Mods, let me know if not allowed or redundant.
My wife and I come from the Latin rite. She grew up in a TLM setting. I grew up in novus ordo (which we both attend now. She suffers from religious OCD and scrupulosity that really stems from the legalism and rigorism of traditional Latin Catholicism. Of course she seeks therapy but also part of our journey has been to sort of unprogram that (sometimes) fear causing, legalistic theology that hurt her. I’m not putting down the Latin church, but for her, there are some issues.
In part of the retooling of our faith, we’ve been reading into eastern Catholic theology (particularly Melkite as there is a church near us) and for her a lot of it feels very healing. A good example is reading the Melkite view of purgatory. The Latin view feels like even though you are forgiven in confession, you are still going to pay for all of your sins in purgatory. Which feels like you’re not fully forgiven. And you carry that weight with you. In contrast, this Melkite explanation (pasting below) felt insanely healing for us both
It reads: The cleansing process is understood as an encounter with the uncreated, healing presence and love of Christ, rather than a retributive punishment or legalistic debt-paying mechanism.
That is just one example on a long list of theological questions we are researching, but the explanations for things that bothered us just seem so much more loving and gentle in this theology. As though there is an understanding that Jesus is merciful well beyond what we deserve.
My question is, is theology alone a good enough reason for us to be able to attend an eastern parish near us? We don’t want to impose ourselves as outsiders and we aren’t liturgy hoppers looking for a new shiny object. But we aren’t apart of the group this church belongs to either. We just really enjoy the gentle and loving faith we are encountering in it. If not it’s ok, but we would love to visit even as guests to our local liturgy just to see if it works for us. Is that frowned upon?