Honoring an Eastern Father and Rekindling the Church’s Eastern Heritage

The feast of Saint Jacob of Serugh (November 29) offers an opportunity to look eastward—toward the ancient wells from which much of Christian theology, liturgy, and spirituality first flowed. Last year, we introduced the figure of Saint Jacob of Serugh, one of the greatest poets and theologians of the Syriac Christian tradition. This year, our celebration goes deeper, as we focus not only on the saint himself but on the wider significance of Eastern Christianity in the life of the Catholic Church today.

Saint Jacob of Serugh (c. 451–521), often called “the Flute of the Holy Spirit,” was a master of theological poetry. His metrical homilies—memre—explore the mysteries of salvation with a contemplative beauty unparalleled in the Christian world. Yet despite his prominence in the Syriac East, he remains relatively unknown in the Latin Church. Although he is listed in the Roman Martyrology, his feast, along with those of many other Eastern saints, no longer appears in the General Roman Calendar. His relative obscurity is largely due to the fact that most of his writings remained untranslated for centuries, preserved only in Syriac manuscripts. Latin theological formation historically focused on Greek and Latin sources, leaving the treasures of the Syriac tradition largely unexplored. Only in recent decades have renewed scholarly efforts begun to bring Jacob and other Eastern Fathers into broader Catholic awareness.

This rediscovery is not merely an academic project. It reveals something profound about the Church herself. Eastern Christianity developed within Semitic and Hellenistic cultures closer to the world of Scripture. Its theology is lyrical, mystical, and symbolic, less focused on linear argument and more on contemplative insight. For the Christian East, the mysteries of God are not solved but entered; not explained but experienced. By contrast, the Western tradition—equally indispensable—tends toward clarity, structure, and conceptual precision. It systematizes doctrine, develops moral theology, and articulates the faith in rational categories that shaped the intellectual life of Europe. Both traditions express one Catholic faith. Yet each does so with distinct theological accents and spiritual instincts.

Eastern and Western Christianity share apostolic faith, sacraments, and ecclesial communion, but they differ in tone, emphasis, and spiritual approach. These differences are not divisions but complementary expressions of the same truth. In the East, theology is fundamentally mystical. God is approached as radiant Mystery. Salvation is understood primarily as theosis—participation in the divine life. Liturgically, the East emphasizes transcendence: icons, chant, incense, veiled sanctuaries, and a strong sense that earthly worship mirrors the eternal liturgy of heaven. Prayer is contemplative, repetitive, and interior, exemplified by the so-called Jesus Prayer (“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”). In the West, theology takes a more analytical form. It values clarity, pastoral application, and doctrinal articulation. Salvation is viewed through the lens of grace, redemption, and moral transformation. Latin liturgy, historically more austere, emphasizes order, intelligibility, and active liturgical participation. Spirituality often moves from meditation to contemplation through disciplined reflection on Scripture and the mysteries of Christ. These differences do not contradict; they illuminate each other. The Western intellect and the Eastern heart, the Latin clarity and the Syriac poetry, the Roman structure and the Byzantine symbolism—all belong to the Catholic whole.

For the Latin Church, recovering its Eastern foundations is not an optional enrichment but a return to its own origins. Christianity was born in the East. Its Scriptures, its earliest liturgies, its first Fathers, its monastic traditions, and many of its Christological definitions all arose from Syriac, Antiochian, Alexandrian, and Cappadocian soil. To neglect these roots is to limit the Church’s self-understanding. Rediscovering the East restores a sense of mystery, reminding the West that God surpasses every concept and that theology begins in wonder before it proceeds to definition. It restores a fuller vision of salvation, balancing the Latin emphasis on redemption with the Eastern vision of divine-human communion. It restores liturgical depth, reawakening appreciation for beauty, sacred symbolism, and contemplative worship. It encourages interior prayer, drawing the faithful into stillness and the practice of the Jesus Prayer as a complement to Western forms of devotion. And it supports ecumenical healing, reminding the Church that unity does not require uniformity, and grounding Catholics in the shared heritage of the first millennium.

In recent decades, the West has taken concrete steps to rediscover and appreciate its Eastern roots. Institutions such as the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome have expanded programs on Syriac, Byzantine, and Oriental theology, and many of Saint Jacob of Serugh’s works are now being translated and studied. Ecumenical commissions between the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches address theological questions with shared patristic foundations. Dioceses in Western countries are promoting Eastern Catholic communities, encouraging them to preserve their liturgical traditions. Grassroots movements inspired by Orientale Lumen bring Latin Catholics together with Eastern Christians for prayer, workshops, and conferences. Cultural and educational efforts, such as iconography and chant workshops, help Western Christians engage directly with Eastern spirituality. Even within Vatican structures, there is a growing effort to give Eastern Catholic bishops and theologians greater presence in decision-making and synodal processes, ensuring that the universal Church speaks with an authentically universal voice.

It is also noteworthy that Eastern spirituality is gaining renewed traction in the West. Many young people, seeking depth, silence, and interiority, are increasingly drawn to forms of prayer that reflect the mystical ethos of the Christian East. Movements and spiritual communities—most notably Taizé—have introduced Western Catholics and Protestants alike to contemplative chant, meditative repetition, and prolonged silence, elements long characteristic of Eastern Christian worship. These expressions resonate deeply with a generation often exhausted by noise, fragmentation, and purely intellectual approaches to faith. What they seek is not novelty but authenticity—the felt presence of God, the experience of mystery, and a form of worship that engages the whole person. In this sense, Taizé and similar movements serve as gateways, gently reawakening within Western Christianity an ancient mystical thread that has always been part of the Church’s heritage, yet often overshadowed by more rational and didactic forms of worship.

In a world often marked by distraction, Saint Jacob’s poetic voice calls us back to what is essential: wonder before the mystery of God, fidelity to Scripture, a contemplative gaze on Christ, and a profound love for the Church. His legacy is not merely historical—it speaks urgently today, inviting Christians everywhere to rediscover the depths of their tradition.

For Latin Catholics living in the Arabian Peninsula, the encounter with Eastern Christian communities is not simply academic; it is lived experience. Attending a Syriac Divine Liturgy, celebrating alongside Maronite or Syro-Malankara communities, and sharing in their devotions allows the Latin faithful to witness the richness of the East firsthand—the flowing chants, the icons, the prayers of the heart, and the communal sense of sanctity. Such experiences can be deeply insightful and life-changing. Observing the depth of Eastern worship and the beauty of its prayer rhythms often awakens a new appreciation for the mystery of God, challenges habitual ways of praying, and inspires a richer, more contemplative spiritual life. It reminds Latin Catholics that the Church’s universality is not abstract but tangible, experienced in the rhythm, language, and devotion of other Christian traditions.

In these encounters, the universality of the Church becomes palpable, and the West can taste its Eastern heritage in living form. The feast of Saint Jacob of Serugh, therefore, is not only an invitation to study a distant saint but to experience the vibrant, mystical, and enduring traditions of the Christian East here and now, allowing Latin Catholics to breathe once more with “both lungs of the Church,” as St. John Paul II once so beautifully described (cf. Ut Unum Sint no. 54).

As we celebrate Saint Jacob, we honor not only a towering figure of Syriac Christianity but the entire spiritual universe that shaped the Catholic Church. To know him is to rediscover a forgotten room in the house of the Church. To appreciate the East is to reclaim the Church’s own heartbeat. And to breathe with both lungs—Eastern and Western—is to let the Catholic faith shine in all its fullness, beauty, and unity.