Communications
522 COMMUNICATIONS EASTERN AND WESTERN CATHOLICS Garrison, N. Y. TO the Editor:—My contribution of January 12, 1927, Religion in Russia Today, was somewhat out of date, for it was written in...
...And now, to my great joy, I see the need fulfilled...
...And we let the floods of grace go over our heads...
...the majority sat idle, looking on...
...Cannot Tenebrae with its heart-penetrating psalms be in the hands of the people ? So I asked myself last Lent...
...522 COMMUNICATIONS EASTERN AND WESTERN CATHOLICS Garrison, N. Y. TO the Editor:—My contribution of January 12, 1927, Religion in Russia Today, was somewhat out of date, for it was written in June, 1926, and many happenings have come to pass in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics since that time...
...Some seemed curious...
...On the coming Good Friday I am going to go to that church and hope to see the whole congregation reading and following the marvelous service, so full of the enthralling wisdom of heaven...
...There is actually to be had from the Paulist Press for five cents a pamphlet giving the full Tenebrae service for Good Friday— with clear explanations, and in English...
...L. Maynard Gray...
...In the sanctuary all was perfect...
...To the Pravoslav mind, "Uniat" recalls pro-Polish proselytism brought into being through a holy trickery and entailing disownership of Russian fatherland and faith...
...Greek Catholics do not wish to be called "Uniats...
...Such unlikenesses as do exist between Roman Catholics and Greek Catholics rest on psychological and racial narrowness...
...The Lord floods America with opportunity and with divine grace...
...With the people receptive as they are, suppose that their minds were fed...
...At the point where a candle is put out, there is a bracket...
...Why, therefore, differentiate between "Catholicism" and the "Uniats" ? Why not speak simply of Eastern Catholic and Western Catholic...
...Must not the angels in heaven weep...
...PAMPHLETS ON CHURCH SERVICES New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—Will the Catholic people ever follow church services intelligently...
...I pulled my face straight...
...The Eastern Catholics are the best possible link to bind up Eastern Orthodox to the chair of Christ the King...
...They're born to it," I fabricated...
...That they don't is certain...
...Thy face, O Lord, I long for...
...The distinctions are disciplinary, not creedal or moral...
...the Holy See certainly does not look on them as a group apart, a kind of Christians in some manner less Catholic or right-believing than Latin Catholics...
...These peoples and souls need the light touch of a feeling heart and an understanding mind if they are to be won to, or kept in the bond of truth and unity...
...The Synodists lack money...
...Jingoistic selfishness is the bane of the kingdom of Christ on earth...
...The people come thronging...
...Rightly speaking, every Catholic but the supreme Pontiff is a "Uniat"—Catholicism depends, always, on a man's oneness in allegiance, belief, and seven sacraments with the "key-bearer of the kingdom of heaven and of grace" (Orthodox Byzantine Orthros and Hesperinos for June 28...
...Sometimes we ought to think of the willing robbery the world's Maker does as, day by day, He freely throws aside His dazzling might and lowers Himself to come down to souls—not only as a workman, but even as our daily bread...
...There are the people in the church, assembled...
...We were following the service with a "Holy Week...
...A great many more Tykhonite churches have been taken by the Veden-skyites (not without bloodshed in some cases) and thus it is that the keys of most of the old cathedral churches are now held by Synodist bishops...
...suppose that they had in their hands to read such words as these: "To Thee my heart doth speak, and Thee mine eyes do seek...
...Katherinb Byles...
...Mitterauer, in The Commonweal of January 30, writes that the sessions of the Vienna reunion congress "lasted through three days and listened to serious discourses by distinguished representatives of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and the Uniats...
...A flapper nodded...
...This pamphlet is unique...
...If God sees fit to do such thoughtful kindness to the souls of men, does it not behoove us Westerns to cast aside our proud Latinisms: our individual distinctions between "Catholicism" and the "Uniats...
...The Soviet government has jailed Lord Sergius, Metropolitan of Nishni-Novgorod and acting head of the Patriarchists, because he refuses to disown mon-archistic Russian Orthodox emigrants...
...It leaves nothing to be guessed at...
...From where we stood, far to one side, we had a view of the congregation...
...Thus I can check up with the priest and keep the place...
...many have gone back to the Tykhonites...
...But may we not also have pamphlets on special Masses, on Vespers...
...The church was packed...
...Or these: "Wondrously blazedst Thou forth from the eternal hills...
...Do you not think that this setting off of "Uniats" from "Catholicism" is a use likely to bring about ill will and, therefore, better shunned by writers who wish to strengthen love and understanding between Roman Catholics and Greek Catholics...
...some puzzled...
...No matter how little I know, I am sure I can follow Tenebrae with this pamphlet...
...Roumanian and Russian converts from Orthodoxy like to be called "Orthodox Catholics" because "Unya" is a Polish word of Latin birth originally used with reference to the Ukrainian (not Russian) Union of Brest-Litovsk in 1595...
...May not this new kind of pamphlet prove the opening of a holy door—letting the people, little by little, pamphlet by pamphlet, into the inspiring world of the liturgy...
...There is no need to advertise, to fill every corner of a Catholic church...
...Peoples as well as souls may suffer from inferiority complexes...
...murmured my friend...
...I am told: "The first candle is extinguished...
...Its wounds may be seen, unhappily, even in so-called Catholic countries...
...On the other hand, it seems that among young folk the growth of materialism and atheism has been very considerable and that the breakup of the family constitutes a great peril for Russian Orthodoxy...
...Or perhaps laugh...
...Catho-licus" means "faithful to the successor of the Good Shepherd" in the same way that the name "acatholicus" stamps its bearer as "a wanderer from the fold...
...their laymen are falling away...
...Last Good Friday evening I found myself, with a Protestant friend, in a Catholic church where three zealous priests and a number of boys were singing Tenebrae...
...And, for a treat, the translation is Father Martindale's...
...But does this mean that they won't ? Instead of answering my own question, may I relate a little incident...
...here and there in the crowd we could see someone with a book...
...an old man fumbled his beads...
...How wonderful that they follow without a book...
...We ought to treat them with a loving, intelligent tactfulness...
...The Exarch Theodoroff has been reimprisoned...
Vol. 5 • March 1927 • No. 19
