The carcass of religion

THERE’S always hope, of course. No doubt, God can raise the dead back to life again. He is infinitely merciful, and can make use of anything, including our mistakes, to make something great out of our life. But we cannot deny that nowadays there seem to be a lot of carcasses of religion
around.

Religion, which is supposed to be our abiding relationship with God, lived, in many instances, without God. It has simply become a human invention, a matter of convention, or a game we play. Thus, it is full of pretensions, hypocrisy, inconsistencies.

Our life, of course, is a life of relationships. And of the many relationships we have, the most important and indispensable one is our relationship with God, our religion, since it is the origin and pattern of all our other relationships.

We have to nurture and develop it. To it, we should give our best efforts. God is the source and keeper of our life. Unless we deny that, or unless we think we just came to exist on our own, as in, spontaneously, how can we ignore him?

In the Book of Revelation, we hear the following warning: “I know your works, you have the name of being alive, and you are dead.” (3,1) And in the gospel of St. Luke, we also read the following relevant point:

“Where the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together.” (17,37) This can refer to vultures to their prey, evil elements that get attracted to the smelly carcass of our religion.

Religion is dead when it is reduced to a mere collection of pious acts without the animating element of authentic love of God and love of neighbor. In other words, it is just an appearance without the real substance.

It is important that in this crucial matter of religion, we sharply distinguish between its essence, which is grace and love of the kind lived and taught, and its signs and manifestations, which can be cleverly made up or invented. We have to be wary about subtle reductionisms and confusion in religion.

Religion, of course, requires pious practices and unavoidably has signs, but it transcends these practices and signs. It involves doctrines and a whole gamut of things, but it is not just doctrines and things.

Thus, in the Bible we often see our Lord taking exception to the ways of many leading religious men of the time. “They have ears, but don’t hear. They have eyes, but don’t see.”

And again, we hear our Lord say to these religious men: “You have made void the commandment of God for your tradition. Hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying: this people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” (Mt 15,6-8).

Authentic religion is when we keep a vital and abiding connection with God, making ourselves always open to God’s grace and action, and allowing God to transform us thoroughly, in every aspect and dimension of our being.

A bastardized religion is when we keep some signs of our relationship with
God, but unwilling to go all the way, and maintaining some limits as to what God can do with our lives. We can have the form of it, but not the substance.

For true religion to prosper, we need to undergo continuing conversion, because this is the only way we can keep that abiding relationship with God. Human as we are, we tend to say enough to God’s work in us. When we have another conversion, we allow God to continue.

Thus, we should be ready to pray at the bottom of our heart, where we can
really be with God even when all else in our human condition seems to fail, “Lord, create in me a new heart, give me a new spirit.”

I think this is the ultimate thing we can ask from God. With this openness,
we allow God’s grace to reanimate us. What is dead comes to life again. What is wounded is somehow healed. What is soiled is purified.

Religion’s carcass resurrects!