www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Totally Confused, please clarify

Good morning brothers and sisters in Christ. I am new to this forum and came in by accident. I know now that you are Catholics from Orthodoxy background. I am confused about certain terminology like Latin, Liturgy and on. I am a Catholic since birth and it was not until almost a year ago on the day of the celebration of Our Lady that I was born again into Christ. I can tell you my story later. For now, who are you? Are you guys in the US? How do you practice Catholicism using that name? Is this like a denomination of Catholicism?

Thank you for your time and God Bless you all!

Hi Iliana, welcome! Glory to Jesus Christ!

My name is Karen, and I was a non-practing RC most of life, until about five years ago, when my mom succumbed to cancer, and I started practing my Faith-- I was confirmed on Eastern Vigil 2000.

A year ago, I discovered the Eastern Catholic rites, and started attending a Byzantine rite Catholic church, and I love it!!! Initially, I was disgusted by all of the modernist, liberal garbage in the Latin rite, but I have really come to love the spirituality of the East, and could never go back to the Latin rite-- this is nothing against the Latin rite, either, it just doesn't fulfill my personal spritual needs. I live in Florida.

The Catholic Church is actually made up of several rites, and within those rites particular churches. For example, the vast majority of Catholics are of the Latin Rite and the Roman church. I am now of the Byzantine Rite and the Ruthenian church. The the Byzantine Ruthenians used to be Orthodox, but came back into communion with Rome at the Treaty of Uzhrahod (sp?) in 1646. Yes, we *are* Catholic, we are in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, but retain our own traditions, theology, and disciplines.

There is a lot of wonerful info on here about Eastern rite Catholicism, but don't be afraid to as any questions-- someone here will surely be able to answer them.

God bless,

Karen

Dear Iliana,

Welcome, Sister in Christ!

I would love to explain our Churches to you.

But could you first begin by explaining what a "Roman Catholic" is?

Do you accept the Pope? Do you honour the Virgin Mary and the Saints?

You're not connected to Protestants, are you?

( )

God bless and welcome, once again,

Alex

Iliana Guadalupe:

�Bienvenidos! �Eres tu hispana?

Yes we are in the US, in fact, there are two parishes of the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Van Nuys in Las Vegas:

1. Saint Gabriel the Archangel
2250 E. Maule Avenue
Las Vegas, NV, 89119-4607
served by Rev. Robert M. Pipta
Phone: 702-361-2431

2. Our Lady of Wisdom Byzantine Catholic Church
2120 Lindell Ave.
Las Vegas, NV 89180
Phone: 702-873-5101
Fax: 702-873-5104
Pastor: Archimandrite Rt. Rev. Francis M. Vivona, S.T.M., J.C.L.

If you want to see how we practice our Catholic Faith, attend one of the Divine Liturgies at either parish. All Catholics who are properly prepared may receive the Eucharist during the Liturgy.

Fr Robert,

Thats my Vocations Director.

Are we in the USA? Some of us are wandering in cyberspace! Incognitus

Illiana Guadelupe
Let me respectfully explain one point to you.
No you were not "born again" just a little while ago.
You were born again when you were Baptized into Christ death and resurrection.

What happened most likely is that you experienced the reality of what happened in Baptism or you experienced metanoia.
Stephanos I

Welcome and God's blessings.

Welcome Iliana,

The best place for you to start is on the main page of this site. Take a look at "Faith and Worship" and the accompanying text on who Byzantine Catholics are.

To briefly answer some of your questions:
There are other traditions or rites within the Catholic Church, one being Roman (also known as Latin), another being Byzantine.

Byzantine Catholics celebrate Divine Liturgy, while the Roman Catholics celebrate the Mass. Attending Divine Liturgy fulfills your requirement for Sunday services.

Yes, we are in the USA as well as many other parts of the world.

There are no "demoninations" of Catholicism. There are different traditions or rites or churches.

Feel free to ask any questions you like Iliana. I'm sure our more experienced posters will be glad to help you.

I was born in Texas and raised in Mexico. Si, soy Hispana 100%. I was a Catholic who went to mass as a child with my mom forever and ever, when I got married at 20 stopped going to mass, only for Christmas and Easter. After I had my kids I stayed the same way but I did get my kids baptized and my oldest made her holy communion. I was given up for adoption when I was a baby and did not realize that I had a biological brother and two half-brothers, which I met 9 years ago. My brothers were raised Evangelical and practiced with their mom, my biological mom I guess. Anyway, my brother became a born again, he was baptized which really bothered me because he had been baptized in the Catholic Church but considered it invalid since he was not aware of it. I paid no attention but it did bother me. (I am trying to keep it short ok.) One day I went to mass for Our Lady of Guadalupe, I felt something that transformed me that day, I went home and told my husband and he just probably thought it was my hormones. I told my brother and he was so mean, he started accusing me of idolatry towards the Virgin Mary and how our bibles have the Apocryphal books and on and on and on. Well, that was it for me, I started investigating, this was since 12/12/02 and now all I can tell you is that I love being a Roman Catholic, I believe in the intersession of the saints and the blessing of our Mother Mary. I love apologetics, I love it so much that after I am done with my B.S. instead of going to Law School I may get my masters on Theology. My kids life have changed a lot too, they are more spiritual and I even have them in a Catholic School, not only for religion reasons but the school in Las Vegas are a horror story. Anyway guys, this is who I am. And for my brother, ha ha ha, he is in the RCIA program blessed the Lord Jesus Christ. He is still a protestant who attends mass and service, who defends Catholicism and teaches other protestants that if you don�t know the history if Christianity is like being illiterate. How can you go into the future without knowing the past, and Protestantism has no past of its own. We both study the bible, we both read, we both investigate and I told him that I wanted to visit an Orthodox church. I was very honest with him in telling him that if there is in fact one true church founded by Jesus and Peter, that the only one was either the Catholic or Orthodox. I am sorry but history proofs it, anything after that, man created it. He still does not understand a lot of concepts like purgatory and the assumption of Our Lady, but he now knows that Faith alone can�t save you without any works and that Sola Scriptura is a mistake, tradition from the early fathers and the apostles can�t be forgotten. So, even though he was a bible thumper and I was an ignorant Catholic, the Holy Spirit helped out on this one.

God Bless you all.

I will be back later on to comment on some definitions that I don�t understand.

Hello Iliana,

Latin refers to the Latin Church which is the same as Roman Catholic Church. Latin is used because the official language of the Roman Catholic Church is Latin.

Liturgy comes from a Greek word which means "work of the people" or "public worship". The liturgy is the official prayer of the Church which includes the Mass, the sacraments and the official daily prayer of the church, The Liturgy of the Hours, which is usually prayed by clergy and religious. All the definitions of the liturgy I have defined are from the Roman Catholic Church tradition.

The Eastern Catholic Churches have their own terminolgy for these liturgical prayers. The Eastern Catholic Churches worship or liturgy is very similar the the Orthodox Eastern Churches.

The Eastern Catholic Churches are united with the Roman Catholic Church by the same faith and the same sacraments, as well as accepting the Pope as head of the Church on earth, the sucessor of Saint Peter.

I hope I have given you a start on some of these terms you asked about.

Keep asking questions. There are many people on this forum who will help you.

God Bless you,

Paul

Hi Iliana,

I very much enjoyed your witness to the stirring up of the Holy Spirit in your life. It is a beautiful witness to God's love.

Welcome to the Byzantine Forum. I am a convert, I was raised Southern Baptist, my husband was Polish National Catholic (independant of Rome), and we prayed for God to give us a church where we could come together with our family. So through a series of events Jesus introduced us to the Ruthenian Byzantines. Well here we are 24 years later Ruthenian in a Melkite parrish, we have never looked back and praise God for every minute that we have been here.

To me the worship in the Liturgy has made every page of the Bible come alive. It was as though the Words of Christ just stepped off of the pages.

This verse helped me to understand where the Theotokos's role in salvation... Genesis 3:15
"I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel."

We are brothers and sisters of Christ, and heirs to him. We are heirs as Children of God, and we are heirs because Mary is our mother. We are her offspring just like Jesus.

Thank you Paul, Thank you Rose.

I have been searching for a lot of things. For the truth, I am not saying that I will leave my parish but I have always been attracted to the Ortodox and the more traditional way of worshiping. Like I said earlier, how can we go to the future if we don't know the past. I truly believe that our Church is the one that Jesus founded and he gave the keys to Peter. I am very conservative and I love the fact that our Catholic religion, either Latin or Eastern is still practicing the Christian faith the way the apostles and our early Christian Fathers did.

I will be attending Liturgy at St. Gabriel this weekend, I can't wait.

Thank you and God Bless You.....I love JESUS CHRIST!!!!

What is this about different Liturgies? Like St James once a year?

Thank you

Hi,

I did a search of this forum for these, here are some links :

https://www.byzcath.org/cgibin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=001553#000000
https://www.byzcath.org/cgibin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=001016#000000
https://www.byzcath.org/cgibin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=000668#000000

You know I take for granted the seach tool on here, but it sure does give a lot of good information. Thanks ESTEEMED ADMINISTRATORS!

Hola Iliana (o Lupita?),

Gusto en conocerte.

Well, you know, in the Latin Rite we have a lot of parts of the Liturgy that change according to the feast day or the liturgical season (the collect prayer, the prayer over the offered gifts, the prayer after Communion, the preface, etc.). These are called the "propers" of the Liturgy.

On top of that, the Roman Missal contains at least 4 Eucharistic prayers for general use, 2 more for penitential use and 2 or 3 for celebrations with Children.

Even more, there are variations allowed for special ceremonies such as weddings, which go beyond the rite of the ceremony itself.

The bottom line is that the Latin Rite has a lot of variations already built-in.

The same is not true for the Byzantine Rite. The Byzantine Rite "propers" to celebrate the Eucharist are two short hymns that are sung before the readings, and maybe a couple of other small variations afterwars, plus some responses that change for the Paschal season.

However, on special days, Byzantine Christians use other Liturgies, which are similar to the "ordinary" (that of St. John Chrysostom), but with variations which are more significant than the regular "propers".

For instance, the Liturgy of St. Basil, which is used for Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil, includes an extended Anaphora, which is very beautiful indeed.

Other Byzantine Liturgies are that of St. James, which is served on his feast day, and the Liturgy of the Presanctified of Pope St. Gregory, which is not a Divine Liturgy proper, since it doesn't have the Consecration, and which is celebrated on weekdays during Great Lent and the Holy Week (We Romans have a similar rite for Good Friday).

Shalom,
Memo.