Breathing With Both Lungs: The Roman Catholic Church, The Byzantine Catholic Church

While I have always had an awareness of the Byzantine Catholic Church, I had never really moved from mere musings to an actual action plan. Pope Saint John Paul II said it best when he stated, “The Church needs to learn to breathe again with its two lungs – its Eastern one and its Western one. Pope Saint John Paul II, in his effort to bring together the East and West, issued two distinct challenges. Because Eastern Catholics are a minority, they must faithfully preserve their tradition and not be tempted to “Latinize” their practices. Roman Catholics, on the other hand, should seek out some amount of liturgical and intellectual exposure to the Christian East for spiritual and cultural enrichment.

As Pope Saint John Paul knew, in the current war against secularism, both lungs are necessary in order to provide enough “oxygen” for the spiritual battle raging in today’s world. The Eastern perspective expands the arsenal of the Western Church’s theology and prayer life. So, on the one hand, breathing with both lungs reinforces the Church Militant, but it is also an invitation to broaden one’s horizon through a beautiful encounter with Christ, who is new every morning.”

The more I progressed through my formation to the Diaconate, the more I felt a growing sense of desire to learn more of our cousins of the east. Around Christmas time, 2013 my wife and I, along with a friend, finally decided to follow Pope Saint John Paul II’s call and attended a Byzantine Catholic liturgy. I was totally enamored from the first whiff of incense and the first tinkle of a bell. My journey, while still in the infant stages, is nothing short of remarkable. That first time I experienced an Eastern Catholic Liturgy, I felt much like the emissaries of, the 10th century Prince Vladimir prince of Kiev. He sent representatives to Constantinople to find out about their religion. Upon their return, they told him, “When we entered the church and experienced that liturgy, we knew not if we were on Earth or in Heaven because it was so beautiful. The Eastern Catholic Rite is that beautiful to me also. I decided that experiencing the Eastern side of my Catholic Faith would be the topic of my final internship before being ordained to the Diaconate. While in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope, they have their own particular identity, spirituality, culture, and even perspective. I have learned of the beauty and history of the Byzantine Catholic Rite while at the same time growing in my knowledge and understanding of the Roman Catholic Rite. It is so unfortunate that so many Roman Catholics have never even heard of Eastern Christianity or of Eastern Catholicism. Even though Eastern Catholics are full and complete members of the universal Church of Rome, they have not always been treated as such. The universality of the Catholic Church connotes not uniformity but unanimity and complementarity of spirit. The entire Catholic Church is called to this openness and can do nothing less if it is to remain faithful to its identity.