Visibility in Catholicism

Visible Authority.

I saw this phrase in reference to the Pope and it stopped me in my tracks, for it is what I've also fixated on in my last post about the Eucharist - specifically its visibility!

Visibility in Catholicism: Pope (visible authority of Christ on Earth); Eucharist in Tabernacle (visible Eucharistic incarnation of Jesus); Bible (visible words of God).

Visibility in Orthodoxy is in the worship experience itself.  The embodiment of the faith is easily visible.

The Orthodox focus is more mystical, and I generally like that.  But when everything is sort of vague, I guess the autistic in my can't process that.  If I can run with it in whatever direction I feel led, that's one thing.  But Orthodoxy insists on having figured things out and teaching with authority but basing a lot of it on mysticism.  What if my mystical experience is different?  Is it still considered valid?

There really is a lot of variety within the Catholic church.  There's the Eastern Rite, the Latin Rite, the Traditional Latin Mass... Perhaps the magic ticket would be to find a TLM parish whose reverence and joy rival that of the Orthodox church we've been attending periodically.

And if we can't?  We may need to split our time between Orthodoxy and TLM, but I have a very strong feeling that it will need to be a TLM if we maintain any ties to Catholicism.  If it was just Novus Ordo, it would not be much of a competition.

But the Catholic Eucharist is that visibility of the incarnation of Jesus according to Matthew 26:26, the institution of the Eucharist.

And while I get the critique of Orthodox against the "unity" of Catholicism as being merely obedience to the Pope, and not reflected in its liturgical practices, one could counter that with the inverse argument.  The unity of the Orthodox church is based on common liturgical practices and no singularity.  But then again, unity of practice actually isn't the truth, because there are Oriental Orthodox churches that are considered schismatic to the Eastern Orthodox church, and the Eastern Rite Catholics are nearly indistinguishable from the Orthodox, yet certainly are not Orthodox in name.  Therefore, we're just splitting hairs with that argument.

The unity that ought to concern us is this: do we follow Christ?  Do we try to live out His teachings and imitate His example?  Do we agree on His being the incarnation of God?  If yes, then I think that makes the majority of all Christians members of His church, which has no physical governance on Earth.  

Outside of that, Catholicism makes sense from a universally practical perspective, and Orthodoxy makes sense from a locally governed perspective.  They really need to reconcile!

But until they do, I have to either attend both or choose one over the other.