Is 50:5-9a
Ps 114:1-2,3-4,5-6, 8-9
Jas 2:14-18
Mk 8:27-35
How many of you have ever heard the phrase, “I am spiritual, but not religious.” How many of you have said this yourself? My dear brothers and sisters, I mean this is in most charitable way possible: that phrase is complete shenanigans. And I will tell you why I think it is.
Let’s look at the first part of the phrase: “I am spiritual”. Yes you are... Everybody is a spiritual being. We were created in the image and likeness of God, OF COURSE WE ARE SPIRITUAL. So we have a disposition to the supernatural, a “spidey-sense” as it were. We have souls and we can have supernatural experiences on the natural level. So this statement that one is “spiritual” is only to acknowledge what everybody with any sense of something greater than themselves can acknowledge that they are indeed “spiritual”.
But to say that one is “not religious” brings so many problems with it because they have to answer: what is truth, what is reality, what is good, what is evil, why this and why that? These are perennial questions that everyone asks. To subscribe to a religion – a faith or a belief – means that one has to submit themselves to a system of beliefs and/or an institution of some sort – whether it is a single non-denominational community or a loose conglomeration of communities or Holy Mother Church. We enter the Catholic Church through the Rites of Initiation – Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist – we profess everything we believe every Sunday in the Creed. We didn’t make it up ourselves, but it was given to us, revealed to us by God – Jesus Christ; and we follow the Traditions (capital T) that have been handed down to us through the generations. There are some beliefs and tenants of the faith that cannot be compromised: that Jesus Christ is both God and Man, He lived, He died, and rose again on this Earth; that Christ was born of a Virgin, who was Immaculately conceived, and that she remained a virgin perpetually, and was assumed into heaven at the end of her earthly journey; the Eucharist is the real presence of God, so on and so forth - these things are de fidei. There are also some beliefs and tenants that are not part of the deposit of faith, but bring a greater love and devotion to God: the practice of the rosary, Marian or saint apparitions, the devotions of novenas and different spiritualities following the long traditions (little t) of the Church; again I could go on and on. Whatever religion that you subscribe to, you must believe the core beliefs that you believe, otherwise you have failed to follow the faith, plain and simple. Even those pagan faiths have things that you have to follow – it is no different. If you cease following them, you cease to be pagan.
To say then that you are “not religious” is to give you the excuse to say that “I don’t have to follow any of these faiths” – be it divinely inspired/revealed or not – but that I can commune spiritually on any plane with anything. I can basically pick and choose what I want to believe and follow –whatever and wherever my “energy” or “spirit” moves me to go, whatever suits my fancy. This is the New Age belief – trying to better myself, with myself, by myself. Me. Me. Me. There is no room for anyone else or for the Divine for that matter, just myself. I ask then… Why bother to do any of that when you are just gonna do whatever you want to do and believe whatever you are going to believe? Aren’t you just making things up as you go along, even if you might be inspired – what is inspiring you, is it God, is it the Devil, or is it yourself? To say that you are “spiritual but not religious” makes you sound like you are so hipster, so above all truths out there, that you have a complete comprehension of everything, and that you know what the real truth is. In reality, you are back to ground zero – you have no idea what you are doing or where you are going. It would be like trying to go from here to Jerusalem without a compass, without a roadmap, without any means of transportation, without even knowing where Jerusalem is, maybe you have a photograph or a faint inclination that there is a Jerusalem but you don’t even know if that is really Jerusalem or even it really actually exists – just wandering about aimlessly, listening to whomever interests you, and run away when the going gets tough. Basically you are on your own.
I am spiritual, yes, I am wired to commune with the divine. For me the truly divine is Jesus Christ. He has already revealed the faith to us, given us Sacred Scriptures, given us the Tradition of the Church through the Apostles down through the ages to our very own bishop Kevin Farrell. Why do I need to go and “discover who I am and what my beliefs are”? It’s already done; it has already been identified and discovered, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Because of effects of all the sin and bad habits that we have and the noise and interference in the world, it is already hard enough to pray with all the tools and resources that we have been given – they have already made it easier. Why am I going to give up all of these tried and true ways to go off on my own? G.K. Chesterton wrote in What’s Wrong with the World, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” Shenanigans. I call shenanigans on those that say that are spiritual, but not religious. But I also pray that they will see the way and truth and the light of God, the yoke of the belief that we hold so dear.
Our scriptures today tell us that we have a difficult path ahead of us, that the going will get tough. Jesus rebukes Peter, Get behind me, Satan. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do. Woe to me or to anyone who puts the will of man before the will of God. If we are going to be truly spiritual and religious people, are we not to follow Jesus? Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. What makes our Catholic faith so awesome is that it has been given to us to follow and can be lived out. We believe that the Faith is not just a spiritual mind and soul exercise but also a faith in action – it moves and inspires us to work for the Kingdom of God and to spread the Gospel. We do not just tell someone to pray and believe as a means of comfort, we actually try to feed, shelter, clothe, and heal as well. Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works. We don’t just talk the talk, we must also walk the walk. Our religiosity compels and impels us to celebrate the Good News and to rejoice, but also to reach out to the poor and needy, the broken and tired.
Our faith is easy to live out because it is all spelled out for us: pick up your cross and follow Him. At the same time it is challenge because we will face those persecutions like Christ, we will face those that disdain the faith, our religion – stand strong and set your face like flint, you will not be put to shame, but rather be following the same path that our Lord to Calvary. When we carry that Cross, when we are both spiritual and religious, we will, as the psalms sing today, walk before the Lord, in the land of the living.
The shunning or disdain against the “religious” is nothing more than an excuse to do what you want to do. It is to blame the institution and those that have not lived the faith as they should for one’s own failings and weaknesses of trying to live out the faith. The institution or the Catholic religion is not the problem when you truly understand what the Church is trying to teach and trying to live out. We are all sinners, but this does not excuse us from trying to live that faith out. Jesus came for the sinners and the hurting and He gave us the institution of the Church to help us along the way. We have the guarantee of revealed faith and the faith that has been passed down generation to generation, this is on our side and to our advantage. Therefore, to say that you are not religious is to say that you trust yourself and your feelings over two thousand years of people trying to live out their faith. As for me, I would never want to have those kind of odds against me. My spirituality and my religion are hand in hand because I can see it no other way. It does not make me perfect, but it does help me live a more virtuous life and most importantly, grow closer to my Maker.
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