Learning To Breathe With Both Lungs

I find it very interesting that there are more than 20 million fellow Catholics who belong to various non-Roman Catholic churches. These churches are in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, but they worship and organize themselves for mission and ministry across a broad spectrum of non-Roman Catholic liturgical and canonical traditions.

This modern knowledge gap exists in spite of Pope John Paul II's urging that the Catholic Church "breathe with two lungs" … East and West alike … rather than with only one Western, or Latin, lung. He underscored his point in 1985 by naming Saints Cyril and Methodius, whose feast day is celebrated on February 14, as co-patrons of Europe alongside St. Benedict of Nursia.

The lands to which Cyril and Methodius were sent included territories encompassed by the modern-day Czech Republic, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia. Indeed, the two saints are known today as the "apostles of the Slavs." It is significant that it was the first Slavic pope who employed the metaphor of the "two lungs" to describe the authentic universality of the Catholic Church. As well, Vatican II’s decree on Ecumenism taught: “The very rich liturgical and spiritual heritage of the Eastern Churches should be known, venerated, preserved and cherished by all.”

I consider it to be much more than a curious interest or fascination. Perhaps there is something in my genetics that causes me to be drawn to the East and the Saints produced outside of the Latin Rite. My paternal ancestry is, after all, Slavic. My father was born in Minnesota. I am, on my paternal side, only a 2nd Generation American. [My maternal side is an entirely different story.] My dad and his siblings were fluent in the mother-tongue and I deeply regret that he dismissed the value of teaching his children the language. At my age [soon to be 67] learning to speak, read, and write in the language of my Slavic ancestors would be an extremely difficult proposition.

Despite the language barrier, the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox faith-culture of those whose genetics are hardwired within me is important. I am explicably connected to the people and culture that preceded me. To know and understand them is to know and understand myself.

It caused no small stir in the family when my dad [at an extreme age] made it known that he had been baptized Catholic. [Family stirs? Our own conversion to Catholicism in 2007 was not well-accepted. Such conversions are not well-received in predominately Protestant families. Though not directly confronted, it has been impossible to miss or not be affected by the coldness and subtle personal rejection by family members.] My dad insisted and it was our privilege to wheelchair my dad to Mass where he received, for the first and only time in his long life, Holy Communion from the hand of a priest. It was not long thereafter that my dad left this world. [Joe Kralik was born April 18, 1919 and reposed January 25, 2010.]

One of the things often heard in Latin Rite Catholic circles is that “we have the fullness of the faith.” Finally realizing the fullness of the faith in regard to the Seven Sacraments was a great personal awakening, one that, to say the least, largely broadened my spiritual horizons. Discovering the other Catholic Rites, and their historical relationships with Eastern Orthodoxy, came as an additional welcomed broadening to my personal perceptions of the Christian faith.

It is here … in pursuing the fullness of the faith … that our primary life-interest should ever rest. Regardless of our state and status in life, our eternal welfare should never be sacrificed on the altar of personal self-satisfaction and selfishness. We must ever be engaged in a personal commitment to what Saint Benedict calls conversatio morum or conversion of life while on this journey through life in our temporal physical condition. Akin to Benedict’s conversatio morum [one of the vows of Benedictine monks and promise of Benedictine Oblates] is the emphasis on the process of theosis by Eastern Rite and Orthodox spiritual leaders and monks.

[PHOTO: My immigrant Grandmother ... Emilie Kralik]