Horizontal and Vertical (Life/Faith)
“One of the parishioners of my church is a man…I knew him for several years. He would come to confession about once a year, right before Lent, and his confession went something like this: “Father, I repent, I am a sinner, but I don’t have any major sins—I live like everyone else.” I tried to talk to him, asking if he read the Gospel or prayed at home. He would shrug and reply, “No time, father—work, family, this and that. But I try to be a good person.” And I could see he was
Rules and Legalism
“Why does adherence to traditions—even the most ancient and beautiful ones—not automatically make a person a believer? And where is the very line that marks the point at which a ritual ceases to be a bridge to God and turns into a façade concealing emptiness, or, even worse, a complete mismatch between life and the ideals that are professed? To begin with, any religion—and Christianity is no exception—has two components: form and content. The form consists precisely of tradit
Spiritual Life
“And truly, we ourselves are not at all strangers to the roaring winds and crashing waves of the storm of this temporal life. We live in what many now term “the attention economy.” We are surrounded on all sides by the most powerful corporations and the most advanced technology in the history of the world, all cleverly preying on our psyches to keep our attention constantly fixed on the desires and cares of this world. From morning till night, we are assaulted by advertisemen