Posted on 06/06/2004 9:39:11 PM PDT by Flying Circus
DO THEY BELONG TO THE SAME RELIGION?
Ken Skuba
Ken Skuba, who lives with his wife and three children in Sugarloaf, Pennsylvania, is the manager of a real estate company.
A Tale of Two St. Mary's Churches
It was Pentecost Sunday 1999, and we were headed to 8 a.m. Mass at St. Mary's Church in upstate New York. We — my wife, kids, and I — had traveled from Pennsylvania to visit my wife's family, and I decided to take my kids (my wife had other obligations) to St. Mary's where Grandma is a Eucharistic minister.
At 7:45 a.m. we entered St. Mary's and briefly stopped to observe her modern interior design. It was not exactly the traditional rectangular church with the altar at one end and an entrance at the other. St. Mary's is rectangular, but the "altar area" is located near the middle of the nave, not at the end. Multiple banks of pews face the altar area, some at an angle, surrounding it on three sides. The nave is devoid of statues and artwork. It appeared more like an auditorium than a place of worship.
While the interior seemed odd to me, I was there to worship God, not rate the architecture. So we genuflected and entered our pew where I would kneel and offer up my prayer intentions for the Mass. And kneel I did, on the hard terrazzo floor, for this church has no kneelers. As always before Mass, I lifted my head to focus on the Tabernacle in silent prayer. I cast a glance into the "sanctuary," but there was nothing that looked even remotely like a Tabernacle. I then panned the nave and still saw no Tabernacle.
At this point, I wondered if I had inadvertently taken my kids to a non-Catholic church. I hadn't quizzed Grandma on her place of worship. I assumed she was Catholic; after all, she was a Eucharistic minister at St. Mary's. I began to perspire as I tried to make sense of my surroundings.
But the growing noise from parishioners walking around and talking to one another added to my fear that I was in the wrong place. A recent revert to the Catholic Church, I had only witnessed people in prayerful silence before Mass, with only marginal whispering and talking. Respect for our Eucharistic Lord here was not just lacking, it was unanimously nonexistent. But then, showing Him respect is hard to do if He's not in the room.
As sweat dripped from my forehead, the music began and only then, reluctantly it seemed, the noise ended. Father "Jim" (not his real name) made his way on-stage, and the service began. I was relieved to hear the familiar rubrics of a Catholic liturgy (I overlooked the post-introductory ad-libs). My relief was short-lived, though, as the Pentecost Sunday homily consisted of Fr. Jim petitioning parishioners to get more involved in church activities. Each pew was given pencils and sign-up sheets. While I saw some disjointed connection between the events of Pentecost and this homily, I felt more like a baseball bat had landed on my head than tongues of fire.
My disbelief continued as Fr. Jim omitted the Nicene Creed. During the Consecration, no one knelt, except my kids and me, and during the Our Father everyone held hands. I felt awkward when the parishioner on my right extended her hand, and she felt awkward and appeared not a little dismayed when I politely refused to give her mine. Then, we lined up for Holy Communion and received Our Lord under the appearance of cubes of whole-wheat bread that were distributed by eight Eucharistic ministers, Grandma included, to a congregation of not more than 200.
I left St. Mary's that day with a knot in my stomach. It was the worst liturgical experience of my short time back in the Church. Ironically, the best liturgical experience of my life also occurred at St. Mary's — St. Mary's Byzantine Catholic Church — in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., a year later, only days before Pentecost Sunday 2000.
It was a rainy Tuesday morning, and I was taking my mother to the hospital in Wilkes-Barre for tests. It was a short trip north on the Interstate, but timing was such that we missed morning Mass at our local parish. I dropped her off shortly after 7 a.m. and set off looking for St. Stanislaus Catholic Church, according to directions received the previous day. I found the church parking lot, sandwiched between two churches. I parked and rushed head-down through the pouring rain into what I thought was St. Stanislaus. The interior was ornately decorated, but it did not look like a Roman Catholic Church. There were women wearing mantillas, and the sanctuary was separated from the seating area by a beautifully decorated partition wall, which I learned afterward is called the iconostasis.
At front and center, just behind the central doors of the iconostasis was a gold Tabernacle, which immediately captured my sight. I rather slowly came to the realization that I had entered the wrong church, a Byzantine Catholic Church. I was familiar with Byzantine iconography, and this church was loaded with it. However, I had not attended a Byzantine liturgy since I was 11 years old when I slept through the better part of my grandfather's funeral Mass. I remember nothing of that childhood experience except its grueling length, and I wasn't sure I wanted to relive that now.
I decided to stay, and am grateful to God that I did. The church interior and Byzantine liturgy impressed upon my consciousness the exact reason why I attend Mass. The atmosphere, actions, and words of that Byzantine Mass left no doubt in my mind what I was doing there: I was there to worship God in the most sublime and profound way that men know how. Every sense registered in my brain that this is a holy place where a sacred and timeless event is taking place, the most important and salutary event on earth at this moment in time.
While no one knelt at the Consecration, which is Byzantine custom (from Easter to Pentecost), the words of the Consecration rite were rich with salvific meaning. Reverence was in the incensed air, on faces, and in the body language. I followed closely the words of the liturgy as chanted or sung by the priest and the faithful. Each prayer, each antiphon, each liturgical gesture resounded with the truths of our 2,000-year-old faith. Those worshiping were simultaneously catechized as the liturgy reinforced Church teaching about the redemptive value of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection, highlighting often Mary's role in our salvation. It was clear from the liturgy that we were participating in an unbloody oblation being offered to God in reparation for sin.
The priest did not tell jokes or comment on the weather. The secular world vanished the moment I entered St. Mary's. The sacred character ofthis church and liturgy was evident everywhere — in the reverent demeanor of the priest, in the focused participation of the faithful, in the iconography.
The Byzantine liturgy elevated my soul to a higher plane of worship. My soul was indeed magnifying the Lord. As this experience unfolded around and within me, I wanted every Catholic on the planet to be with me there, at that moment, and to have an identical experience. Then our Catholic churches would be filled, I realized.
I believe Divine Providence led me into St. Mary's in upstate New York and a year later into St. Mary's in Wilkes-Barre. I am not exactly sure how the Lord wants me to use this information. This article is perhaps the beginning. I do not doubt for a moment the validity of the Roman rite, even at Fr. Jim's church, yet the Roman Mass is missing the sacred character that Byzantine Catholics enjoy in their Masses.
Maybe the most troubling aspect of this disparity is that by deviating from Church law, Roman-rite priests are being disobedient to Church authority. Granted, most Catholics in the pews have no idea whether their pastor is being disobedient, but even more distressing is that most of them would probably have no problem with the deviations. What many Catholics fail to realize, though, is that minor, incremental changes in the liturgy can have a devastating effect over time. The evidence is at Fr. Jim's church. Was there no one courageous enough to question Fr. Jim? Apparently not. Too often, offended parishioners either look for another parish or stay and say nothing. Some speak up but find themselves insufficiently armed to defend their position.
I've only been back in the Church for a short time, so who am I to critique the Mass? Admittedly, I am no one important. However, I love the Catholic Church deeply. If Catholicism is headed in the direction of Fr. Jim's church, we're all in trouble. Parishioners must learn their faith and pray for the courage to speak up. The same premeditated disobedience that gives way to the removal of kneelers and the omission of the Nicene Creed will lead to further abuses, until the sacred banquet of Our Lord's flesh and blood is replaced by friends meeting on Sundays in fellowship over coffee and donuts.
Eastern Catholic ping.
They even had a "Fr. Jim" who sounded more like an over excited evangelical pastor, than a reverent priest.
Sadly, it's not just the AmChurch that is succumbing to this secular nonsense. It seems to affect other places, even the Caribbean (under the Jamaican Diocese).
Luckily, being back home this weekend, I was fortunate to attend the Phoenix Diocese's first Tridentine Mass held in 40 years.
As the saying goes, "Be it ever so humble...."
As a Protestant, I can tell you this sounds very much like a service in one of our Churches rather than a Catholic Mass!
Has the NOR gone under or something? They seem to have stopped updating their site last year.
They're still printing, but the fact that they haven't updated their site in forever is disturbing.
"As a Protestant, I can tell you this sounds very much like a service in one of our Churches rather than a Catholic Mass!"
The Protestant evangelical church I go to is not liberal OR irreverent.
I believe someone independent from the NOR runs the site and just has permission to post some articles from each issue.
Please notify me via FReepmail if you would like to be added to or taken off the Catholic Discussion Ping List.
How depressing.
Apparently they have one of those "parishes" here in Sacramento, complete with croutons as communion and special "Rainbow" masses for people of an "alternate" lifestyle.
Again, all I can say is that it is all so depressing.
I always enjoy reading people's first accounts of seeing the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom that we Orthodox celebrate every week.
What is Orthodoxy's take on the above statement? Is it theologically-correct?
Our diocese recently welcomed a new Bishop -- Archbishop Timothy Dolan and our parish a new pastor. Our Tabernacle will be removed from behind a screen and placed in full view as soon as the new organ arrives. The ceremony of hand washing has been reinstated. The altar table has been returned to the middle of the altar space. Change happens.
I believe that most Orthodox will agree with it but there will a caveat concerning how one parses the statement.
Let's face it, there's a modern habit of parsing and dissecting statements to turn them on their head. Plus our two chuches suffer from a great debate over which terms are used and how they are applied theologically.
Yes, this is a bloodless oblation through which we celebrate/particpate in Christ's reparation for our sins (I trust my Orthodox compatriots will correct me if I mis-stated anything).
Does that answer your question?
Yes it does, thanks!
I attended a church just like St. Mary's #1. The other Catholic churches in town were just as bad. Along with the bare-boned church came some really questionable teachings. The tabernacle was in a room in the back of the church. There was no sign of Mary anywhere. The music was the pitts, such as "We will build the City of God" and other similar lovelies. And like St. Mary's, communion was brown croutons. It made me so depressed I simply stopped attending. Fortunately we moved and our parish is really Catholic. The choir even sings Gregorian chant and classic Latin hymns such as Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus and Vivaldi's Gloria. The tabernacle is front and center. Unfortunately the communion rails were ripped out some years ago.
When did all this hand holding start while praying the Our Father and why did it start? It's not really done en masse at my church, sometimes the EM's or a familiy might do it but that's about it. I see others hold their hands out like the priest but that's about the size of it.
You bet. That's why it's done. There's no doubt in my mind that this is deliberate. There wasn't a popular groundswell for femal altar servers or for handholding at the "Our Father." This is "revolution from below" orchestrated from the top, by some group of dissidents within the Church.
The strategy is to accustom people to disobeying Church authority, and in becoming "change agents" themselves. If parishioners can disobey Church directives on the liturgy, why not disobey the Church regarding contraception and abortion? Why not vocalize their own dissenting opinions? Moreover, these types of actions set a precedent for implementing further change. Parishioners know that they can defy the Church "to Its face," "get away with it," and force their own changes in the same way.
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