Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius January 8, 2017 Spiritual Ponderings
As I continue to share with you from my reflection called “Where is the Faith?” I invite you to examine your hearts to find the areas of faith that you need to strengthen. May we all be open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
2. Half-Hearted Secularism “Secularism” is a word that we often hear when talking about religion but for me it was a word that for much of my life was vaguely defined. Finally, I heard someone define it as “treating religion as recreational.” When a person treats his or her faith recreational then it is not a priority in their life. It is something they do if they have the extra time in the week or they feel like it. People who practice secularism do not go to Mass when they are on vacation, fail to attend holy days of Obligation and finally only practice their faith when they feel it will make them look good before others.
One day I was listening to a secular radio program in which the disc jockeys were discussing whether or not they could have the thing that they had given up for Lent on Sunday. I found this conversation so confusing and amusing because two of the disc jockeys have confessed in the past that they were Catholics. One of the two was living with her boyfriend and was avid about the fact that she never planned to get married and both of the Catholic disc jockeys made it clear that they did not go to Church on Sunday. I found it fascinating and sad that they were worried about what they had given up for Lent instead of trying to address the more important issues that were keeping them from developing a deeper personal relationship with the Lord.
3. Ego Based Faith I have been known many good people over the years that practice their faith with great fervor only to walk away from their faith later on because they never allowed their faith to take root in their heart. People who were once active members of the Parish Council, Parish Home and School Association, and even liturgical ministers, can end up walking away from their faith if they do not take the time for prayer and study.
Most people who practice their faith without devoting themselves to prayer and study are doing so because they enjoy the attention they receive from others. This was pretty much me for many of my high school years. I practiced my faith, went to Mass in order to make my mother happy and receive the bonus of others telling me what a great guy I was for still attending Mass when so many of my classmates did not.
The problem with Ego Based faith is that the roots do not go very deep because Jesus himself promises that will we will experience persecution if we follow Him because like Him we are not made for this world. People who practice their faith for show and attention often fall quickly away during times of persecution. Going back to the baseball analogy it is easy to be a St. Louis Cardinals fan in St. Louis than in Chicago or New York.
4. Wanting a Perfect Church When I was still an associate pastor, I would sometimes be invited to sit in on interviews my pastor was holding to find a new staff person. Somewhere within the many questions he would ask the applicant if his or her faith was strong enough to work for the Church. One of the great mysteries in our faith is that God chose twelve very flawed men and a few women to begin his Church. The God who has literally an army of angels at His beck and call chose not to use them but rather to use human beings as his ministers. As I ponder this great mystery, I cannot help but think that part of God’s reasoning behind this decision is because one gets to know another person better when they work alongside that person.
As a priest, I will often hear someone tell me that they don’t go to Church anymore because another person in the Church was mean to them or said something that they did not like and part of me wants to respond with “what did you expect?” The Church is made up of human beings and human beings by their very definitions are flawed creatures who make mistakes.
The first demoniac Jesus encounters in Mark Gospel was found in a synagogue - a church. A close reading of this passage allows us to assume that the man possessed by the unclean spirit could be anyone in the synagogue including the cantor or rabbi. Jesus of course heals the man by driving out the spirit. How many times did the apostles argue about who was the greatest? We come to Church not because we are perfect but rather because we are in need of a savior.