WHY RELIGION?
Dear Friend,
Thank you for writing up your description of the intellectual path that has brought you to your present “station”— putting it into Latin sounds good and philosophical as having followed the via intellectus—the way of the intellect.
We viewed the “Journey Home” program on 3/17/14, and a young gentleman, Brantly Millegan, was asked when he started his journey from Protestantism to the Catholic Church? He answered that it began with his baptism in the Methodist faith some days after being born, and, there is only “one Baptism.” The host seemed slightly perplexed but the man insisted that he was given a Christian foundation in his home and that is what he built upon.
There is a moment, I think, when we become aware of GOD intellectually, and say to ourselves that, if God is God with all that this implies, we have to have a relationship with him. If we are convinced of this, God can’t easily be dismissed, ignored, fought against, repelled. We establish a bond, religio in Latin, with God—in so far as we can, given the state of maturity of our intellect. The word derives from religare, meaning bind firmly. Cicero seemed to think religion—the word—came from re-legere [LEH-je-ray]—to re-read, which makes for an interesting insight into that relationship; perhaps one of studying, deepening our attachment and adherence to God.
The Christian Gospel then presents us with the reality that we will come to know God as he wants us to know him, namely, in Jesus Christ; and by his Name. It is the same as it was for the first disciples who came from the circumcision, born into Abraham’s religion. They had to accept Jesus for what he was and then believe he was truly God. Once they put complete faith in his word, they could not but “do whatever he tells you.”
From Christ we also are given the true image of God. Wittgenstein says that the body is the best picture of the human soul. Jesus, God incarnate, then gives us the best knowledge of the transcendent God. God is of course our omnipotent Creator, Master, and Sustainer, but also is our FATHER.
This makes all the difference in the kind of link, bond, and connection we have with God—i.e., the nature of our religion. Mere belief in the Supreme Being can never be sufficient if we learn of God from Jesus. The Supreme Being per se is a remote someone who knows all about us, but not someone to be known and loved. I would have no religion, no communion with him.
Christians early on began to take divergent views regarding theology and discipline usually led by a bishop, priest, teacher, or other influential Church member. Having different opinions and expressions of faith is not a bad thing, but when they lead to cliques and division, it could cause huge controversies.
The Church, which is the Christian body or assembly, had a way of believing and worshiping—orthodoxy—right worship and belief. If one held and taught a contradictory belief, e.g., Jesus did not rise from the dead, he would have to renounce that teaching or
could be excommunicated from the Church as a heretic.
The protesting reformers of Western Christian religion in the 16th century were labeled as protestantes by the Catholics, were they not, after breaking both with the Bishop of Rome and with the way Christians had worshipped until their day. They profoundly reshaped the faith of the Church so as to create a radically new religion. And the Catholic Church had both to reform itself and defend its doctrines.
The circumstances of what kind of “organized” or “disorganized” religion we were born into, and that which confronts our child’s mind, is part of the inscrutable plan of God. Yet God will employ whatever means he chooses to have us go to where he wants us to be.
The Samaritan woman who found Jesus sitting by Jacob’s Well one afternoon was offered the opportunity to have a new life in total. Jesus came to call her and help her become what she was truly meant to be. Without Christ, she could not worship Yahweh in spirit and in truth though she followed a religion.
Thinking about all this, I remember how I was told about God: that I simply accepted God by a faith that came through hearing; that he wanted me to be good (elementary religion = doing good and avoiding evil); to pray—having a relationship with God so he will bless me and my family. Only later would I learn that I had been marked (“branded”) with the Christian character in Baptism and that the crucified Christ, whose image I had known from the beginning, died the way he did to save me from sin; then about Sacraments and Catholic devotions and being a member of a religion.
Going to a Catholic elementary school I learned I had an ineradicable bond with the Church. The parochial system of the time, I believe, also instilled a horror of sin with a kind of terror of the Almighty and fear of dying in deadly sin. We were Temples of the Holy Spirit, who abandoned us at the instant of any rupture of the bond of friendship with God. At all costs, the priests and teachers had to prevent our cascading into sin. I recall so little of teaching about the merciful Christ—the Good Shepherd, and his Father and ours. The emphasis was on “avoiding evil” and being pure, and not awfully much about doing good.
Yours faithfully,
Fr. Augustine Serafini
March 26. 2014
Thank you for writing up your description of the intellectual path that has brought you to your present “station”— putting it into Latin sounds good and philosophical as having followed the via intellectus—the way of the intellect.
We viewed the “Journey Home” program on 3/17/14, and a young gentleman, Brantly Millegan, was asked when he started his journey from Protestantism to the Catholic Church? He answered that it began with his baptism in the Methodist faith some days after being born, and, there is only “one Baptism.” The host seemed slightly perplexed but the man insisted that he was given a Christian foundation in his home and that is what he built upon.
There is a moment, I think, when we become aware of GOD intellectually, and say to ourselves that, if God is God with all that this implies, we have to have a relationship with him. If we are convinced of this, God can’t easily be dismissed, ignored, fought against, repelled. We establish a bond, religio in Latin, with God—in so far as we can, given the state of maturity of our intellect. The word derives from religare, meaning bind firmly. Cicero seemed to think religion—the word—came from re-legere [LEH-je-ray]—to re-read, which makes for an interesting insight into that relationship; perhaps one of studying, deepening our attachment and adherence to God.
The Christian Gospel then presents us with the reality that we will come to know God as he wants us to know him, namely, in Jesus Christ; and by his Name. It is the same as it was for the first disciples who came from the circumcision, born into Abraham’s religion. They had to accept Jesus for what he was and then believe he was truly God. Once they put complete faith in his word, they could not but “do whatever he tells you.”
From Christ we also are given the true image of God. Wittgenstein says that the body is the best picture of the human soul. Jesus, God incarnate, then gives us the best knowledge of the transcendent God. God is of course our omnipotent Creator, Master, and Sustainer, but also is our FATHER.
This makes all the difference in the kind of link, bond, and connection we have with God—i.e., the nature of our religion. Mere belief in the Supreme Being can never be sufficient if we learn of God from Jesus. The Supreme Being per se is a remote someone who knows all about us, but not someone to be known and loved. I would have no religion, no communion with him.
Christians early on began to take divergent views regarding theology and discipline usually led by a bishop, priest, teacher, or other influential Church member. Having different opinions and expressions of faith is not a bad thing, but when they lead to cliques and division, it could cause huge controversies.
The Church, which is the Christian body or assembly, had a way of believing and worshiping—orthodoxy—right worship and belief. If one held and taught a contradictory belief, e.g., Jesus did not rise from the dead, he would have to renounce that teaching or
could be excommunicated from the Church as a heretic.
The protesting reformers of Western Christian religion in the 16th century were labeled as protestantes by the Catholics, were they not, after breaking both with the Bishop of Rome and with the way Christians had worshipped until their day. They profoundly reshaped the faith of the Church so as to create a radically new religion. And the Catholic Church had both to reform itself and defend its doctrines.
The circumstances of what kind of “organized” or “disorganized” religion we were born into, and that which confronts our child’s mind, is part of the inscrutable plan of God. Yet God will employ whatever means he chooses to have us go to where he wants us to be.
The Samaritan woman who found Jesus sitting by Jacob’s Well one afternoon was offered the opportunity to have a new life in total. Jesus came to call her and help her become what she was truly meant to be. Without Christ, she could not worship Yahweh in spirit and in truth though she followed a religion.
Thinking about all this, I remember how I was told about God: that I simply accepted God by a faith that came through hearing; that he wanted me to be good (elementary religion = doing good and avoiding evil); to pray—having a relationship with God so he will bless me and my family. Only later would I learn that I had been marked (“branded”) with the Christian character in Baptism and that the crucified Christ, whose image I had known from the beginning, died the way he did to save me from sin; then about Sacraments and Catholic devotions and being a member of a religion.
Going to a Catholic elementary school I learned I had an ineradicable bond with the Church. The parochial system of the time, I believe, also instilled a horror of sin with a kind of terror of the Almighty and fear of dying in deadly sin. We were Temples of the Holy Spirit, who abandoned us at the instant of any rupture of the bond of friendship with God. At all costs, the priests and teachers had to prevent our cascading into sin. I recall so little of teaching about the merciful Christ—the Good Shepherd, and his Father and ours. The emphasis was on “avoiding evil” and being pure, and not awfully much about doing good.
Yours faithfully,
Fr. Augustine Serafini
March 26. 2014