The following comes from a January 12 Catholic San Francisco article by Christina Gray:
During the first week of January when most Roman Catholics were enjoying the spiritual afterglow of the Christmas season, Russian Byzantine Catholics in the Archdiocese of San Francisco were preparing for the celebration of their Christmas Day on January 7.
Byzantine Catholic churches follow the Julian calendar in which Christmas falls 13 days after that of the Gregorian calendar.
During an interview in the midst of Christmas week preparations, the pastor of Our Lady of Fatima Russian Byzantine Catholic Church in San Francisco told Catholic San Francisco that few Roman Catholics in the archdiocese are familiar with the lyrical Byzantine Divine Liturgy or know that it can fulfill their Sunday obligation as a Roman Catholic.
“The Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine Catholic Church are fully and equally Catholic,” said Father Kevin Kennedy who became pastor three years ago after the small church – one of only 20 Russian Byzantine Catholic Churches in the world – found a home in the former convent at St. Monica’s Church where he also serves as parochial vicar. The Divine Liturgy is held in the former convent chapel.
“Our origins are Russian Christianity, but we are a multi-ethnic Catholic Church open to any Catholic,” he said. “It’s like, just because you go to Roman Catholic Church doesn’t have to mean you have to be Italian.” he said.
Byzantine Catholicism was “smashed to smithereens,” according to Father Kennedy, by Communists in both Russia and again in Shanghai, China where members scattered to escape persecution. Those that kept the tradition alive retained everything of their Russian heritage, including all their liturgical books adding to them the commemoration of the intentions of the pope.
Many of the 100 or so regular parishioners of Our Lady of Fatima are Roman Catholic who have discovered and fallen and love with the Russian liturgy just as Father Kevin Kennedy did after he walked into Holy Virgin Eastern Orthodox Cathedral on Geary Boulevard as a theology student at the University of San Francisco.
The Byzantine liturgy is much more elaborate than the “simple and sober” Roman rite because it arises from a different culture, the Eastern half of the Roman Empire called the Byzantine Empire, which was focused on a more Hellenistic philosophy of art, drama and poetry, Father Kennedy said.
“I think what people find is a very rich liturgy that’s very focused on the mystical dimension of the Eucharist,” he said. “You have what ends up being almost like a two-hour movie, a whole drama wherein the Eucharistic itself is celebrated with ritual historical enactments and ceremonial processions, a great entrance with the bread and wine.”
This is a beautiful liturgy. God bless them!
In the Byzantine Catholic Liturgy, the bread consecrated for the Holy Eucharist is risen bread in cube form. It is given by intinction. One kneels slightly while standing, and the priest dips the Sacred Body into the Sacred Blood with a small spoon, then puts the spoon in ones mouth without touching it, flips the spoon over and the recipient swallows the soaked Host. There is an altar server holding a special cloth underneath the chin and chalice to catch the Eucharist if it falls. Sometimes the first name of the recipient is announced if he/she so desires.
St. Andrew Catholic Russian Byzantine parish is in El Segundo, CA , Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The Melkite Byzantine Catholics also have a Liturgy there. The Byzantine Liturgy is a great thing to expierence.
There is also St. Basil’s Eastern Catholic Church in Los Gatos, California. One can find the website on line. It is a small but beautiful church inside.
Actually, I have only been to St. Basil’s once many years ago, so it might be much larger now. I think it is the Ruthenian Rite.
Virtually any reverent liturgy, with historic connection to the Faith, is better than the Novus Ordo. The present Church demands, and is happy with, agreement that its NO Mass is “licit” which, to them, ends any debate. The masses “are all the same” they say (because they are licit, and because we know that Christ chooses to attend, due to the doctrine of indefectibility.
Many want more connection to history, to beauty, and to avoid the banal. The Byzantine Catholic rite is such a service (as is the Ordinariate Mass, which is absolutely stunning). Time to go home, Pope Francis.
WHere is the “home” you wish Pope Francis would return? Back to his country? At his age, “home” often means heaven. You want Francis to die?
Why? so that you can feel better about disparaging the NO once again?
You yourself say, “Virtually any reverent liturgy, with historic connection to the Faith, is better than the Novus Ordo”. The NO/EF IS a reverant liturgy with historic connection to the faith, but you fail to see its historicitiy. You can go as far back as the first century, to the Didache, for example, and see that eucharistic celebrations were actually quite simple and austere. Not the two hour silk-laden liturgeis that some prefer. And to be clear, prefering those two hour silk laden liturgies is not bad – it is…
I am happy to see that Our Fellow Catholic has discovered the “Didache” (Gr., “Teachings of the 12 Apostles, ca. 80-100AD). However, taking the lines from the Didache pertaining to the Eucharist as a literal liturgy (“simple and austere”) contradicts what we know of the Liturgy of St. James, as well as the traditions of both the Eastern Rites and the Latin Rite and the Didache itself.
Where this often-misunderstood effort to justify the modern New Mass and its new anaphoras is contradicted by the Didache itself: lines 8:1-3, first the author describes how to pray; then he describes a devotional prayer as “how to give thanks” during the Eucharist. It is not a literal Eucharistic Canon, and it is not a “Missal” of a Mass,…
In fact, on the contrary, the ancient Catholic Mass, both East and West, was highly structured and formal, the words of the Canon were memorized and recited only by the priest (or bishop) (cf. Card. Alfons Stickler’s lectures on the matter),everyone faced the East, along with the priest (no “circular” theatre-in-the-round churches): cf. Monsgr. Charles Pope, “The Ancient Mass in the ‘House Churches’ was Not as Informal as Many Think”, a very fine archaeological and well-researched piece:
https://blog.adw.org/2014/08/the-ancient-mass-in-the-house-churches-was-not-as-informal-as-many-think/
By the way, Martin Luther also often mocked the vestments of the Catholic Mass (“silk-laden liturgies”) and usually eliminated them or made them optional in his famous German “mass”. Popery, you know.
The Mass is Jesus, offering Himself to the Father for us. All Masses are more than connected to history. They are HIS Story. All Masses are beautiful.
Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I adore You profoundly and I offer You the Most Sacred Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Most Beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in reparation for the outrages, sacrileges and indifference with which You Yourself are offended and by the infinite Merits of His Most Sacred Heart and Of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I beg of You , the conversion of poor sinners..
I guess I should clarify something. Although I prefer the Mass ad orientem, among other things, and understand the meaning behind it, the Newer Masses are beautiful when abuses are not brought into the liturgy that make them illicit or invalid. I only attend those traditional Latin Masses (Extraordinary Masses) that have the approval of the Magisterium. I leave the judgment of the SSPX and all others to people far wiser than I and to God.
Liturgical abuse does not render the Mass illicit or invalid.
I will make clearer what I said. I was not talking about minor abuses, but the serious abuses that DO make Masses illicit or invalid. I am blessed enough that I really do not know of a Catholic Mass in my area that is really that bad, I do avoid the Masses that have a lot of minor abuses, though, and go to the ones that do not.
What abuse would make the Mass illicit? What abuse would make the Mass invalid?
The Sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice. “The Victim is one and the same; the Same now offers through the ministry of priests, who then offered Himself on the Cross; only the manner of offering is different.” CCC1367