pain or what-have-you. All that is needed is the will and humility to do it. Guess where we will be going to Mass as often as we can from now on! That is, until we are able again to attend Divine Liturgy at a Byzantine parish.
Please pray with us for ALL priests!
Jeff