We have found our church home! :-D

 

Tis true, the husband and I have decided to call St. Basil the Great Byzantine Catholic Church

our home church.  We are both really excited.  :-D  We can't wait to tell Fr. Daniel this coming Wednesday morning after Divine Liturgy.

The Byzantine Catholic Church is part of the Eastern Rite (whereas your typical Catholic Church is part of the Western Rite), yet still under the leadership of Rome.   The Eastern Rite within the Catholic Church is more Orthodox. 

There are a few differences between the Roman and Byzantine Catholic Churches.  

One being, there is no holy water upon entering the Byzantine church.  However, you see that open side door on the left in the 3rd picture?  Before the service starts, we go in there and put our prayer requests (using bread that's been cut up and blessed which ends up turning into Chirst's body which we consume) on this gold round disc. 

And we greet the priest upon leaving that area.  

We also pretty much stand the whole time except for when the priest gives his homily (sermon).  Everything is chanted or sung and there are no instruments used.

There is lots of incense (and it smells heavenly).  :)

For communion, we go up with our arms cross upon our chest.  We open our mouths when getting up to the Priest and Christ's body & blood are put together in the chalice and spooned into our mouth (the spoon never touches anyone's mouth) while the priest prays a blessing over us.

At the end of the liturgy, we all go up and get christened by the priest.  He makes the sign of the cross on our forehead with this sweet smelling oil and says "Christ is among us".

The Byzantine Church uses the Orthodox calendar and not the Roman (Gregorian) calendar and so we have different feast days and different saints then the Roman Church would have.

The Byzantine's cross themselves differently than the Roman Church.

The priest also has his back facing us most of the time, not all.  It used to be like that in the Roman Church's till they did away with the Latin Mass altogether. (it's still done in the Latin Rite Churches though).

We don't hold hands during the Our Father.  We also don't greet one another with handshakes (however we do offer the 'peace be with you' several times through out the liturgy.

Going to confession is different too.  We don't have a penance and we don't have to say the Act of Contrition (I mean, you can, it's not forbidden or anything, lol).  The penitent and priest stand in front of the icon of Jesus and the confession takes place.  When finished, the priest puts his shawl thing (I can't think of the name) on the person's head and prays over them.  And their done.

Those are just a few of the differences.  I am sure there are more.

I still plan on going to the Roman Rite churches for weekday morning Masses and even confession (I LOVE St. Maria Goretti in Arlington.  Love Fr. Jim!  Love the Eucharistic Adoration room, LOVE the church) since they are closer and Fr. Dan (priest at St. Basil) is a busy guy pastoring another Byzantine Church in Austin as well as the one in Irving).

When I can't get to St. Maria's in the mornings, I go down the street from my house to St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church.  The priest there is really passionate about bringing souls to Christ and having them live a holy life.

 So...yeah.... praise GOD!  Praise GOD!  Praise GOD!  \0/ \0/ \0/ \0/

I am so excited what he is doing in my life and in my marriage!

Love,

Dawn