Good morning Papa!
Good morning son!
Grateful for Fr J’s words about spirituality and religion yesterday.
Yes son, he drew it out well. I made all of you hybrids of spirit and matter. Every living soul has both. So really everyone is spiritual whether they realize it or not. One can neglect their spiritual hunger and ignore and abuse it until it is nearly dying. Or one can pay attention to their hunger and mistakenly try to feed it by dousing their bodies with all manner of things. Or one can actually feed that spiritual hunger with inappropriate things that are toxic to it. Last and best of all one might feed that spiritual hunger with helpful actions and thoughts and a focus on the transcendentals… what is true, good and beautiful.
Religion is simply disciplined spirituality. It exercises one’s spiritual muscles daily until a deep sense of what it means to be a decent human being is developed. The best religions develop this by connecting with me, the true God of all. The very best religion actually connects with me not just in spirit but also in the flesh and blood in the Eucharist and are thereby transformed by my body, blood, soul and divinity from the inside out.
Also remember that Fr. J drew a distinction between the definitions of discipline. I am not actively punitive as most of you believe, you’re all pretty good at punishing and destroying yourselves so my function is more one of mercifully preventing your self annihilation.
Consider the Webster definitions:
1: to punish or penalize for the sake of enforcing obedience and perfecting moral character
2: to train or develop by instruction and exercise especially in self-control
3a: to bring (a group) under control - discipline troops
3b:: to impose order upon - serious writers discipline and refine their writing styles
You see son, while I may allow some of the consequences of your own self-destructive tendencies to take their full effect (trust me, if I allowed them all to get through to you, humans would have long since ceased to exist!), even then I only allow those consequences in love and hope that they may move you back toward me, the source of all goodness and life.
With that in mind, you can see that definition 2 above is more in line how you should view your approach to spiritual realities. Like the best coach imaginable (yes Ted Lasso came to mind) the best religion provides disciplined instruction for you in appropriate body-soul exercises toward living a fully integrated life as the beautiful marriage of matter and spirt that you are.
Yes Papa this is a right and nuanced approach that makes very good sense. Thanks Papa!
You’re welcome son, I love you!
Love you too Papa!
Amen
