I hate Religion but love Jesus?

"The Spirit of Jesus is introduced into our earthly life, not through the medium of individuals endowed with special charismatical gifts, but through the ministry of an ordered hierarchy, which being appointed by Jesus to be the structural basis of the community, creates, supports and develops it. So the Church possesses the Spirit of Christ, not as a many of single individuals, nor as a sum of spiritual personalities, but as the compact, ordered unity of the faithful, as a community that transcends the individual personalities and expresses itself in a sacred hierarchy. This organized unity, this community, as germinally given with the Head, Christ, and depending upon His institution, is a fundamental datum of Christianity, not a thing created by the voluntary or forced association of the faithful, not a mere secondary and derivative thing depending on the good pleasure of Christians, but a thing which, in the divine plan of salvation, is in its essence antecedent to any Christian personality and is to that extent a supra-personal thing, a comprehensive unity, which does not presuppose Christian personalities, but itself creates and produces them." The Spirit of Catholicism by Karl Adams

Teach Me Your Ways O Lord

We are Christians, followers of Christ and in the biblical sense, followers of Christ are disciples. We live the reality that it is Christ who calls us and we are here because we have answered that call. We have come to believe and see and our coming and believing lead us to transformation.

We believe that the teachings and life of Christ are the best way to live and in here we become who God intends us to be – to become the best version of ourselves. To become the best not as the world sees us with its own secular standards of being “best” but to become the best as God sees us.

In our culture today that puts emphasis on appearance and entertainment. We have come to realize that we are lacking and seeing the shortage of spiritual heroes or models.

The models that our culture exults are those who have achieved their American and/or Canadian dreams. That the summit of all our dreams seem to be based on the success in one’s profession or their financial lives. Most people will work tirelessly to be able to afford their dream house, land their dream job and buy a new car every year only to find out that 
after reaching one dream to the other - that we are still lacking.

This could probably be summed up with what St. Augustine has said – “our hearts are restless until they rest in God.” Because deep inside us, we yearn for love and to be loved and our true longing is to belong to God and feel the blessings of being his child.

This should be our ultimate dream – our heavenly dream? Have we not dreamed of going to heaven and be with God for eternity? If we understand these questions, it should lead us to shift our focus and make that the ultimate goal of our life.

Each year, we are given a symbolic opportunity to mark the passing of the old and the beginning of a new better life. But the renewal of one’s self and the growth of our character do not happen with the change of calendar year. They require acknowledgment that there is something wrong with our philosophies or our understanding on how life should be lived. They require a decision to change those ways and return to God. To realize that all this time - I have been dreaming the wrong dream.

This year, starting today, we can decide to do something new. Whether we’ve ever done it before or not, we can set ourselves to becoming what God intended us to be. If we follow the teachings of Christ, if we embody the character qualities, the virtues, that he laid out for us, and if we make the Kingdom of God our primary goal, then with the help of the Holy Spirit we will move toward fulfilling the nature that God created in us. We will flourish. We will be happy. Because we will have learned that happiness itself is not the goal but is a side effect of the goal that God set for each of us.

In the great commission, Jesus asked all of us to go to the ends of the earth – not as theologians or bible scholars – but to be a witness. People want to see someone. Gandhi, when asked why he did not become a Christian, his answer was “I did not meet one!” I know by experience that the presence of God in our innermost interior calls us to move beyond the surface of our humanity. We need to learn to listen and have the courage to respond.

Be a witness!

The Wonder of Incarnation by: St. Gregory Nazianzen

The very Son of God, older than the ages, the invisible, the incomprehensible, the incorporeal, the beginning of beginning, the light of light, the fountain of life and immortality, the image of the archetype, the immovable seal, the perfect likeness, the definition and word of the Father: he it is who comes to his own image and takes our nature for the good of our nature, and unites himself to an intelligent soul for the good of my soul, to purify like by like.

He takes to himself all that is human, except for sin. He was conceived by the Virgin Mary, who had been first prepared in soul and body by the Spirit; his coming to birth had to be treated with honor, virginity had to receive new honor. He comes forth as God, in the human nature he has taken, one being, made of two contrary elements, flesh and spirit. Spirit gave divinity, flesh received it.

He who makes rich is made poor; he takes on the poverty of my flesh, that I may gain the riches of his divinity. He who is full is made empty; he is emptied for a brief space of his glory, that I may share in his fullness. What is this wealth of goodness? What is this mystery that surrounds me? I received the likeness of God, but failed to keep it. He takes on my flesh, to bring salvation to the image, immortality to the flesh. He enters into a second union with us, a union far more wonderful than the first.

Holiness had to be brought to man by the humanity assumed by one who was God, so that God might overcome the tyrant by force and so deliver us and lead us back to himself through the mediation of his Son. The Son arranged this for the honor of the Father, to whom the Son is clearly obedient in all things.

The Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, came in search of the straying sheep to the mountains and hills on which you used to offer sacrifice. When he found it, he took it on the shoulders that bore the wood of the cross, and led it back to the life of heaven.

Christ, the light of all lights, follows John, the lamp that goes before him. The Word of God follows the voice in the wilderness; the bridegroom follows the bridegroom’s friend, who prepares a worthy people for the Lord by cleansing them by water in preparation for the Spirit.

We need God to take our flesh and die, that we might live. We have died with him, that we may be purified. We have risen again with him, because we have died with him. We have been glorified with him, because we have risen again with him.