Why Did All My Friends Become Byzantine?

Why Active Participation is Good Actually & How To Achieve It

Edit 11/16/24: A few important additions were made in response to some helpful advice from Dr. Kwasniewski

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The argument here heavily leans on conversations with my friend Timothy Dominik about his experiences and research, so I’m listing him as a contributor to this post. Hopefully, we will collaborate on many more ideas to come, including in audio discussion form. Warning though, he’s a Byzantine.

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My friends seem to have mostly “become” Byzantine over the last few years. Not officially of course. Most of them haven’t yet made it through the official process of contacting their Bishop and the Byzantine (Ukrainian Catholic for the chapel in my town) Bishop to officialize their transfer. Yet, most of them are frequent attendees to the Divine Liturgy at the chapel, Byzantine LARPers¹ we call them.

What draws them, at least at first, is obvious.

Increasing restrictions on the celebration of the Latin Mass in our town have decreased the frequency with which it has been celebrated from three to four times a week down to about once every two weeks—at best. And so, all the Roman Rite “Rad-Trads” in town just switched over to the next best thing they could find in town.² The Byzantine Rite is in the vernacular—they are forced to admit—when they think about it. It’s not quiet and contemplative. But it’s traditionally rooted. Everyone there is serious about it. You at least know that it won’t feature spin-offs of 1970s-era classic rock songs as the soundtrack, there will be respect for the Real Presence and you’re guaranteed sound doctrine.

These initial reasons are just the draw for most attendees, who soon progress further and further into the liturgical life of the East, and soon begin attending Matins and Vespers, as well, joining into the fasting regimen, and mixing Greek words into everyday conversation while discussing the dangers of ultramontanism daily.³

I don’t attend the Byzantine Rite that frequently. Personally, my liturgical life is rather awkward. I act and think like a Roman Rite Latin Mass-loving traditionalist most of the time, but don’t attend the Latin Mass that frequently. Of course, we don’t have it in town that frequently, and I do a bit of the Latin Divine Office with friends. However, as a whole, I’m in an awkward position, attending the Novus Ordo most of the time even as most of my friends, even those with whom I pray the Latin Divine Office, have gone over to the Byzantine Rite most of the time.

It could be laziness and lack of self-discipline. And it probably at least somewhat is. The Byzantine Divine Liturgy takes longer. There are greater demands in terms of fasting and other notifications than I currently take. I admire them. I admire certain things about the Divine Liturgy in preference to the Latin Rite. In other ways, I am more attached preferentially to the West. But yet, I remain, on the fence, but definitely on the Roman side of the fence, even as I simultaneously sit on the fence between the Novus Ordo and the Extraordinary Form (EF) in terms of actual practice.

One of the biggest things about the Byzantine Rite that I do, to be honest, find off-putting, or at least blame as such as cover for my own lethargy, is the busyness, the activity, the informality even, of all that goes on during the Divine Liturgy. There are no pews, Everyone’s moving around. People walk up right next to the choir and light candles during the middle of the Liturgy. Most of the people have their shoes off. There are too many prostrations and full bows to count and no formalized pattern of when they should occur. The experience is energetic and active, yet confusing and informal. Rubrics exist, but there’s no formal missal. Instead, there are dozens of books and booklets, cobbled together, shuffled through, and usually always, somewhat deviated from in minor work substitutions and additional phrases added by the priest. The experience is almost—as a whole—casual.

And to me, that feels wrong. Isn’t it the Novus Ordo and its own similar informality, its false idolization of “active participation” that has led to distraction, irreverence, and scandal? What makes the Byzantine way any different? How can the way they celebrate the Divine Liturgy, seemingly just as far from quiet and contemplation as is the Novus Ordo from the Latin Mass, be positive?

So I thus brashly asserted the superiority of the Latin Mass in my own mind, until bringing my problem up to my (very Byzantine) friend Timothy Dominik. As this most recent of our many discussions revealed, there’s a problem inherent in my Traditionalist summation that “active participation” is a bad thing. Perhaps it actually isn’t. This oft-discussed yet mysteriously vague quality that the Second Vatican Council aimed to improve by reforming the Roman Rite if properly understood, is the perfection of the Christian life here on earth. While liturgical abuses do frequently occur, justified under its name and aegis, many attendees of both the Novus Ordo and the EF Latin Mass do not possess it. The failure modes are different and opposing but ultimately lead to the same outcome, the liturgy failing to bring about the life of Christ within us.

To see this, let’s start with the goal of the Mass, the Divine Liturgy, as well as the broader liturgical prayer of the Church (the Divine Office) in both East and West. That ultimate end is the same as the goal of the Christian life, charity and union with God now as a foretaste and anticipation of the heavenly union to come. It is prayer, but the highest, public, communal prayer of the Church. And like prayer in general, liturgy is a unity of objective (Divine action) and subjective (our cooperation and our charity) elements, with our action itself a unity being a unity of interior subjective disposition and exterior representations or acts that spring forth from this interior perfection.

Active participation in the liturgy, properly understood, is the full cooperation of each of the faithful, soul and body, in charity of heart and in cooperative, prescribed action, within the communal liturgical act. Now it is not tautological to merely being present at the Mass / Divine Liturgy and merits a separate term, as merely “attending” Mass or another liturgical function does not necessarily mean you are participating, as your mind and will could be elsewhere.⁴

This was the argument for “active participation” used at Vatican II as a justification for liturgical reform and the Novus Ordo by contrast to its supposed lack in the Tridentine Latin Mass. Therein, the congregation, by really only listening and receiving Holy Communion, seemed liable to often only be “attending” and not really be fully engaged in attention and will, especially also with the lack of vernacular and the rigid formality making it very difficult to maintain focus and attention to what is going on—or to understand any of it in the first place.

Many with far more education on this subject than I have spoken and written volumes on this topic, but I actually agree. It is a risk with the Latin Mass. It is in fact a risk for every Mass. But the problem is within you. You have to actively choose to add effort of your own, to cooperate with and thereby possess charity, to be engaged in the Mass. Your spiritual life is like a foundation without a house on top of it if you do not choose to let it bear fruit within you, as with sitting and “attending” but not truly being attentive and actively receiving. For, the true nature of contemplation, is an active one, actively receiving from God by a heart opened up with charity, and thereby the Latin Mass, is albeit in a different, and more spiritualized way, just as active as the Novus Ordo.⁵ Attending the Latin Mass, or any Mass, in and of itself, without your attention, devotion, and charity, will not save you. Christ’s sacrifice is efficacious, but you have to choose to let it bear fruit.

The Novus Ordo, as much as it was created to address a perceived problem, frequently worsens the problem it was purported to solve and does so by moving too far in the opposite direction, towards preferring physicality over the spirit. Given that its structure prefers the congregation to be moving, speaking, singing, and engaged it at first seems positive. Look around, people are participating, it seems. And perhaps, I believe that for some small amount of people, yes the Novus Ordo is aiding their attention, and they go to Mass far more physically involved than they might have otherwise. But physical action alone does not necessarily signify or support an internal disposition of charity. Furthermore, frequently the actions and participations encouraged for the faithful are often infantile, clownish, distracting, and downright disrespectful, like a house built without a foundation. “Just doing stuff” is not necessarily worthy of participation in the liturgy. Herein, the Novus Ordo also frequently falls short of encouraging true active participation by the faithful but because it is too bodily focused and ignores the spirit. Worse by trying to be a master-planned managerial solution to a problem, lack of love and devotion to God, that is interior and of the heart, the Vatican II reforms misunderstood human nature and human free will in the same way as the other 20th century experiments in social engineering at vast scale. You cannot simply create charity in the heart by forcing it. Merely going through the motions, and often bad motions at many parishes at that, does not ensure the direction of the heart. Even as it claimed to be opening up and freeing the liturgy for greater faithfulness and participation, one, paradoxically, drowns in actions, but there is no quarter given to allow those actions to have any meaning. The Novus Ordo fails because it is too meaninglessly active for you to spend any time in contemplation, or even actually be aware of what is going on beyond your busybodiness. You might bring forth fruit, but frequently, it is not from the “true vine.”

If true active participation is the outpouring of charity through the body, then both the Novus Ordo and the Latin Mass can fall short, but for somewhat opposing reasons. Yet we can still objectively say that the Latin Mass is better, as you at least avoid bearing forth false fruit, avoid distractions, avoid Marty Haugen, and are encouraged by the structure and form to have a contemplative, quiet disposition that offers at least the potential of bearing fruit. There can be failure here to be attentive, full of charity, and actively participating in the Sacred Mysteries. But this failure is upon you. With the Novus Ordo, the failure is still somewhat on you, as it is also possible to actively participate. Let us remind ourselves that it is the Mass. But the structure stacks the cards against you and you lack a strong foundation for your relationship with Christ.

This is again not to denigrate the Novus Ordo and the charismatic movements that sprung forth from its institution completely. The charismatics, in my view, except for those who are no longer Catholic, are actually those who have attempted best in their disposition and intention to make the Novus Ordo work by buttressing it with their own efforts within the liturgy and without, through personal prayer, public and private, to let themselves enjoy loving God and therefore grow in charity.

In order to best ensure personal charity, to live a well-balanced liturgical life, and truly be actively participating when you attend Mass, one of the best buttresses is to embrace the liturgical life as a whole—going beyond the Mass. For the Mass, the Divine Liturgy is merely the highest portion of the Church’s liturgical life, which includes the hours of the Divine Office as well as continuous personal prayer. The Office, when prayed in common, although seemingly active and primarily verbal, is strongly contemplative in focus, as you spend at least half the time listening. It, as the lower prayer compared to the summit, the Mass, is the internal contemplative preparation for the summit, for what ought to be the glorious communal summation of the Body of Christ’s communion with Christ. The Divine Office (and personal prayers like the Rosary and the Jesus Prayer) in a contemplative manner sanctify ordinary temporality. The Mass, as a step above and beyond time, a foretaste of the eternal Wedding Feast of the Lamb, ought while retaining the perfections of the contemplative approach toward and desire for God, move beyond into more spontaneous, joyous action, carrying forward even beyond the Mass itself into preaching the Good News into the world. Perhaps, even with an imperfect Mass, you can arrive better prepared, with greater devotion, and with greater attentiveness, if you are living a properly liturgically life at all (H)hours?

And it is as such, that I believe that confused Catholics of the West should at least think about the Byzantine attitudes and customs, even those that sometimes set me at unease as models for our own liturgical and prayer life. Of course, the different emphases in East and West means that we must express joyous, almost spontaneous acts of devotion probably more in private prayer than during the middle of Mass, we must, even as we retain the goods that come from the more contemplative, actively receptive Western approach as in the Latin Mass. This means that we probably ought to have a varied prayer life beyond the Mass, both through praying the hours of the Divine Office and in personal prayer beyond this. Mere rote repetitive prayer is not enough and mere “talking to God” whether silent or aloud is not enough. You are often liable to fall short if you make your prayer routine a routine. In that case, you might not be loving God. You might just be saying words and not have a real relationship with Christ. You have actions, you have a house, but it’s on no foundation. On the other hand, the way Protestants and charismatics, and people who prefer silent adoration, like to pray, can also be perilous if it is not balanced out with defined liturgical prayer. For your mere talking to God, could, if not given structure and definition, lead you eventually astray towards merely subjectively talking to yourself. It is not necessarily such. Spontaneous personal prayer is a good thing. But it could be like a foundation that sits empty, waiting for a house to be built on it, and which eventually becomes abandoned and overgrown, a tree which has born no fruit, as one turned inward upon oneself. It is better—and safer—to have both aspects. You need once again, both the foundation, the internal disposition of charity within yourself, and the house, its expression and manifestation in action and works.

The way to handle all this right, for both your private prayer and considerations about liturgy, is to always be uncomfortable with yourself and what you are doing. Just never be complacent. Never being comfortable with the present and with oneself, is quite literally the Christian way. Mix up your prayer routine, but at the very least have a baseline routine. Attend the Latin Mass when you can, but be sure you are not self-stifling true devotion within yourself by seeing it as a self-contained and complete devotional experience. Sometimes God may call you to additional, dare I say, spontaneous, devotional efforts. Oh, and whatever you do, don’t sing Marty Haugen—in Church. But maybe he’s ok in your kitchen.⁶ And don’t stick around kneeling after Mass merely because others are. Do it out of your own love and devotion.

I’m going to remain a Roman. Even this latest conversation with Timothy Dominik didn’t convince me. But I am more convinced that my friends who all followed him over to Fr. David Anderson and the Byzantine Chapel didn’t make a mistake. They just found another way to do what we Romans also ought to be doing, and in doing so, perhaps are calling us back to deeper devotion and participation in our own traditions.

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P.S.

Once upon a time, I wrote a satire theory that was quite based on reality about the relationship between Byzantine Rite Catholics and Romans. It’s mostly funny and actually somewhat relevant. Again, satirical interpretation based in fact:

Byzantines seem to me to be half former Rad-Trads (the men) and half former Charismatics (the women). They both find what they were missing in the former state in Byzantium. But why is this? I have a theory.

The Byzantine rite is like the Libertarian party of the Catholic Church. Just like the real-life Libertarian Party is one part Ron/Rand Paul laissez-faire conservatives (defined as the RIGHT) and one part social laissez-faire social liberals (defined as the LEFT)…

So also Byzantine men come from the Rad-Trad right of Catholicism. They want traditional practice, custom, and form in the liturgy. They come to the Byzantine rite because they find it EVEN MORE traditional, powerful, etc. than the Extraordinary Form of the West.

Byzantine women, on the other hand, come from the Charismatic left of Catholicism. They want EXPRESSION above all else. They want a liturgy in which they can FEEL and actively participate. And so, for them, the Byzantine rite is EVEN MORE of these than a charismatic OF.

And so, just as the Libertarian Party is more fiscally conservative than the traditional Republican right and more socially liberal than many Democrat leftists on certain social issues (simply put as GET THE GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE WAY).

The Byzantine Rite is even more RAD-TRAD and even more CHARISMATIC than both the current right and left of Catholic liturgical experience respectively. And for the same reason as the Libertarian Party.

The Byzantine Rite seems to be pretty much the party in the Church of decentralization, lived tradition as opposed to top-down mandate, as well as peace, love, and memes… Just like liberatarians, but with a few more thuribles and fewer AR15s.

Byzantines/Orthodox are both more traditional AND more into active participation in their liturgy than the Novus Ordo. The Byzantine Catholic chaplaincy here in Lander thus attracts otherwise Rad-Trad Latin-rite men and more charismatic-leaning women.

1. Live Action Role Playing for those not in the know. I wasn’t until I asked someone to explain the joke. Not a good move.

2. See my satire on the differences between the Latin Mass and the Divine Liturgy here:

Op-Ed: Byzantines Are Woke

3. My satire on this question here:

Are You Becoming Byzantine? Know the Warning Signs

4. Mediator Dei, a 1947 encyclical by Pope Pius XII covers this point well:

Very truly, the sacraments and the sacrifice of the altar, being Christ's own actions, must be held to be capable in themselves of conveying and dispensing grace from the divine Head to the members of the Mystical Body. But if they are to produce their proper effect, it is absolutely necessary that our hearts be properly disposed to receive them. Hence the warning of Paul the Apostle with reference to holy communion, "But let a man first prove himself; and then let him eat of this bread and drink of the chalice." This explains why the Church in a brief and significant phrase calls the various acts of mortification, especially those practiced during the season of Lent, "the Christian army's defenses." They represent, in fact, the personal effort and activity of members who desire, as grace urges and aids them, to join forces with their Captain - "that we may discover . . . in our Captain," to borrow St. Augustine's words, "the fountain of grace itself." But observe that these members are alive, endowed and equipped with an intelligence and will of their own. It follows that they are strictly required to put their own lips to the fountain, imbibe and absorb for themselves the life-giving water, and rid themselves personally of anything that might hinder its nutritive effect in their souls. Emphatically, therefore, the work of redemption, which in itself is independent of our will, requires a serious interior effort on our part if we are to achieve eternal salvation.

Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20111947_mediator-dei.html

5. https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2014/12/how-traditional-latin-mass-fosters-more.html

6. I personally really really like Rory Cooney’s “Canticle of the Turning.” But I have to admit that it doesn’t work while in church. It is good to sing at home, as the residents of the John Senior Memorial Bedroom frequently sang when we were roommates.