If I am really intent on following the Lord where He may lead me, I will have to be open to stepping out of my comfort zone. Maybe that means refraining from kneeling during Divine Liturgy. Maybe that means commuting to our church community. Maybe that means joining a faith community that has grown from an ethnic heritage that is different from that of anyone in our family.
And maybe the reason I must step outside of my comfort zone is that within it, our faith has gotten stale. Within it, I have exhausted all possible paths to piety and virtue and holiness. Within it, we stagnate and do not grow.
Maybe growth in our spiritual lives means becoming open to something different. In the fantastic show "The Chosen", which is known for ad libbing to fill in contextual gaps from the Bible to help us better relate to the key players of the Gospel, there is a scene where Jesus says, "Get used to different." Perhaps He never actually said these words, but isn't that what His message was all about anyway? To see with new eyes?
2 Corinthians 5:17 says: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"
The Lord led me to Holy Cross, the Antiochian Eastern Orthodox Church where we have lingered for over a year off and on. Several months ago, there was a brief moment where I thought we were ready to make the jump and convert. But the Lord stopped me in my tracks with the Eucharist.
I love everything about the Orthodox Holy Cross parish except the Eucharist, and the Eucharist is precisely the center of our faith and the purpose for which we are seeking a reverent church! It need not be logical. I'm autistic, and I came to faith in Jesus's Real Presence in the Eucharist when it was in the unleavened form of the Host. While I thought I'd really like to have leavened bread in liturgy and communion, my actual experience has been otherwise.
I've received leavened bread at an Episcopal church once. And I've observed leavened bread at Orthodox Divine Liturgy. And to my eyes, it is bread. It is beautifully symbolic bread. There is something about the unleavened Host that is reminiscent of the manna from heaven that we read about in Exodus 15 and John 6:58.
I've often said that there needs to be something other-worldly about the environment of the worship space. That's why mere table fellowship in the way of the Quakers didn't do it for me. And while I was very excited about the prospect of baking our church's anaphora bread that would then be consecrated for Holy Communion, it actually made it too ... mundane.
I don't doubt that the early Eucharist was just this way. I'm not commenting on the validity of the Eucharist when in this form. I'm merely stating that the Lord is using this hesitation of mine to better lead me to where He wants our family.
When we visited the Russian Rite Catholic church, they used the spoon and leavened bread. I didn't feel it there, either. I realized then that it's not about Rome, or the Papacy, or which church is more apostolic than the other. For me, it is going to come down to the Eucharist.
But while the Eucharist at our Novus Ordo Masses is the way I need it to be relatable and believable, the lack of reverence around it counters my expectations.
And while the Eucharist at the Tridentine Masses is indeed surrounded by reverent liturgy, that liturgy is somber and downright depressing.
At Holy Cross, I have experienced joyful and reverent liturgy, and so what remained to be found is a joyful and reverent liturgy that also has the Eucharist that I can relate to.
And then we went to the Maronite Catholic Divine Liturgy, which felt part Orthodox, part Catholic, and part.... je ne c'est qua! It was familiar enough that I could feel comfortable joining in prayer. It was reverent and joyful. I was able to fully part-take in the very purpose of the gathering - to partake of the Lord's body and blood in the Eucharist in a form that spoke to me. Not only was it the familiar unleavened Host, but it was the Host dipped in the Blood-wine and received all in one act of reception!
The few times I've received the Eucharistic Jesus under both forms of bread and wine have always been via two separate acts - host on tongue (or worse, on the hand!) and sip from the chalice. This always felt divisive of Our Lord. There is One God, One Lord, One Body and Blood, One salvation. Having the Eucharist split like this inevitably led to eventually eliminating the laity from receiving the Blood at all. Which begged the question - do we still receive the Lord fully as He intended us to? He did say, "Take and eat; take and drink."
Yes, there are differences in the Maronite church. But this is good, I think. It allows us to look at our faith anew. It gives us an opportunity to learn with fresh insights what it is that we do when we gather for worship!
There are no familiar Stations of the Cross on the walls of the church. No stained glass windows. No kneelers and no kneeling. This particular church doesn't seem to currently have the practice of women veiling, but I don't think that is a stumbling block. I think since veiling is a universal heritage and not a Latin practice, I can confidently continue to veil without fear of coming across as trying to Latinize this beautiful Catholic Rite.
What if, when I longed for the Orthodox and Catholic churches to unite, the Eastern Rites of the Catholic church are what God answered with? For where we are now, perhaps the Maronite Rite is the right one for us. Perhaps in the future, if we move, a different Rite will take it's place. But at least I know it will still be Catholic, I will still be faithful to my conscience, and I will not need to keep myself or my daughter away from the Eucharist as we transition between churches.
I thought I wanted to check out the former Anglican ordinariate churches when I recently found out about them.... but I don't think I need to anymore. I think the Maronite church is where the Lord wants us right now.
What remains to be seen is if this is where we shall become official parishioners, and if this is where my son shall receive his First Holy Communion.
Lord, lead me on the path. Amen.
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