www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Theresian Spirituality

Okay, okay, okay. You have succeeded in silencing me, although it would have been a lot easier to just not read my posts if you do not want to hear from me.

I will silently pray for you and ask my Guardian Angel to discuss Theresian Byzantine Catholic Spirituality with your Guardian Angel. Then your Guardian Angel will quietly whisper the message in your ear, and one day you may suddenly have the urge to learn more about this "little way".

You can stop me from sending you a message through the internet, but you cannot stop me from sending a message through the Angelic network. Our Guardian Angels do talk to one another in case you were unaware. Of course, you have the free will to cover your ears even then.

If someone wants to learn more about this great Byzantine saint, you can send me a PM or an e-mail at jppoland@sbcglobal.net. We can have a sub-Forum so to speak!

Meanwhile, let me leave you with one of my favorite quotes:

"Even when alone be cheerful remembering always that you are in the sight of the Angels."

I don'tthink there's anything wrong with speaking of the Little Flower as a saint who has captured the heart of the east. Why would you run off, claiming that you've been run off?

She's no more an eastern saint that St. John Maximovich is a western wonder worker, but an icon touched to his incorrupt body stays by my side all the time that I am at home.

So why don't you send something of the Little Flower now and then and be happy that she touches hearts in many places.

You really are making elephants out of mice here.

Eli

No one is silencing you John. If you do so that is your choice. You have been telling us what to do and how to do it and have not listened to us all along. You did not come here to listen and to share but to lecture us. I also was quiet fed up having St Theresa shoved in my face everytime I came into the forum. We are not going to toptoe around you here. You have been told by others about the proper ways of conducting offices but you were not interested in their wisdom and insights. This is a Byzantine forum and it is very welcoming but there is just so much bullying people are prepared to take from you.

Wishing you Peace in the Risen Lord.

Pavel

This is peaceful?

Better to have St. Theresa shoved in one's face than this.

Eli

No! That was a distortion of what she was about. No one said he should not have a devotion to her at any time.

ICXC
NIKA

I'm very late in these threads so try to explain to me what it is you are concerned about here, please. I am sorry if I was too harsh with you a post back. Honestly I do not think that you are negating the worth of the Little Flower.

Now the one thing about the Little Flower that I think is important is that she would not concede that we, Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church, were two churches. She saw us as one, and in that very important sense she would identify herself and her assistance with all of us.

So in that way, a very important way of looking at it for this discussion, I think, it would be compressing her too tightly to refer to her as a saint from EITHER the east or the west.

That being said, there is a particular Spirituality of the Little Way that could easily be adopted and adapted into the Byzantine Catholic tradition and has been in the person of individuals and a Byzantine cloister, even some Orthodox monastics venerate her simple theology of love.

So I do not know what it is that seems to be driving the harshness in this topic. Help me to understand how it got to this place?

Eli

My brothers and sisters, we are in Bright Week, so let us recall the resurrection of our Lord and model Him and His actions. Let's have no more bickering but, rather, let us pray for one another and commit our whole lives to Christ our God.

Fr. Deacon Edward, Moderator

Dear Friends,

The Little Flower, once again, is honoured highly by a number in the East, by both EC's and Orthodox.

But she wasn't a Byzantine Catholic saint, she was a Latin Catholic saint and it is a disservice to her to try and "reinvent" her and her spirituality.

It seems to me the problem here is that our friend, John Patrick, can come across as trying to impose certain devotions on Eastern Catholics.

First, he tried to make the argument elsewhere that Divine Mercy Sunday should be celebrated by EC's because that is what the Lord told St Faustina and that was that.

Secondly, he tried to make the argument here that St Therese should venerated by EC's because of her spirituality being "Byzantine."

The annoyance here is that EC's are being told to have two Western devotions (and probably others, let's give it time) for our own good etc.

And Eastern Christians, including the posters here who take umbrage at that, are absolutely correct to take that position.

We will not practice any Western devotion on the grounds that a private revelation to a Latin Catholic saint affirms that "all should" or because someone says the devotion in question is really "Byzantine after all."

That is Latinization by the back door.

And it is a disservice to those devotions that should only be embraced on the basis of their intrinsic spiritual worth.

Alex

It is something of a disservice to the universal Church to suggest that one man on a bulletin board can impose back-door Latinizations on eastern Catholics or Orthodox. That is actually rather silly, if you stop a moment and think about John Patrick Atlas moving you in that way without your consent. And if you mean what you say about the inherent and intrinsic worth to the lives of the saints then public, or private, devotions, to them, east or west, should not be quite so strained.

Eli

I think that if we were to replace little with the word 'pure' or 'less prideful', then it would coincide with Eastern Theology. When Saint Therese says that she had to become more and more 'little', she is 'growing' spiritually in the same sense that we Orthodox grow spiritually in the uncreated 'Light' before we die and after we die. That is if we are within our Lord.

The difference between the Latin concept of the afterlife is that they believe that hell is being away from God. We Orthodox believe that we are never away from God, but rather the purer one becomes, the greater the 'Light' becomes for us. It is a continous growth pattern that never ceases. Hell on the other hand, is not being able to perceive the light because of our prideful impurities, and so one feels only the heat, (as they would say).

So in that sense, Saint Therese, (who I adore), understood perfectly well that she had to become smaller, (less prideful) and continously smaller.

So is there a difference? Samantics, it's all samantics.

Zenovia

Okay, apparently my gentle suggestion did not have the desired effect. I am, therefore, closing this thread.

Fr. Deacon Edward, Administrator/Moderator