Irreverence
- Michael Haldas
- Dec 12, 2019
- 3 min read
“…reverence is the greatest virtue because it attracts the Grace of God…If someone neglects the little things the danger is that he’ll start neglecting the greater, holier things. And then, without realizing it, rationalizing it all to himself—‘ This is nothing, that doesn’t matter’—he can end up, God forbid, totally neglecting the things of God and becoming irreverent, arrogant, and atheistic.” (St. Paisios of the Holy Mountain)
“Many people today treat religious ideas and speech with flippancy and irreverence. Others assume that religion is merely an ideology that supports the social order. Few stand before the Lord in awe, dread, and fear. In light of these trends, let us examine ourselves! If we abandon a soul-shaking “fear of the Lord,” we adroitly remove any thought of God from our life and-death concerns, and even from consciousness itself. We consider affairs that come from “the hand of the Lord” (Acts 11:21) as passing events along our journey through bland existence.” (Dynamis 4/20/2018)
“Many a searching, although blind, mind has mistaken religion for some philosophical system. Too irreverent and profane handling of religion often makes of it a science, a pastime study. Now and again we come by the way of such who make religion a speculation; yes, and a speculation without a question as to its nature. Do you not know that religion is one of the qualities of your soul? An essential substance, I might say, to be plain, of your self-recognizing, self-satisfied, living spirit? Those who are convinced of this fact are not indifferent to religion. Indifferentism has no place in the serious life of one who seeks to be right-minded.” (St. Sebastian Dabovich)
“The Ten Commandments which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai are the foundation upon which rests the structure of our civilization. These laws of God are timeless and ageless. There never will be an age or a civilization which can without peril to itself say that it is all right to lie, to steal, to bear false witness, to commit adultery, or to kill…The Third Commandment says simply: You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. What does this mean? This Commandment simply forbids all irreverence, for when we lose respect for God, we lose respect for ourselves who were made in His image.” (Fr. Michael J. Buben)
“How do we cultivate a sensitivity to the spiritual reality that pervades everything?... learning to pay attention to the present spiritual reality in the Divine Liturgy, we learn how to notice and attend to the divine presence in the rest of our lives. Another important way to develop spiritual sensitivity is to cultivate reverence. To be reverent is to respond to holy things as if they really are holy. I often don’t do this. I often, for example, come into church in a hurry. I often walk into a room with an icon and do not even in the slightest way reverence the icon. Sometimes I am quite irreverent in the presence of things that have been liturgically set apart as holy. If I can be irreverent even before what is obviously holy, how do I expect ever to become sensitive enough to reverence God’s holy presence in my brother and sister and even yet in all creation?” (Fr. Michael Gillis)
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