An INTP’s Perspective(sorry, much too long, but will abbreviate!) ‘Thinkers who reject or struggle with the idea of faith in the supernatural’:I was once agnostic, so not really either. I was brought up nominally Presbyterian w/ practically zero knowledge of God. Maybe my parents thought it was self-evident, & maybe the Presb. church & Sun. Sch. & Catholic sch. I went to thought my parents provided enough teaching. My parents gave me a children’s Bible & celebrated a few Christian holidays, my teachers took me to Mass, & my grandparents had a icon hanging in their living rm, but nobody gave more than a cursory explanation of anything. So I focused on other things, & got irritated when my parents pushed/pulled me into anything religious: everything preliminary had been skipped! Church for me was a place you got to sing pretty songs but had to sit through a nonsensical lecture. And I had existential crises at age 6 or 7. Now I’m a struggler but prevailing.
‘Apparently, [religious] Thinkers have keys that allow them to unlock the door to enjoyment of a satisfying, life-directing faith…’:I wouldn’t call mine astrongfaith…but the 1st key (beyond the surface there are more locks!) was just, after being presented w/ the idea of OT prophecies & historical evidence of fulfillment, & considering that 1. there was a immense conspiracy taking place over many 1000s of yrs & involving billions of people, or that 2. the prophecies were true, figuring Occam’s Razor req. the latter. This was at a Lutheran church. My husband was a Byzantine Catholic who had stopped going to church, & I guess had Lutheran friends, & he took me there. But pastors could answer almost none of my Qs. satisfactorily, e.g. if Scripture explains Scripture, what was the mark of Cain & how was it able to be recognized? And what were the Urim & the Thummim? (Was just curious, had prob. > 100 Qs. about S.(not)E.S.) Why don’t we call it ‘Mass’ anymore? (A. ‘Too Catholic.’ ?) If even Satan can appear as an angel of light (2Co 11:14), how could we be certain to recognize Christ at the 2nd Coming? (A. ‘You just will.’ ?) And Sola Scriptura when no translation is completely acceptable? On what basis is any part accepted or rejected? I should learn Greek then? ? And I’m supposed to still read the Bible, apart from patristic commentaries? (? It was a chore, b/c Icouldn’t understand it well enough,which for an INTP is, as much as humanly possible. ? Might as well give me a math book & expect me to reinvent calculus, b/c I was being expected to reinvent theology.) And when I brought up the Apostolic Constitutions, why did people change the subj.? ?
Speaking of commentaries, something else that helped me was a Bible-study plan I made. I assembled all the books I can find of all the Biblical Canons (Wikipedia has a chart), plus Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha (except gnostic—that’s heretical), & patristic commentaries. Then I read it in chronological order, e.g. Ge 1–3, ‘Life of Adam & Eve’, Gen 4, 1–3 Enoch, etc. in parallel w/ St Ephraim of Syria’sCommentary on Genesis(has some weird/amazing stuff, like where the moon was & what time of day it was when it was created, & why Isaac had to haul wood up the mt even though the ram was found caught in a thicket). AlsoAncient Christian Commentary on Scripture& Fr Tadros Malaty’s compilations are very good. And I put the Poetic & Prophetic books into the context of the Historical books, like Isaiah’s prophecywhen Isaiah actually appears.This way I have the most cultural context & the most complete meaning of everything, & it all plays out like an epic movie. Someone told me to read the OT & NT at the same time, to not ‘get bogged down’. But bogging down is fine. I can study something thoroughly b/f moving on. I wouldn’t watch a little of the beginning of a movie, a little of the middle, & go back & forth: the plot would be mixed up & I wouldn’t know the reasons for events in the middle. There are prefiguring in the OT, & quotes of the OT in the NT. So I won’t read the Bible out of order. Maybe this works for only NT types though. Itiskind of crazy & complicated to organize.
…not readily accepting what one is taught as a child or what the majority seem to believe.’:This is perfect. Going along w/ things as they were or rejecting them summarily? Hasty Conclusions. Analysis was needed. Ultimately, my husband went back to Byz. Cath. & I went too. It turned out my great-grandparents had been converted to Presb. by Scottish missionaries in the ’20s after coming to the U.S. from Belarus, from the territory of the Union of Brest, i.e. Byz. Cath. area. They must have had to hide their icon from the missionaries, ? b/c it was that 1 in the living rm decades later. So I was just reclaiming my heritage, anyway.
‘Thinkers want God’s existence to be scientifically provable’:I don’t & never have. That’s a Red Herring. I could ask them, ‘Does therescientifically provablyexist a Being, God?’ but what would such a Being be? A naturalistic Entity, b/c Nature is what science addresses. But I hadn’t proven 1st that the hypothetical Entity in Q. were necessarily naturalistic. Hadn’t even proven that everything that exists were so. And if it were, where would the 1st Cause of Nature be, e.g. ultimate Source of the Big Bang, i.e. Reason for all the matter of the universe being in a singularity & then released? ∴ there must be Something beyond Nature. ∴ scientific proof of this is impossible & thus unreasonable. Whatever might be beyond Nature isn’t the subj. of science but of philosophy. And so you say, correctly, ‘it is a choice which is based on evidence’.
‘…Thinkers who assume He can’t be understood…’ ‘…I'd also add the word incomprehensible…’:Reading St Dionysius the Areopagite might help them, NT types, I think.The Mystical Theologyis about this, e.g. ‘[T]he universal Cause [i.e. the Divine Nature] transcending all things…is not soul, or mind, or endowed with the faculty of imagination, conjecture, reason, or understanding; nor is It any act of reason or understanding; nor can It be described by the reason or perceived by the understanding…’ &c. God cannot be truly defined, but can be excluded from certain concepts. I might ask them how did the Big Bang come about. They don’t know, & I don’treallyknow either. But that undefinable Cause, the Divine Essence best approached apophatically, is God. Not a ‘magical sky-god’ ?, a guy w/ long white hair & beard & robe sitting on a cloud: that’s Zeus! We Eastern Christians do not depict God the Father. I don’t think that’d make biblical sense: the Bible saysJesusis theimageof theinvisibleGod (Col 1:13–15). Anyway, we can still learn things about God, according to our limitations. Does anyone believe in love, believe love exists? According to the Bible, that person believes in God, b/c it says God is love (1 Jn 4:8).
‘What kind of worship might be required, and how time-consuming might it be?’:Well, if any of you comes & becomes a Byz. Cath., you will be OK. You are allowed to do things according to your ability. Sin is only ‘falling short’ (lit. trans. ofhamartía/hamartánō—看到圣经Grk Dict中心。当然,不是简单的布鲁里溃疡t not catastrophic either), i.e. you will keep trying, b/c salvation is a process, toward union w/ God. ‘Cath. guilt’ is not a thing for us, e.g. Rom. Caths. may confess again sins they confessed b/f, but Byz. Caths. do not. Confession is for forgiveness & healing; the sins are already forgiven, & thinking about them more than I can’t help would open the old wounds in my soul & poss. send me into despair. And they have to incl. the # of times/sin. Don’t know how someone could keep count, & not become at least a little miserable about it. But we actually have ‘my sins are w/o #’ in a prayer & that’s good enough. My priest says ‘Purgatory’ (quotes b/c I don’t think we havesuch一个明确的概念)是“非mini-hell”;没有一个我s tortured there. Priests are very forgiving. They work w/ you & you improve. The kind of worship is somewhat complicated, but you pick it up as you go along. No pressure. The Liturgy is a little longer than Mass but it feels shorter to me b/c it’s extremely beautiful (not that Mass isn’t beautiful, but this permeates my soul—it’s beyond descr.), & there’s so much of everything (more images, more incense, more singing, more chanting, more veneration, more procession…watch a video on Youtube: e.g. St Elias, Brampton; Our Lady of Fatima, SF; St Andrew, El Segundo; & the Russicum). Not like daily Mass, you go only on Sun. & holidays. And there is no Eucharistic Adoration or Rosary. I’d get restless & panicky being quiet & still & trying to meditate.
And you’d get yourself ≥ 1 icon (at least of Jesus Christ or of Jesus & the Virgin Mary) & have it in your house to venerate & pray in front of each day, b/c Biblically, to venerate an image is to venerate who is in it. Definitely helps my prayers, b/c I can’t try to imagine heaven&read a prayer&mean it well&concentrate onboth,all at once. You are supposed to pray at least a little. You can make up your own prayers if you want or use books. A priest gave me a set of prayers to pray, & it takes about 20 min. 2×/day, but that might be the most daily prayer asked of ordinary laymen. B/c I have chronic mono & a toddler that needs tons of attention, & am terrible at praying, ? generally I don’t pray so much. ? The set is memorized, & somehow it’s not hard while I take her on a walk, if I’m well enough. Otherwise, I can manage to pray/think, ‘Bless, O Lord,’ b/f meals, & ‘Give rest to the soul of Your departed servant, O Savior,’ if hearing or reading of the death of someone, & a few med. & short prayers at night. All these latter ones are prob. ~ just 5 min./day.
Another thing that’s significant, but self-discipline not worship, is fasting. (But since I’m sick I have a dispensation.) There is overall more fasting than Roman Catholics have. I think they sometimes have to go w/o meat except fish, & sometimes eat in a day only 2 very sm. meals & 1 normal meal. We fast very often, going w/o meat except shellfish, & w/o dairy, eggs, olive oil, & alcohol, but eating as often as we want & only stopping short of being full. You don’t feel hungry or miserable, just light & healthy & happy. And after the fast you feast—esp. Easter, often a big party at midnight at church, eating & drinking everything you gave up (but just a little drinking—nobody gets drunk ?).
1 INTP said,‘INTPs need to experience God for themselves,’& this is very much experience, also pretty much everything is symbolic, multiplying the experience. ‘Symbol’ comes from ‘synbaleîn, to throw together’, & ultimately it means that physical & metaphysical reality are joined. For example, a cross is not just something that brings to mind Christ, the Crucifixion, etc. It’s an objectively holy channel of Divine Energy/Grace, a link btw us & God.
‘[S]ome Thinkers might be uncomfortable with their assumption that worship must be, or usually is, emotional.’Pretty much the only other religious exp. I had while young was seeing preachers on TV. I was super-creeped out, & repelled. Not to worry. Byz. Catholicism is practically stoic—well, stoic + joy. Everything religious is rigidly stylized, in a good way. Everyone in icons is solemn & posed undramatically. No sappy pictures w/ people’s eyes rolled up to heaven, ‘praise’ music, gushing prayers, ‘Lord, just’ prayers… No syrupy hymns—they don’t even rhyme. Example: ‘In truth you were revealed to your flock as a rule of faith; / an image of humility and a teacher of abstinence / has the reality shown you / unto your flock; / therewithal have you acquired by humility greatness, / by poverty, riches; / O Father hierarch Nicholas, / intercede before Christ our God / that our souls may be saved.’ Personal things you share only w/ the priest at confession. Thatishard, but not terribly. You don’t have to face him or look at him, only read a list of sins as vague as you can make it, e.g. ‘covetousness’ or ‘uncleanness’, ? a list that gets less bad w/ time, b/c you improve. And he will die a martyr b/f telling anyone. You don’thaveto sing/pray out loud. But pretty much everybody does together, so nobody stands out anyway. ‘[D]eep applications of Scripture…something to think about without applying any pressure…encouraging the members to think…’ This is good, & we have all of it. But no debating the homily, or 100% private interpretation, as in, the Bible means whatever you want it to mean, how the world ended up w/ polygamists, Westboro Baptists, & every other disturbing splinter group claiming to be ordained, the true Church, &c. Thereisleeway for interpretation, but if it were to go too far & things were to get really out of hand, a council could be called to define some boundaries. Objective truth exists; it’s not just, ‘Be true to yourself’; psychopaths are true to themselves too! People can debate at coffee hr, & can Q. the priest in any conversation. Mine is great. I can ask him anything. Recently I told him I was confused by the Fatima prophecies, & he admitted he was too, & said some things 1 reads may be untrue, so the Vatican has defined certain things. Defining isn’t to tell people what to think any more than formulating a physics law is: publicized discovery—Byzantines, Catholic & Orthodox, inherited Greek philosophy more than anyone else, so we are ‘how to think’ people too—& relatively few things get defined anyway. And there’s much more to our faith than the Bible. There are many other writings, many practices, many objects, many events…
But all these aren’t fundamental reasons to become Catholic. The reason to choose an idea is truth. My experience: My husband said about the Lutheran churches, ‘Something is missing.’ There was no Byz. Cath. church here, & we ended up at an E. Orthodox church. All my questions were answered & everything was sublimely beautiful, & all logical except that even though Jesus said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery,’ (Mk 10:11,12) they allowed remarriage. I was baptized there anyway. After a few yrs, my husband said he wanted to ‘get back to the Catholic Church’, but he was talking about it like becomingRoman导管。我们去那里与外国& confu仪式sing to me. The priest taught us a few classes, but then was transferred. The new priest said, ‘No more classes,’ ‘You cannot change Rites,’ ‘The Rite follows the line of the father,’ ‘You are already Byzs.; you already have the Cath. Faith,’ ‘Your children are already Byz. Caths.,’ & ‘I could receive you today.’ A little later I realized that since Christ est. 1 Church (Mt 16:18), 1 Body (Ro 12:5), He wanted it to be & stay whole (Jn 17:20–23), & the Bible warns about people who create divisions (Ro 16:17, Tt 3:10), but there is now a schism in the Church, I didn’t have to wait for the Pope & the Patriarch to finish their reconciliation. It would have made sense to go even alone to the other side of the Schism, & request restoration of communion, for my own part. Also, ‘Cath.’ means ‘whole, universal’ i.e. ‘entire Church for the whole world’, ‘Orth.’ means ‘right-worshipping’ & is short for ‘Orth. Cath.’, & groups that go into schism from the Orth. append further qualifiers. So the Orth. chose a name indicating they broke away. Also, there’s an ancient Eastern rule that an ecumenical (i.e. whole-Church) council is such if it’s called by the Pope or the Emperor. But the Orth. don’t have either anymore. And at the time we left, they were trying to have such a council anyway. It was somewhat disastrous b/c of disagreements b/f it started, resulting in some parties not attending, incl. the biggest by far, the Russians. The chaos demonstrated for me that the Church needs the Pope to arbitrate (& needs the restoration of the monarchies). Anyway, apparently b/c of my Russian Rite baptism, I was made a Russian Cath. (which is super-rare, ?? & like I said, sublimely beautiful). Everything worked out excellently.
Greta (not verified)says...
An INTP’s Perspective(sorry, much too long, but will abbreviate!)
‘Thinkers who reject or struggle with the idea of faith in the supernatural’:I was once agnostic, so not really either. I was brought up nominally Presbyterian w/ practically zero knowledge of God. Maybe my parents thought it was self-evident, & maybe the Presb. church & Sun. Sch. & Catholic sch. I went to thought my parents provided enough teaching. My parents gave me a children’s Bible & celebrated a few Christian holidays, my teachers took me to Mass, & my grandparents had a icon hanging in their living rm, but nobody gave more than a cursory explanation of anything. So I focused on other things, & got irritated when my parents pushed/pulled me into anything religious: everything preliminary had been skipped! Church for me was a place you got to sing pretty songs but had to sit through a nonsensical lecture. And I had existential crises at age 6 or 7. Now I’m a struggler but prevailing.
‘Apparently, [religious] Thinkers have keys that allow them to unlock the door to enjoyment of a satisfying, life-directing faith…’:I wouldn’t call mine astrongfaith…but the 1st key (beyond the surface there are more locks!) was just, after being presented w/ the idea of OT prophecies & historical evidence of fulfillment, & considering that 1. there was a immense conspiracy taking place over many 1000s of yrs & involving billions of people, or that 2. the prophecies were true, figuring Occam’s Razor req. the latter. This was at a Lutheran church. My husband was a Byzantine Catholic who had stopped going to church, & I guess had Lutheran friends, & he took me there. But pastors could answer almost none of my Qs. satisfactorily, e.g. if Scripture explains Scripture, what was the mark of Cain & how was it able to be recognized? And what were the Urim & the Thummim? (Was just curious, had prob. > 100 Qs. about S.(not)E.S.) Why don’t we call it ‘Mass’ anymore? (A. ‘Too Catholic.’ ?) If even Satan can appear as an angel of light (2Co 11:14), how could we be certain to recognize Christ at the 2nd Coming? (A. ‘You just will.’ ?) And Sola Scriptura when no translation is completely acceptable? On what basis is any part accepted or rejected? I should learn Greek then? ? And I’m supposed to still read the Bible, apart from patristic commentaries? (? It was a chore, b/c Icouldn’t understand it well enough,which for an INTP is, as much as humanly possible. ? Might as well give me a math book & expect me to reinvent calculus, b/c I was being expected to reinvent theology.) And when I brought up the Apostolic Constitutions, why did people change the subj.? ?
Speaking of commentaries, something else that helped me was a Bible-study plan I made. I assembled all the books I can find of all the Biblical Canons (Wikipedia has a chart), plus Apocrypha/Pseudepigrapha (except gnostic—that’s heretical), & patristic commentaries. Then I read it in chronological order, e.g. Ge 1–3, ‘Life of Adam & Eve’, Gen 4, 1–3 Enoch, etc. in parallel w/ St Ephraim of Syria’sCommentary on Genesis(has some weird/amazing stuff, like where the moon was & what time of day it was when it was created, & why Isaac had to haul wood up the mt even though the ram was found caught in a thicket). AlsoAncient Christian Commentary on Scripture& Fr Tadros Malaty’s compilations are very good. And I put the Poetic & Prophetic books into the context of the Historical books, like Isaiah’s prophecywhen Isaiah actually appears.This way I have the most cultural context & the most complete meaning of everything, & it all plays out like an epic movie. Someone told me to read the OT & NT at the same time, to not ‘get bogged down’. But bogging down is fine. I can study something thoroughly b/f moving on. I wouldn’t watch a little of the beginning of a movie, a little of the middle, & go back & forth: the plot would be mixed up & I wouldn’t know the reasons for events in the middle. There are prefiguring in the OT, & quotes of the OT in the NT. So I won’t read the Bible out of order. Maybe this works for only NT types though. Itiskind of crazy & complicated to organize.
…not readily accepting what one is taught as a child or what the majority seem to believe.’:This is perfect. Going along w/ things as they were or rejecting them summarily? Hasty Conclusions. Analysis was needed. Ultimately, my husband went back to Byz. Cath. & I went too. It turned out my great-grandparents had been converted to Presb. by Scottish missionaries in the ’20s after coming to the U.S. from Belarus, from the territory of the Union of Brest, i.e. Byz. Cath. area. They must have had to hide their icon from the missionaries, ? b/c it was that 1 in the living rm decades later. So I was just reclaiming my heritage, anyway.
‘Thinkers want God’s existence to be scientifically provable’:I don’t & never have. That’s a Red Herring. I could ask them, ‘Does therescientifically provablyexist a Being, God?’ but what would such a Being be? A naturalistic Entity, b/c Nature is what science addresses. But I hadn’t proven 1st that the hypothetical Entity in Q. were necessarily naturalistic. Hadn’t even proven that everything that exists were so. And if it were, where would the 1st Cause of Nature be, e.g. ultimate Source of the Big Bang, i.e. Reason for all the matter of the universe being in a singularity & then released? ∴ there must be Something beyond Nature. ∴ scientific proof of this is impossible & thus unreasonable. Whatever might be beyond Nature isn’t the subj. of science but of philosophy. And so you say, correctly, ‘it is a choice which is based on evidence’.
‘…Thinkers who assume He can’t be understood…’ ‘…I'd also add the word incomprehensible…’:Reading St Dionysius the Areopagite might help them, NT types, I think.The Mystical Theologyis about this, e.g. ‘[T]he universal Cause [i.e. the Divine Nature] transcending all things…is not soul, or mind, or endowed with the faculty of imagination, conjecture, reason, or understanding; nor is It any act of reason or understanding; nor can It be described by the reason or perceived by the understanding…’ &c. God cannot be truly defined, but can be excluded from certain concepts. I might ask them how did the Big Bang come about. They don’t know, & I don’treallyknow either. But that undefinable Cause, the Divine Essence best approached apophatically, is God. Not a ‘magical sky-god’ ?, a guy w/ long white hair & beard & robe sitting on a cloud: that’s Zeus! We Eastern Christians do not depict God the Father. I don’t think that’d make biblical sense: the Bible saysJesusis theimageof theinvisibleGod (Col 1:13–15). Anyway, we can still learn things about God, according to our limitations. Does anyone believe in love, believe love exists? According to the Bible, that person believes in God, b/c it says God is love (1 Jn 4:8).
‘What kind of worship might be required, and how time-consuming might it be?’:Well, if any of you comes & becomes a Byz. Cath., you will be OK. You are allowed to do things according to your ability. Sin is only ‘falling short’ (lit. trans. ofhamartía/hamartánō—看到圣经Grk Dict中心。当然,不是简单的布鲁里溃疡t not catastrophic either), i.e. you will keep trying, b/c salvation is a process, toward union w/ God. ‘Cath. guilt’ is not a thing for us, e.g. Rom. Caths. may confess again sins they confessed b/f, but Byz. Caths. do not. Confession is for forgiveness & healing; the sins are already forgiven, & thinking about them more than I can’t help would open the old wounds in my soul & poss. send me into despair. And they have to incl. the # of times/sin. Don’t know how someone could keep count, & not become at least a little miserable about it. But we actually have ‘my sins are w/o #’ in a prayer & that’s good enough. My priest says ‘Purgatory’ (quotes b/c I don’t think we havesuch一个明确的概念)是“非mini-hell”;没有一个我s tortured there. Priests are very forgiving. They work w/ you & you improve. The kind of worship is somewhat complicated, but you pick it up as you go along. No pressure. The Liturgy is a little longer than Mass but it feels shorter to me b/c it’s extremely beautiful (not that Mass isn’t beautiful, but this permeates my soul—it’s beyond descr.), & there’s so much of everything (more images, more incense, more singing, more chanting, more veneration, more procession…watch a video on Youtube: e.g. St Elias, Brampton; Our Lady of Fatima, SF; St Andrew, El Segundo; & the Russicum). Not like daily Mass, you go only on Sun. & holidays. And there is no Eucharistic Adoration or Rosary. I’d get restless & panicky being quiet & still & trying to meditate.
And you’d get yourself ≥ 1 icon (at least of Jesus Christ or of Jesus & the Virgin Mary) & have it in your house to venerate & pray in front of each day, b/c Biblically, to venerate an image is to venerate who is in it. Definitely helps my prayers, b/c I can’t try to imagine heaven&read a prayer&mean it well&concentrate onboth,all at once. You are supposed to pray at least a little. You can make up your own prayers if you want or use books. A priest gave me a set of prayers to pray, & it takes about 20 min. 2×/day, but that might be the most daily prayer asked of ordinary laymen. B/c I have chronic mono & a toddler that needs tons of attention, & am terrible at praying, ? generally I don’t pray so much. ? The set is memorized, & somehow it’s not hard while I take her on a walk, if I’m well enough. Otherwise, I can manage to pray/think, ‘Bless, O Lord,’ b/f meals, & ‘Give rest to the soul of Your departed servant, O Savior,’ if hearing or reading of the death of someone, & a few med. & short prayers at night. All these latter ones are prob. ~ just 5 min./day.
Another thing that’s significant, but self-discipline not worship, is fasting. (But since I’m sick I have a dispensation.) There is overall more fasting than Roman Catholics have. I think they sometimes have to go w/o meat except fish, & sometimes eat in a day only 2 very sm. meals & 1 normal meal. We fast very often, going w/o meat except shellfish, & w/o dairy, eggs, olive oil, & alcohol, but eating as often as we want & only stopping short of being full. You don’t feel hungry or miserable, just light & healthy & happy. And after the fast you feast—esp. Easter, often a big party at midnight at church, eating & drinking everything you gave up (but just a little drinking—nobody gets drunk ?).
1 INTP said,‘INTPs need to experience God for themselves,’& this is very much experience, also pretty much everything is symbolic, multiplying the experience. ‘Symbol’ comes from ‘synbaleîn, to throw together’, & ultimately it means that physical & metaphysical reality are joined. For example, a cross is not just something that brings to mind Christ, the Crucifixion, etc. It’s an objectively holy channel of Divine Energy/Grace, a link btw us & God.
‘[S]ome Thinkers might be uncomfortable with their assumption that worship must be, or usually is, emotional.’Pretty much the only other religious exp. I had while young was seeing preachers on TV. I was super-creeped out, & repelled. Not to worry. Byz. Catholicism is practically stoic—well, stoic + joy. Everything religious is rigidly stylized, in a good way. Everyone in icons is solemn & posed undramatically. No sappy pictures w/ people’s eyes rolled up to heaven, ‘praise’ music, gushing prayers, ‘Lord, just’ prayers… No syrupy hymns—they don’t even rhyme. Example: ‘In truth you were revealed to your flock as a rule of faith; / an image of humility and a teacher of abstinence / has the reality shown you / unto your flock; / therewithal have you acquired by humility greatness, / by poverty, riches; / O Father hierarch Nicholas, / intercede before Christ our God / that our souls may be saved.’ Personal things you share only w/ the priest at confession. Thatishard, but not terribly. You don’t have to face him or look at him, only read a list of sins as vague as you can make it, e.g. ‘covetousness’ or ‘uncleanness’, ? a list that gets less bad w/ time, b/c you improve. And he will die a martyr b/f telling anyone. You don’thaveto sing/pray out loud. But pretty much everybody does together, so nobody stands out anyway.
‘[D]eep applications of Scripture…something to think about without applying any pressure…encouraging the members to think…’ This is good, & we have all of it. But no debating the homily, or 100% private interpretation, as in, the Bible means whatever you want it to mean, how the world ended up w/ polygamists, Westboro Baptists, & every other disturbing splinter group claiming to be ordained, the true Church, &c. Thereisleeway for interpretation, but if it were to go too far & things were to get really out of hand, a council could be called to define some boundaries. Objective truth exists; it’s not just, ‘Be true to yourself’; psychopaths are true to themselves too! People can debate at coffee hr, & can Q. the priest in any conversation. Mine is great. I can ask him anything. Recently I told him I was confused by the Fatima prophecies, & he admitted he was too, & said some things 1 reads may be untrue, so the Vatican has defined certain things. Defining isn’t to tell people what to think any more than formulating a physics law is: publicized discovery—Byzantines, Catholic & Orthodox, inherited Greek philosophy more than anyone else, so we are ‘how to think’ people too—& relatively few things get defined anyway. And there’s much more to our faith than the Bible. There are many other writings, many practices, many objects, many events…
But all these aren’t fundamental reasons to become Catholic. The reason to choose an idea is truth. My experience: My husband said about the Lutheran churches, ‘Something is missing.’ There was no Byz. Cath. church here, & we ended up at an E. Orthodox church. All my questions were answered & everything was sublimely beautiful, & all logical except that even though Jesus said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery,’ (Mk 10:11,12) they allowed remarriage. I was baptized there anyway. After a few yrs, my husband said he wanted to ‘get back to the Catholic Church’, but he was talking about it like becomingRoman导管。我们去那里与外国& confu仪式sing to me. The priest taught us a few classes, but then was transferred. The new priest said, ‘No more classes,’ ‘You cannot change Rites,’ ‘The Rite follows the line of the father,’ ‘You are already Byzs.; you already have the Cath. Faith,’ ‘Your children are already Byz. Caths.,’ & ‘I could receive you today.’ A little later I realized that since Christ est. 1 Church (Mt 16:18), 1 Body (Ro 12:5), He wanted it to be & stay whole (Jn 17:20–23), & the Bible warns about people who create divisions (Ro 16:17, Tt 3:10), but there is now a schism in the Church, I didn’t have to wait for the Pope & the Patriarch to finish their reconciliation. It would have made sense to go even alone to the other side of the Schism, & request restoration of communion, for my own part. Also, ‘Cath.’ means ‘whole, universal’ i.e. ‘entire Church for the whole world’, ‘Orth.’ means ‘right-worshipping’ & is short for ‘Orth. Cath.’, & groups that go into schism from the Orth. append further qualifiers. So the Orth. chose a name indicating they broke away. Also, there’s an ancient Eastern rule that an ecumenical (i.e. whole-Church) council is such if it’s called by the Pope or the Emperor. But the Orth. don’t have either anymore. And at the time we left, they were trying to have such a council anyway. It was somewhat disastrous b/c of disagreements b/f it started, resulting in some parties not attending, incl. the biggest by far, the Russians. The chaos demonstrated for me that the Church needs the Pope to arbitrate (& needs the restoration of the monarchies). Anyway, apparently b/c of my Russian Rite baptism, I was made a Russian Cath. (which is super-rare, ?? & like I said, sublimely beautiful). Everything worked out excellently.