I'm totally split!

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Greg1021

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I am a cradle Roman Catholic, but have known that my Slovak Grandmother was born and baptized Greek Catholic. Sometime in the past my Grandmother stopped attending Greek Catholic masses and began with Roman Catholicism. So my mother and myself have never known any other rite. I just did a genealogy research and was able to trace our ancestry back to the mid-1700’s and we are Carpatho-Rusyn and I even know what church many many generations of my ancestors were baptized in Sts. Peter & Paul Greek Catholic in Slovakia. Part of me is a HUGE traditionalist, and I want to return to my family heritage, and go to a local Ruthenian Catholic mass, and part of me just wants to stay with the Latin rite. The kicker is, the Carpatho-Rusyn heritage and customs have been a huge part of my childhood, so I feel like I should honor them.
 
So what? I too was raised in a Polish Catholic family, but God is God! What is the question for matters doing something in Greek rites versus Lithuanian rites? One is Catholic and bless you!
 
No reason why you cannot occasionally attend a Ruthenian Divine Liturgy, assuming you have a parish nearby.

You can go to byzcath.org for a very comprehensive directory, if needed.
 
I was raised in an observant immigrant family- Bavarian and Polish. I attended a Jesuit Parochial School through grade 9. I went to sea at a very young age and thus fell away from the Church, largely by personal neglect. During this time, I married outside the Church and to appease my wife attended Episcopal services on Sundays. This lasted for several years.
I can tell you from personal experience that not attending Mass in itself did not emotionally bother me. But, I always felt guilty from attending Protestant services.
I will not go into the gory details about what led me back to the Church other than to say that the Catholic Chaplain at a VA Hospital played a major role.
 
Greg1021 said:
I am a cradle Roman Catholic, but have known that my Slovak Grandmother was born and baptized Greek Catholic. Sometime in the past my Grandmother stopped attending Greek Catholic masses and began with Roman Catholicism. So my mother and myself have never known any other rite. I just did a genealogy research and was able to trace our ancestry back to the mid-1700’s and we are Carpatho-Rusyn and I even know what church many many generations of my ancestors were baptized in Sts. Peter & Paul Greek Catholic in Slovakia. Part of me is a HUGE traditionalist, and I want to return to my family heritage, and go to a local Ruthenian Catholic mass, and part of me just wants to stay with the Latin rite. The kicker is, the Carpatho-Rusyn heritage and customs have been a huge part of my childhood, so I feel like I should honor them.
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My sincere advice it to attend BOTH in your case. I have done just that for 15 years and it has helped me greatly. Very naturally one of the two will become a bit dominant and that’s fine but continue on with both…
 
i think I am going to occasionally attend both services. I really enjoy my parish, but it wouldn’t be a bad thing to take in a Divine Liturgy every now and again 🙂
 
That’s what I’d do if my only traditional option was Eastern Rite Catholic. (Currently I have no traditional options.) My devotions are almost all from the Latin tradition, some of my prayers are in Latin and I’m learning more. But I think it would be wonderful to attend an EC parish regularly, even learn a different perspective and devotions so long as I don’t have to give up my Western heritage which in my area is already lacking enough in the public sphere of the church – my private devotions are the most traditional thing I have.

I’d prefer the Latin mass if I had an option I think, but you never know – if I could experience both regularly that could change.

I’d suggest to the OP simply attending both.
 
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