I have been to a Maronite parish in my city quite a few times, I have also visited a Byzantine parish in Houston twice, Melkite liturgy. That parish also does Ruthenian liturgies and I really want to attend one. I would have this past Christmas but I hear that their Christmas liturgies are three hours long (I could be wrong about this). I liked the Melkite liturgy a lot, it was beautiful and very reverent. However I found following along in the book very hard to do. The Maronite book was a lot easier to follow, everything flowed in a linear fashion whereas in the Byzantine book there were ribbons galore and lots of flipping around. There are lots of bells and chant. There’s a lot of veneration of icons at the Byzantine one, there is an iconostasis and really fancy vestments. If you are Catholic you really ought to go to one.
At the local Maronite parish there is kind of a half-and-half mix of canonically Latin Catholic parishioners, as well as Lebanese immigrants who were actually raised Maronite. A lot of Roman Catholics will make their parish home in an Eastern parish without actually changing churches; however this can be complicated since you are technically bound to the observances of the church you come from. Basically this means that when it comes to observing lenten fasts, etc. if you are Roman Catholic you’re obliged to do things the “Roman” way, so to speak, which may differ from the Greek way, the Syriac way or the Russian way.
