The Spirit of the Eastern & the Western Rites
The Latin Rite is the rite of the West, and reflects the Western spirit very logically. However, this type of logic as such was not so developed by the East. Instead, the Eastern Rites have an elevation that we in the West reach only once in a while.
For example, in the East they have the idea that the splendor of the ceremony is the condition of its efficacy; the idea that it is part of the essence of the act to have been performed in the presence of God because in His presence everything has more plenitude; the idea that in the presence of God a declaration of war becomes more combative and a declaration of peace is more reconciliatory, etc.
It is possible that some Latin Doctors have delved more deeply into the mysteries of God than the East, but the Eastern spirit has much more propensity to take this notion of the splendor and symbolism of the ceremony into account than the Western spirit.
This superiority of the Eastern spirit makes one greatly lament the deficiencies suffered by the Eastern Rites inside the Church, and its demise inside the Schismatic Church. Without the East, the Church is like a bird with only one wing. It would have been magnificent had the two unfolded together. The defection of the Schismatic Church represented at the least a fracture in one of the wings of the Church.
There is, however, something very mysterious coming from the icon of Our Lady of Vladimir, an ancient Byzantine icon in Russia. You can see that somehow she continues to communicate and give the Russian people something.
When a future reconciliation occurs – with the defeat and due humiliation of the Schismatic Church – certainly the devotion to Our Lady of Vladimir will be conserved, as if it had never been interrupted, in the same way that the sacramental life still present in the Schismatic Church continues.
The West is feeling the defection of the East. Certainly the Western Church was much more ceremonial in the Middle Ages, but even then it had not reached a certain form of the Eastern ceremonial that almost touches Heaven.
It is not a question of trying to find what has developed in the rottenness of the Schismatic Church during this time, but rather of looking to the beginning. It would even be edifying if the Latin Church would take a little of the good that the East left in her hands. She should try to take advantage of this superior spirit that admires beauty and symbolism, and ornament herself with it in the spirit of peace and concord.
Prophetism was given to both the Eastern and Western Church. The Church as such is prophetic. But this prophetic charisma of Church glistens much more in the Eastern Rites because of this makeup of spirit.
The flatness of this prophetic spirit in the Latin rite is not a failing, but rather something of less vigor, order and wisdom, which makes the ceremonies of the Latin Rite less prophetic of the future than those of the Eastern Rite. The Latin Rite is more a record of the past than a vision placed in the future.
The future appears in the Latin Rite through flashes. This is in accordance with the vocation of the Western peoples, which is to construct the Reign of Jesus Christ in this world and maintain it. As such the Latin Rites are not called for grandiose contemplation.
Now then, if there had been missionaries sent out by Eastern Rites to certain pagan countries, the Faith would have caught on more authentically than the more artificial missions sent by the Latin Rite, which have an admirable zeal, but also more superficiality.
For example, we have the missionary effort in North Africa. After more than 100 years, when Algeria became independent, it was seen that the Catholics there were almost exclusively descendents of the Europeans. That is to say, Catholicism did not penetrate into the living flesh of the country.
On the contrary, the Syrian-Malabar Rite would have had greater possibilities of expansion in the lives of these countries. If a Syrian-Malabar Rite mission had gone forward in Japan, there would have been a rite of the Asian people.
The Carmelites should have energetically sought to penetrate the Eastern Rites, but their Order never figured among the great Eastern Religious Orders. If there was any Order that should have had an Eastern branch it would be the Carmelite Order. A symptom of its deformities is their lack of interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which nonetheless belong directly to it.
Today there is an urgent need to reinvigorate both the Western and Eastern Rites in the Catholic Church.
- Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
