Twice on Sundays: my Orthodox temptation.

According to the version my wife likes to tell, when she took me to see the house which was up for sale and with which she had fallen in love, I glanced at the place, shrugged my shoulders, and made some kind of disparaging remark. Then the Russian Orthodox church diagonally across the street caught my eye. I looked at it for a while, then turned back to my wife's dream house and decided it wasn't so bad after all.

That is, of course, a gross exaggeration. The real reason I agreed to buy the house was that my wife had already made up her mind about the matter and we had, from the beginning of our marriage, decided that she would have the responsibility for the minor decisions of the household (where we were going to live, what school the kid would attend, etc.), while I would take care of the more important issues (how to resolve the conflict in Bosnia, balance the national budget, etc.). That having been clarified, I'll admit that I was not indifferent to the proximity of Saint Mary's.

Aesthetically, Saint Mary's is a little jewel--a white wooden structure which just barely dominates the surrounding two-family dwellings with its cruciform layout and its two, light-gray onion-shaped domes surmounted by the cross of Saint Andrew. It reminded me of photos I had seen years ago of rural churches in Ukraine and Orthodox Poland. Nothing pretentious, a certain noble simplicity and purity. The interior is something else. The walls and partitions are plastered with icons worthy of Saint Sulpice, which had been donated to the church and hung up every which way without too much rhyme or reason. The church can accommodate about sixty people in the nave and is usually comfortably full for Sunday liturgies. A lot of the parishioners are elderly or late middle age but there's also a generous sprinkling of younger folk and a certain number of non-Russian converts to Orthodoxy--among them Father John, the pastor of this flock, who used to be an Episcopalian.

For the last four-and-a-half years I've been attending the services there while not neglecting my obligations at Saint Rose, my local parish, where I assist at the early Sunday morning Mass and contribute to the fuel collection. My pastor at Saint Rose's, Father Mawn, knows of my double allegiance and wholeheartedly approves. About three years ago Marilyn, the choir director at Saint Mary's, invited me to join the bass section. Thus was I initiated into the intricacies of Byzantine chant. It was not as easy as I'd thought; it took nearly two years before I was able to hold my own. Even now it's an adventure when I'm left alone for the bass part. Perhaps it's just a coincidence but I've noticed that Marilyn's hair has become noticeably grayer during this time. I'm a bit like the Swede in McNamara's band, assimilated yet different.

I tried to approach the community of Saint Mary's with discretion and respect and without any sort of agenda or plan, disposed to gratefully receive what they had to offer me and to participate in the measure in which both they and I felt comfortable. Things just sort of happened by themselves, without being forced. I feel as though I've been adopted by the community to the extent that this is possible, given the limits which the canonical situation imposes.

Last year I asked Father John about the possibility of communicating on certain feasts. Since I'd become a fixture at Saint Mary's and one of the most faithful assistants at the liturgies (it's not a big sacrifice for me to cross the street, whereas the majority of the parishioners have a long commute), it seemed to me that this would be "normal." What didn't seem normal was that, after reciting the prayer of Saint John Chrysostom, everyone in this community of which I'd become a part approached the altar while I assured the continuity of the Communion hymn. Father John agreed with the "normality" part but didn't think he had the authority to bypass the canons. It was a good exchange which cleared up

Jerry Ryan wrote an anonymous report from Chile for Commonweal in November 1973 on the coup that overturned the government of Salvador Allende. His most recent article, October 21,1994, was on Pope John Paul II and the millennium. He lives in Chelsea, Massachusetts. a lot of things and left me at peace. The essential of the Eucharist is the love of which it is the symbol, so much so that in Saint John's narrative of the Last Supper the institution of the sacrament is not even mentioned and all the attention is focused on the love of which the sacrament is the sign. For the time being we have to assume the consequences of the collective sins of our churches and it is precisely our mutual fraternal love which can eventually invalidate these consequences.

I don't have any big theological debates with my Orthodox friends; we leave these to the higher-ups. We do, however, freely discuss the good and the bad in our respective churches. It's somewhat ironic, even comical at times. One of the things that most ticks me off in Catholicism is the dictatorial exercise of authority, while the people at Saint Mary's complain about the lack of authority and leadership in Orthodoxy, where everyone goes his or her merry way. This is, in fact, the major ecclesiological issue which is separating the two churches, and I can't help but feeling that if the vox populi (or consensus fidelium) on both sides were heard, a creative compromise could be found.

I had been exposed to the Eastern rites in the past. Many aspects of these liturgies struck a deep chord in me: the sense of the transcendence of God, the sensitivity to the presence of the angelic world and the saints of Paradise, the fact of not being afraid to take time for God. But it was only at Saint Mary's that I became immersed in Eastern spirituality. Oddly enough, this led to a rediscovery and revitalization of my own Western traditions, which I came to see in a new light.

The eucharistic mystery presents the same challenge as the Incarnation. Jesus is true God and true man, our beloved brother and Lord, an itinerant preacher from Nazareth out of where nothing good could come, who searches his destiny, who becomes weary and afraid, who is considered a screw-ball by his relatives, and who is one of the Holy Trinity, by whom all things were made, and before whom the Seraphim hide their face. The Eucharist, which prolongs the Incarnation, participates in this duality. According to grace and circumstance we will be moved alternatively by one facet or another of the twofold mystery of our Saviour: either by his kenos or by the majesty of him who so "humiliates" himself, by his proximity or transcendence. Both should be experienced if we are to approximate the truth, but it is psychologically impossible (I find) to do so simultaneously.

This is also true, I believe, on a collective level. Different cultures have different sensitivities, and even within the same culture, sensitivities may vary according to historical circumstances. This diversity is a collective and mutually complementary testimony--down through the ages and until the day of the Second Coming--of the inexhaustible riches of the Father's gift of the Son in his flesh and in the sacrament of his flesh.

In such a context, no single spirituality or liturgical form can adequately express the manifold aspects of the Incarnation and Eucharist, and this is as it should be. The Word became flesh and Eucharist to be with us until the end of the ages and not as a stranger but as a friend, as he was to his contemporaries. On the banks of Lake Tiberias the Risen Christ prepares a charcoal fire with fish and bread for his awe-struck disciples, tells them to come have breakfast, and serves them, overwhelming their fears by the simplicity of his gestures (John 21:1-14). There is here a familiarity, an an ordinariness" which I find extremely touching, and this is Jesus in his risen state, in the glory of his triumph. The liturgical reforms of Vatican II were meant (at least in part) to remind us of this aspect of the Incarnation.

I think of some of the very simple but intense Eucharists in which I participated years ago in Latin America. They took place in the homes of the poor. With the priest, we prayed and meditated together on the word of God. The eucharistic act took place on a rickety table with no decorations or ornaments. Afterward, a meal was shared among the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind--with no questions asked. These were Tiberian Eucharists. They might not have been strictly according to the canons and regulations--even those of post-Vatican II--but I think they were in the spirit of the reforms and they certainly had a deep effect on all of us who took part. The Word became flesh to become accessible to all.

That is one side of the coin, the intuition more typical of the Roman Catholic church. But the familiarity which the reformed liturgy encourages should not lead to trivializing the other pole of the Incarnation. Jesus is not just a "good buddy." He is the Holy Mighty, the Holy Immortal. If Jesus continues to accompany his pilgrim church and is, in this mystical sense, viator, a fellow pilgrim, he is, in actuality, in what concerns his human nature, comprehensor, glorified at the right hand of the Father. The reality signified by the Eucharist is the exalted and transformed humanity of the Eternal Word; it is the Lamb in his majesty, adored with incense and chants by the twenty-four elders and four living creatures, acclaimed by the myriads of angels and an innumerable white-robed multitude from every race, nation, people, and tongue. It is this aspect of the Eucharist which the Eastern liturgies focus upon and of which we should never lose sight. We must never forget Who it is who makes himself so near to us.

There is a wonderful complementarity here. What is true of the different liturgies I find also true of the "spiritualities" of the East and the West. The one is marked by a sense of God's transcendent glory, the other by a tenderness toward him who shared and continues to share the misery of our lives, transforming them by his poverty. John Paul II has said on many occasions--and most recently in his apostolic letter Lumen orientale where he urges Latin Catholics to open themselves to the treasures of the East--that the church needs to breathe with both its lungs. Personally, I find that incorporating the two liturgies into my life has been a great blessing. This is a grace I would wish for the church as a whole.