God yes but religion no?

WE have to be clear about this. We cannot have God without
religion. They go together as far as we are concerned. Religion is
precisely our relationship with God. It’s an unavoidable thing,
whether we like it or not. It has its laws and requirements that flow
from God himself and that ought to be followed. Without religion, what
would God be to us?

            There are some people who profess that they believe in God
but not in religion. Perhaps what they mean is that they indeed
believe in God but do not want to be hampered by certain
“requirements” that religion demands from them. Or they do not want
what they call as “organized religion” with its doctrine and
practices.

            It’s like saying that they want a God that is according to
their own liking, their own designs, their own terms. They do not want
to be told what to do in their own so-called relation with God.

            Of course, they are quick to say that these “requirements”
are simply man-made, or are mere legalisms that really have nothing to
do with the essence of our relation with God. They seem to be the only
ones capable of knowing how their relation with God should be. No one
should intervene.

            Worse, they are quick to point out the many
inconsistencies that people who occupy positions in the Church and
those who call themselves as pious, holy and religious make, to
justify their rejection of their own idea of religion. They are
deflecting the issue, as if the mistakes and sins of these men and
women detract from the objective need for religion.

            This is unfortunate because such understanding of God and
religion is fatally flawed. While religion is personal in the sense
that it is unique to each individual, it is also personal in the sense
that it is by definition relational and subject to the laws of God and
the laws that the divinely founded Church stipulates.

            To be personal is not only to be a unique individual but
also to be related to God and to everybody else. A person is always a
religious and social being. That is how a person is wired, and in
these relations, there are universal God-given laws that need to be
followed.

            Of course, these laws are articulated in human terms and
therefore cannot fully capture the mysterious laws of God. That is why
they need to be updated, improved, polished, enriched, etc. as time
goes on. But they have to be followed just the same, unless it’s clear
that a particular law does not apply to a concrete situation of the
person.

            Some people say that they believe in God but they do not
want to do anything with the Church. But God without the Church is not
God. He would be a man-made god. The bishop-martyr St. Cyprian
expresses this truth well: “You cannot have God as your Father if you
do not have the Church as your mother.”

When the ego gets bruised

HOW would we know if we have a big ego? One way is to see
how we react when our ego get bruised, that is, when we are insulted,
mocked, ridiculed, humiliated, or when we commit mistakes, suffer
failures, get misunderstood, etc.

            If we happen to feel very bad because of these
occurrences, we already have some signs that indicate we have a big
ego. When we spend a lot of time lamenting and complaining about them,
brooding and ruing—that’s another sign we can have a big ego.

            It can mean that we do not want to suffer, as if suffering
has no purpose at all in this life. It can mean that our understanding
of our life and its purpose is very limited, and is almost exclusively
tied to good things only and nice feelings, victories and successes.

            It can mean that we are hooked to a very subtle anomaly
called perfectionism or triumphalism. The disorder of perfectionism
usually afflicts some so-called “good” and “pious” people, those who
are regarded as rightists and conservatives. They are usually seen as
being very strict and fastidious, but the truth is they often have a
scrupulous conscience that leads them to be narrow-minded and rigid in
their ways.

            They are prone to make rash judgments and end up bitter
and irritable. It would be no wonder that they feel isolated like an
island detached from the continent, and any show of sociability is
simply just that, a show, an act, a performance, devoid of the proper
substance and spirit.

            Another sign of a big ego is when we start calculating
what we have done to others who seem not to appreciate our good deeds
and in fact appear to be ungrateful and even hostile to us. In other
words, we keep some kind of scoring card, which means that our good
deeds are not actually done gratuitously. They go with a price.

            This is truly unfortunate because the patience and
endurance, which we so far may have gone through, have broken. We did
not make the full course. We did not go the distance.

            Still another sign is when we find it hard to forgive and
forget, and to move on. What is worse is when we have great urges to
make revenge. In other words, we are keeping grudges and resentment.
We wallow in bitterness and hatred.

            We should do all to fight against our tendency to develop
a big ego. And the way to do it is simply to identify ourselves more
and more with Christ who went through all the abominations of human
misdeeds and yet continues to love us, to forgive us and to be
magnanimous.

            It would be good if we are constantly meditating on the
example of Christ, especially on his passion and death, and to pray
for grace so we can manage to contain our egos and be truly humble. We
cannot deny that deep within us still lurks the ‘old man’ whose ego
just wants to grow and grow endlessly.

By deceiving others, we deceive ourselves

WE have to be most careful in handling the truth. We
already have been amply warned that when we play around with it, it
will also make its sweet revenge on us in ways that we may not even
notice.

            A quote from St. Augustine’s Confession expresses this
well: “They love truth when she shines on them; and hate her when she
rebukes them. And since they are not willing to be deceived, but do
wish to deceive, they love truth when she reveals herself and hate her
when she reveals them.


            “On this account, she will so repay them that those who
are unwilling to be exposed by her she will indeed expose against
their will, and yet will not disclose herself to them.”

            St. Paul already made reference to the grave consequences
of deception. “Evil men and impostors,” he said, “will proceed from
bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” (2 Tim 3,13)

            The Book of Proverbs more or less say the same point: “His
own iniquities will capture the wicked, and he will be held with the
cords of his sin.” (5,22)

            It’s about time we review the crucial relationship between
God and our capacity to stick to the truth or to distort it.

            Nowadays, with the plethora of data and information, we
have to remind ourselves constantly that truthfulness is not a matter
of simply conforming these data and pieces of information to our own
designs. We need to process these raw data by leavening them with the
love of God and submitting them to God’s will and designs.

            To put it bluntly, we can only be in the truth when we are
with God. Outside of him, let’s wish ourselves sheer luck, because the
most likely thing to happen is to slip from the truth. It´s like
chasing the wind. For all the excitement and advantages a Godless
pursuit of truth gives, everything will just turn out to be vanity.

            With this new phenomenon about the so-called fake news,
which is actually a rehash of the old evil tactics of disinformation
and misinformation, of giving partisan spins to issues, we should feel
the urgent need to be united to God to be really truthful and fair in
resolving our problems.

            Truthfulness therefore starts with our relationship with
God, and with how well we maintain that relationship. This is
something we have to realize more deeply, since very often we get
contented with mere human criteria for truthfulness, that are often
subjective, incomplete, imperfect, and vulnerable to be maneuvered and
manipulated.

            When we are not with God, then we can very easily play
around with the facts and data, and pass them around as truth, but
serving some self-interest instead of the common good, for example.

            We justify such behaviour as a privilege of our freedom.
But would that be freedom when one is plunging himself to the bondage
of untruth and deception? Would that be freedom when it is exercised
to violate the will of God who is the giver, the pattern and end of
freedom?