Cyril and Methodius

today Msgr. Laughlin gave such an amazing homily I took notes.  

however, the notes are in my car, so I'm gonna paraphrase.  

While Hallmark celebrates [st] Valentines' Day today, it's technically the feast of the very impressive Saints Cyril and Methodius, missionaries to the Slavic people.  What Msgr. Laughlin pointed out today, and forgive me if I botch the details, was that the Liturgy of the Catholic Church was originally in Greek.  It was translated into Latin, which was the language of the common people, around 400 B.C.  (he asked, "remember when we went Latin to English?... that wasn't the first time the language changed")  Msgr. pointed out that as missionaries, Cyril and Methodius encountered resistance to the idea but were eventually given permission to translate the Mass into the Slavic languages around the 800's, giving us the Eastern Rites.  

The beauty of this is that the Church, while consistent and unchanging in Her doctrine, meets people in their native language.  We often forget about the Eastern Rites, but Msgr. pointed out that the Pope is not just the Pope but the Patriarch of all the rites in union with Rome.  There's a lot of discussion about the Liturgy, language, Latin, etc, but in the midst of all this we see hope for unity. 

I like this.