Mary and Ryan

On the link provided by Ryan on an earlier thread, I found this information that might interest you: the Churches and rites in communion with the Roman Catholic Church.

There are two Eastern rites in Kerala, India (belonging to the group of Apostle Thomas Christians)in communion with Roman Catholic Church -

1. Syro-Oriental Rite: Syro-Malabar Church, the one to which I belong came in communion with the RCC about 400 years ago. It has a Cardinal and is one among only six non-Roman rite churches (others being Coptic Church, Maronite Church, Syrian Church, Chaldean Church (similar in Rite to the Syro-Malabar Church), Ukranian Church) with a cardinal.

2. Antiochian Rite: Syro-Malankarra Church. It is a smaller church in Kerala and came in communion with Rome less than hundred years ago. It has no cardinal.

http://www.gcatholic.com/dioceses/rites.htm

I don't suppose the notion of 'Saints' bothers me too much, except how many of their stories are actually meant to portray the rest of the world as out to martyr Christians.

It's also just a *wee* bit hypocritical for the Church to go attacking Pagans and indigenous folks for the same sorts of things they excuse in their own practices.

Of course this only feeds into *Protestant* anti-Catholic bigotry, but a number of those saints are Pagan deities re-dressed as Christian martyrs in the first place.

Again, of course, this only provides justification for Protestant attacks on Christians, but it's just possible the Church oughtn't be validating the same premises when they themselves apply them to others.

Guess I won't name names, though, people are liable to react just backwards.

E Favorite,

Not terribly complicated, no. And that's the process of being canonized, identified publicly by the Church as a saint. To actually become a saint is fairly simple in its basic form. The fact that you heard about the process only as an adult kinda gets at the lack I was pointing out to Soja. So many Catholics for the last 40 or 50 years have been almost entirely uneducated in the faith. I only started learning hard facts and details at 18 years old or so, at my Jesuit college, around the time the new Catechism came out (1994-ish).

Soja,

Aye, I was taught to pray the rosary by a Lutheran woman who had learned it on abortion prayer lines from her Catholic friends. I agree with the Wesleys that cross-fertilization offers immense opportunities for spiritual growth and maturation, as your story reveals. I am also grateful that our garden, the Catholic Church, has earthly gardeners to help us sort through things, to weed out the bad and to cultivate the good (like the Catholic Charismatic Renewal).

Soja,

I think my comment in reference to the (London) Times article by Melanie McDonagh about the state of Catholicism in England and Wales. There are many Sri Lankan Catholics in London, of course, but there is a little cluster in Bury St Edmunds, what demographers would call a cluster. These have joined forces with local Catholics to revitalise the local Catholic church. Such migration patterns are unusual, however the Bury St Edmunds case show they do exist..

Re: converts to Islam in the UK

At least in the UK, these tend to two types: 1) women who marry Muslim men; 2)men, many of them ex-criminals, who are converted in prison. Neither of the above tend to be Catholic. Islam is growing as a percentage of the population due to higher birthrates, not conversion. The birthrates however are falling as more Muslim women enter the workplace.

In France a friend told me conversions to Islams were primarily _men_. Conversions from Islam to Catholicism were_women_. I do not know if this is true.

Mary Cunningham: "BTW Soja, she doesn’t mention it but there is a small, thriving community of Sri Lankan Catholics in Bury St Edmunds, of all places. Their presence has rejuvenated what was a very moribund church." (July 1, 2008 7:42 AM)

Mary, since I'm confused, maybe you'd like to explain what this means exactly?

Best wishes
Soja

July 2, 2008 1:57 AM

Ryan

The exclusive focus on the rosary and praying to the saints in my family brought me close to leaving the Catholic Church when I was eighteen! It was Protestants who taught me most about Jesus, one of many was a (pen-pal) Baptist from Santa Barbara. I owe a very prayerful lady from the Pentecostal church my gratefulness for remaining in the Catholic Church. She warned me that there was no perfect church and I could be a good Christian while remaining in the Catholic church. Shortly after that I discovered the Bible focussed Catholic Charismatic Renewal Movement which really was the saving factor. I moved on from there of course and was amazed to find vast hidden spiritual treasures in the Catholic Church. I was to discover the incredible beauty of Mass, not in a parish but at Jesuit retreats and when I stayed at the Christian Ashram of Dom Bede Griffiths.

Have you ever wondered why most of the converts to Islam are Catholics? Catholics don't know the Bible as they ought!

I learned as an adult, long after I eschewed Catholicism, that saints became very special indeed after they die. For, in order to become a saint, they had to perform miracles AFTER they were dead.

The way it works is someone has to be cured of a deadly illness by praying to this dead person whose not even a saint yet. (What are the chances of that! If I were deathly ill, I'd pray to an established saint with a track record, not some wannabe.) If the sick person is cured, then the dead person gets the credit and is on their way to being a saint.

It's more complicated than that, but that's already mighty complicated, don't you think?

So the next time a Catholic interrupts a search by saying, “Pray to St. Anthony!” remember how it enriches faith to believe God’s heroes and heroines care about ordinary people like us.
--------------

ICK. Yuck

Ryan, Ryan, Ryan,

Even the North Pole Santa Clause can be a cause for parties and celebrations!!!!

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I belong to St Martin of Tours parish, Gaithersburg, MD, and let me tell you, every November 11 we certainly whoop it up. The only bigger day (party-at-church-wise) is Corpus Christi. Owing to our fine Maryland springtimes and fairly traditional flock, you can imagine. The Spanish 11:45 a.m. Mass homily is shortened and the English 11:30 a.m. Mass homily is lengthened, so that the Masses let out at the same time. Everyone pours out into a single Eucharistic procession - around 800 people or so. The procession winds around the parish central properties, up Summit Ave. through the town center, and across Frederick Ave. to the parish's other properties. There it is exposed for a brief period of adortion with praise and worship music, followed by benediction. The Blessed Sacrament is reposed - and the barbeque, carnival games, talent show, and the rest begin. I couldn't make it this year, to my sorrow. It's really a lot of fun. People in town must think we're weird, but it works for us.

Prof. Stevens-Arroyo, a very nice piece. I forgot to congratulate you on St. Anthony Day, just a week or so ago. My apologies.

Soja, I think you are on the right track. I've no objection to novenas, etc., and find them very useful - but not if they distract us from the deeper and heartier things of our holy faith. I agree with you. More and more we should be immersing ourselves in the Word of God. The Eucharist is His flesh and blood, our life's sustenance; the Scriptures are His mind, our life's direction.

That said, if we prioritize our lives well, it should be possible to squeeze in a few things. The rosary, for myself, has over the years been a source of deep reflection, and frequently I am surprised by some insight while praying it. Much moreso, I suspect, if we follow the late Holy Father's advice to pray it while meditating on the specific words of the scripture passages related to the mysteries.

I think a lot of younger Catholics, my age (perhaps a bit older) and younger are angry at our parents without even realizing it, for having obscured from us such a treasury of devotions to aid our spiritual life. Growing up in the 1980s in the US as a Catholic was, spiritually speaking, something like growing up in Ethiopia at the same time period - a starvation diet. I suspect that anger, plus the natural angers of being raised in less than perfect homes by less than perfect people, is what underlies a particularly revanchist brand of "orthodoxy" found among many of today's youth.

Prof. Stevens-Arroyo, it suddenly occurs to me that perhaps we might pray to St Anthony to our Church find its lost charity, unity, and apostolic zeal. Let's give it a go!

Again, a fine article and an enjoyable read.

The patron saint of my father's village Syro-Malabar Parish was St Sebastian. His feast day was celebrated more grandly than Christmas!

The patron saint of the first Latin rite Church I attended was St Anthony, and his feast day was celebrated on a grand scale. So praying to St Anthony to retrieve missing articles was the norm.

Dear Professor Stevens-Arroyo

Being brought up in a very orthodox Catholic home where daily recitation of the rosary as a family was the norm, I recall that although we prayed for over an hour each day, Bible reading had no part in it. In addition to reciting the rosary, we prayed to various saints and praying to Jesus was in the form of prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (which was merely one among many prayers)...

I think it is possible to get lost somewhere along the way by praying to all the saints one admires (I do admire a lot of them but now restrict my prayers by doing no more than mentioning many by name and asking for their intercession when I pray) and having no time left over to remember Jesus. At least that is the way I experienced it. So I do not say any more Novenas to any saint. Now I think it is more important to read about the lives of saints for inspiration and try to imitate them in their holiness rather than saying a string of Novenas to them, without really knowing what they did. I have felt better since I started to practice a simple Bible-reading based spirituality. It gives one an opportunity to give all the attention to Jesus which He deserves.

Considering the embellished NT and mythical OT, one must wonder about the lives of the saints as always being completely factual.

We all remember "Saint" Christopher!!!!

And even the recently canonized Pio has a very questionable history.

I liked the tone of your essay and although as expected, the resident scoffers have already gone on the attack, I think the Saints have a lot to offer. They are examples to the faithful. Because the group of canonized Saints is so diverse, almost anyone can find someone to relate to and to learn from. They are rich and poor, male and female, lofty intellectuals and also, the very simple. Some were made saints when mere youths. They come from the far ends of the earth. Some were kings, others peasants. There are soldiers, doctors, merchants, scholars, mothers, priests, nuns. Many were martyrs. Most suffered during life. They are all different but they all give us hope. I have found that understanding their stories have greatly enhanced my own faith and my understanding of what it means to be faithful.

Free will and Future, innate attributes of the human species and/or gifts from your god(s), vitiate any possible help from any saint or other dead or live priest, shaman, ayatolla, rabbi or practitioner of voodoo.

Free will and Future innate attributes of the human species and/or gifts from your god(s) vitiate any possible help from any saint or other dead or live priest, shaman, ayatolla, rabbi or practitioner of voodoo.

Honestly, I think it's cute. Between your amulets, talismans, and patron saints of lost items, homes that need to be sold, and so on, it's downright amusing.