Holding onto culture V/s making meaningful relationships

[iamtrying]

Hello,
I was born in a Syro Malankara rite in India and our summer vacations and telephone time were consumed with our relatives. Growing up, family and culture was very important and my parents were always of the opinion that Malayalee culture is the best and the Malankara rite is the best.
I moved to the United States six years ago and the amount of spiritual growth I have had being part of a Latin rite surpasses my spiritual growth in the Malankara rite in 18 years. I am not fluent in Malayalam, and I find the Malayalam culture quite distant and sometime, not appealing.
I am much more comfortable and happy with a lifestyle where you hold friendships closer than your relatives. God has put some lively Catholic families in my life where they are much more persistent and willingly putting an effort to have strong meaningful friendships and relationships who are not blood-related. I want to pursue similar relationships. However, my mother is very devout about holding onto relationships and she expects me to still continue keeping up with relatives. Most of the relatives are still living in India and they do not take an interest in my life. The conversations are very mundane and I am always the one who initiates.
I feel so much more at home with the American culture than I do back in India. My ideal spouse is no where close to what my Mom expects. I plan to have my family brought up in a Catholic lifestyle. However, I am not planning on having my kids learn Malayalam and go to a Malankara rite church. I would rather have them appreciate Catholicism through the Latin rite and make their own decisions as far as what relationships to keep.
How do I fulfill the duties of honoring my parents while not compromising with my standards?
I am putting this on an Eastern Rite forum in order to get some opinions because I expect some immigrant individuals to be going through the same situation.
Thank you for reading this far and God bless you!

 

[Casilda]

My parents are not from this country, and my grandparents were not from the countries were my parents were born in. So I can tell you that family and culture are important. I am not ‘close’ to my cousins but that does not matter, we all bend over backwards to help family. Its what makes us strong.

 

[Peter_J]

Hello,
I was born in a Syro Malankara rite in India and our summer vacations and telephone time were consumed with our relatives. Growing up, family and culture was very important and my parents were always of the opinion that Malayalee culture is the best and the Malankara rite is the best.
I moved to the United States six years ago and the amount of spiritual growth I have had being part of a Latin rite surpasses my spiritual growth in the Malankara rite in 18 years. I am not fluent in Malayalam, and I find the Malayalam culture quite distant and sometime, not appealing.
I am much more comfortable and happy with a lifestyle where you hold friendships closer than your relatives. God has put some lively Catholic families in my life where they are much more persistent and willingly putting an effort to have strong meaningful friendships and relationships who are not blood-related. I want to pursue similar relationships. However, my mother is very devout about holding onto relationships and she expects me to still continue keeping up with relatives. Most of the relatives are still living in India and they do not take an interest in my life. The conversations are very mundane and I am always the one who initiates.
I feel so much more at home with the American culture than I do back in India. My ideal spouse is no where close to what my Mom expects. I plan to have my family brought up in a Catholic lifestyle. However, I am not planning on having my kids learn Malayalam and go to a Malankara rite church. I would rather have them appreciate Catholicism through the Latin rite and make their own decisions as far as what relationships to keep.
How do I fulfill the duties of honoring my parents while not compromising with my standards?
I am putting this on an Eastern Rite forum in order to get some opinions because I expect some immigrant individuals to be going through the same situation.
Thank you for reading this far and God bless you!

Good post.

 

[iamtrying]

Thank you.
I would like to get some feedback from people who might have been in this situation and what they have to say…

 

[malphono]

However, I am not planning on having my kids learn Malayalam and go to a Malankara rite church. I would rather have them appreciate Catholicism through the Latin rite and make their own decisions as far as what relationships to keep.

We have at least one Syro-Malankara member here, and I’m sure he will have a lot more to say, but in the meantime, although I am definitely not Malayali, nor am I an immigrant to the US, I will offer a comment nonetheless.

How you relate to Malayali culture and how you deal with relatives vs friends is really your business, and I won’t comment on that. But how you relate to your Church is quite something else. It’s a fact that the various Oriental and Eastern Churches are steeped in a certain amount of “ethnic culture” which is not a bad thing in and of itself, but more importantly, the Syro-Malankara Church has its own spirituality and traditions. Why you would want to abandon those and thereby abandon the beauty and richness that is the Syro-Malankara Church in favor of the Roman Rite I don’t understand at all, but I suppose that’s ultimately your decision.

In any case, it’s all too common on this board to see “Catholic is Catholic” but it’s really not. There’s a lot more to it than that. My suggestion is to discuss your concerns with a Syro-Malankara priest and let him expound a bit. He’d be far more familiar with your situation than most people on an anonymous internet forum.

 

[soneijan]

Three stone heavier than they were 50 years ago this extra weight doesn’t just affect the way we look a massively increases our chances getting a host of related diseases it’s a new kind of epidemic at any one time a Superior Muscle X quarter of the population is doing battle with a white we don’t know how it came to this is it down to us all the companies which produce our food her series starting in Eugene from child but I was always on her way always TV computers managed to lose two and a half stone is always a temptation nit-pick wanted it more I still see myself going into.

 

[Peter_J]

Why you would want to abandon those and thereby abandon the beauty and richness that is the Syro-Malankara Church in favor of the Roman Rite I don’t understand at all,

Makes sense.

Just thinking out loud here, I wonder if it is generally easier for someone like me who started out RR and then went Easterward, to understand iamtrying’s feelings on the matter.

 

[Vico]

Hello,
I was born in a Syro Malankara rite in India and our summer vacations and telephone time were consumed with our relatives. Growing up, family and culture was very important and my parents were always of the opinion that Malayalee culture is the best and the Malankara rite is the best.
I moved to the United States six years ago and the amount of spiritual growth I have had being part of a Latin rite surpasses my spiritual growth in the Malankara rite in 18 years. I am not fluent in Malayalam, and I find the Malayalam culture quite distant and sometime, not appealing.
I am much more comfortable and happy with a lifestyle where you hold friendships closer than your relatives. God has put some lively Catholic families in my life where they are much more persistent and willingly putting an effort to have strong meaningful friendships and relationships who are not blood-related. I want to pursue similar relationships. However, my mother is very devout about holding onto relationships and she expects me to still continue keeping up with relatives. Most of the relatives are still living in India and they do not take an interest in my life. The conversations are very mundane and I am always the one who initiates.
I feel so much more at home with the American culture than I do back in India. My ideal spouse is no where close to what my Mom expects. I plan to have my family brought up in a Catholic lifestyle. However, I am not planning on having my kids learn Malayalam and go to a Malankara rite church. I would rather have them appreciate Catholicism through the Latin rite and make their own decisions as far as what relationships to keep.
How do I fulfill the duties of honoring my parents while not compromising with my standards?
I am putting this on an Eastern Rite forum in order to get some opinions because I expect some immigrant individuals to be going through the same situation.
Thank you for reading this far and God bless you!

I live 1800 miles from my relatives and am isolated also, and we have very little interaction. However it is also that way with friends, except people at Byzantine Catholic church that I belong to.

One thing to remember is that any children you have, since you are canonically Syro-Malankara, are ascribed to that Church sui iuris, regardless of where you raise them, unless you marry a Latin Catholic and you both agree, then your children could be ascribed to the Latin church. There is some difference in the sacramental discipline, such as for marriage, and your marriage would be invalid if a Latin priest does not receive the proper delegation from the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church. The Latin canon law binds the Latin party and the Eastern law binds the Eastern party. You could canonically follow the Latin holy days and penitential practices instead of Syro-Malankara when married to a Latin Catholic.

There is now established a Syro-Malankara Apostolic Exarchate in the USA in Elmont, NY. syromalankarausa.org/