{"id":200,"date":"2019-01-01T19:42:11","date_gmt":"2019-01-01T19:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourcharism.org\/?p=200"},"modified":"2021-05-29T18:59:43","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T17:59:43","slug":"the-catholic-church-breathes-with-two-lungs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourcharism.org\/index.php\/2019\/01\/01\/the-catholic-church-breathes-with-two-lungs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Catholic Church Breathes with Two Lungs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rome, January 1st<\/sup>, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Catholic Church breathes with two lungs: the Eastern and the Western<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cf. Directory of Spirituality<\/em>, 260<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dear Fathers, Brothers, Seminarians and Novices, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have the pleasure of greeting you all on this joyful day in which the entire Church celebrates the first and very true Marian dogma that declares that the Virgin Mary is Mother of God: Theotokos<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expression Theotokos<\/em>, which literally means \u201cshe who has begotten God,\u201d refers us to the august mystery by which the Virgin Mary is the \u201cMother of the Incarnate Word, who is God.\u201d This truth is part of the patrimony of the Church\u2019s one Catholic faith, both in the East and in the West. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that in a few days our Eastern-Rite religious \u2013 numerous members of the Byzantine and Coptic Rites \u2013 will celebrate the birth of the Incarnate Word, and that, what is more, this year we will celebrate with great joy the 25th<\/sup> anniversary of the foundation of the Institute in Ukraine, I would like to dedicate this circular letter to the \u201cprivileged and essential place that the illustrious doctrine of the Holy Doctor Saint Thomas Aquinas holds in the work of evangelization in the Eastern-Rite territories,\u201d a truth clearly indicated in our proper law, and which ought to mark and distinguish our missions in the places where these precious rites, true treasures of the Church, are celebrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same \u201ctheological reason\u201d that moved our superiors to send missionaries to the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe \u2013 and which is ultimately the same that moved them to send missionaries to the Middle East a little more than 25 years ago \u2013 can be reduced to a principle expressed by the metaphor: \u201cthe Catholic Church breathes with two lungs: the Eastern and the Western.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For us it is and always will be our pride not only to have members from the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches but also to join forces with them to contribute to the evangelization of their particular Churches, because we understand that \u201cto extend the Incarnation \u2018to all men\u2019 implies not only to extend it in man and woman, in child, youth or elderly, but also in Western and Eastern man, in any of the diversity of rites and in any of the particular Churches that make up the one Catholic Church.\u201d Because \u201cbelonging to the Communion of the Church is never exclusively specific, but rather \u2013 due to its nature \u2013 is in itself always universal.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

May the Mother of God be pleased to use these lines to bring our most heartfelt thanks to all our Eastern-Rite religious for the immense grace to our Institute to have them as members, and for the great enrichment it has meant for all of us to be in contact with their cultures, rites and traditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Formation<\/strong> in la doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our Directory of Spirituality <\/em>firmly declares that \u201cThe Church of Christ is the universal community of the Lord\u2019s disciples that extends to all times, places, races, languages and cultures. This is what \u2018Catholic\u2019 means: universal.\u201d And it adds: \u201cthe Church is \u2018Catholic\u2019 also in her doctrine,\u201d though there may be a variety of theological schools, different venerable liturgical rites, etc., because all this is part of the richness of the Catholicity of the Church. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We affirm with healthy pride that \u201cwe are members of one unique missionary Religious Family, but above all, we are children of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that \u2018breathes\u2019 with two lungs: the Eastern and the Western.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why our seminarians and novice of the Eastern-Rites \u2013 whichever it may be \u2013 not are not only formed in the spirituality and discipline of the sui iuris<\/em> Church to whom they belong or in the practice of their own rites, since we try, as far as possible, to allow them to celebrate in their own rite, but also in the doctrine of Saint Thomas Aquinas. This is because, though it is certain that \u201can Oriental theology and spirituality exists, consistent with the idiosyncrasy of each people, showing that the Incarnation respects cultural differences, Eastern and Western theology cannot be opposed, nor can Eastern spirituality be opposed to the Western.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We believe, without fear of erring, \u201cthat the great summarizer of both theologies has been Saint Thomas of Aquinas, who, as Cardinal Slipyj said, is the only one who has used both Latin Fathers and Greek Fathers as sources of Christian theology, and this abundantly. Therefore, the religious of the Institute of the Incarnate Word who work in Eastern territories have no need to fear to propose the perennial doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, under the false pretext that it is not a doctrine adapted to the Eastern mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why the Directory of the Eastern-Rite Branch dedicates fourteen paragraphs to highlighting the importance of the study of Saint Thomas for the formation of our Eastern Rite members, and it does so \u201cfollowing the profound thought of Cardinal Slipyj.\u201d Therefore, before continuing to the main topic of this letter, I want to give you a brief biographical outline of this great Prince of the Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The greatest Ukrainian of our times<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who was this Cardinal of whom Saint John Paul II, when celebrating a Mass for the eternal repose of his soul, said, \u201cHis memory remains indelibly in the annals of civil and religious history; we will never be able to forget his ascetic and hierarchical figure, severe and solemn: above all we will not be able to forget the teaching he has given with his entire life\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cardinal Josef Slipyj was born in Zazdrist, province of Ternopil, Ukraine, on February 17th<\/sup>, 1892, into a Greek Catholic family. Prompted by his ardent priestly vocation, he entered the Greek Catholic Seminary of Lviv, enrolling in the Faculty of Theology of the university of the same city. He did not stay long, for the Metropolitan, Andryj Szeptyckyj (1865-1944), noticed his great intellectual gifts and personality, and had him sent to Innsbruck, Austria, to study philosophy and theology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was ordained a priest on December 8th<\/sup>, 1917 and the next year he graduated as a Doctor in Theology. He also studied in three Pontifical Institutes in Rome. When he returned definitively to Ukraine, he became a professor in the Greek Catholic Metropolitan Seminary of Lviv. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On November 1st<\/sup>, 1944, he was consecrated Archbishop of Lviv. But the next year, on April 11th,<\/sup> 1945, he was imprisoned, because the USSR government had declared the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church illegal and attempted once and for all to prohibit and liquidate it. He spent the next twenty-eight years imprisoned in Siberia \u2013 and not only there, because they transferred him many times \u2013 suffering and offering all for the unity of the Church. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was freed thanks to the intercession of Saint John XXIII on January 12th<\/sup>, 1963, which made it possible for him to participate in the Second Vatican Council. On December 23rd<\/sup> of this same year, the Pope granted him the title of Major Archbishop of Lviv. In this moment a truly glorious period began for the Cardinal. He immediately founded the Ukrainian Catholic University of Pope Saint Clement (1963), restarted the activities of the \u201cUkrainian Theological Scientific Society\u201d and the publication of the Bohoslovia<\/em> magazine. Two years later Saint Paul VI made him a cardinal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this second and definitive stay in the Eternal City, Cardinal Slipyj devoted himself to the reorganization of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic hierarchy and to the conservation of the spiritual and cultural patrimony of the Ukrainian people scattered all over the world. He visited the Ukrainian immigrant communities on his numerous trips, leaving us a luminous example of missionary and pastoral zeal. A quick illustration: in 1968 he devoted four months to his first pastoral visit to numerous Ukrainian communities in Canada, the United States, and several countries in South America. He even went to Argentina, where the government received him as an honored guest and produced a commemorative postal stamp for the occasion. Prompted by his missionary zeal, he also crossed the Pacific to assist the Greek Catholics in Australia and New Zealand. In 1981, he was named a member of the \u201cSaint Thomas\u201d Pontifical Academy for his work of spreading Aquinas\u2019 thought in Ukrainian intellectual circles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He died on September 7th<\/sup>, 1984 at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome, at the age of 93. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can say of him that he \u201cwas a passionate scholar, a priest and a bishop who luminously guided his dispersed and frightened flock. He was without a doubt the greatest Ukrainian of our times. He was a confessor of Christ who suffered prisons, tortures, hunger, cold, ridicule, degradations and humiliations. He was a great cardinal, a true prince of the Church, whose name gave glory to the Sacred College. He used to say, \u2018There where my Church is, there I must be to defend it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This great Ukrainian wrote about ten academic works of a Thomistic nature. Among them we can mention: De valore S. Thomae Aquinatis pro Unione eiusque influxu in theologiam orientalem<\/em> (1921) \u2013 abundantly and explicitly cited in our Directory of the Oriental Branch<\/em> <\/sup>; Saint Thomas and Eastern theology<\/em> (1924); Saint Thomas Aquinas and Scholasticism <\/em>(1925); Saint Thomas and the philosophical and theological science in the East<\/em> (1969), Essay on the History of Medieval Scholastic Philosophy<\/em> (1974), etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of his work, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Scholasticism<\/em>, he explained, \u201cFor the 600th<\/sup> Jubilee Year of the Canonization [of Saint Thomas], during the 1922-1924 academic years, I introduced a class on Saint Thomas for our theology students. It seemed very necessary to me, since we still have a very antiquated view of the Medieval, and of the Scholastic, in particular, and also because, in general, hardly any attention was paid to him in the most recent investigations in this field. It was easy for me to teach this, since recently, for two years (1920-1922), I had studied Medieval Theology in Rome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Why should the Eastern world study Saint Thomas?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our proper right responds to this question using Cardinal Slipyj\u2019s masterly study and analysis. It is he who guides us, providing us with the motives for which we \u201cwant to highlight the Angelic Doctor\u2019s importance for evangelization and for the work of ecumenism, especially with the Orthodox Churches.\u201d Let us look at some of his own words:<\/p>\n\n\n\n