Why go to church if God is in the soul ?

[rep2k 2477]

Acolyte Erhard’s Thesis on

Why go to church if God is in the soul 

 

Written on 7th of the Sigismund’s End, 1849

 

Today, many people, although they do not renounce their faith, although they acknowledge God, have nothing in common with church life, they believe that they have God in their souls, and that He should be sought right there, and not in a temple built by human hands. But why not exercise faith in practice, simply living by conscience, trying to keep the commandments, doing good deeds? Many believe that it is much more important to be a good person than to go to church regularly.

 

What does it mean to be a good person? It’s just a relative term, all people are good. God created everything and everyone well, and man is the crown of creation, its most perfect part. Man can be like God, he is the image of God - every man! Regardless of whether he is aware of it or not, whether he is trying to find that image of God in himself and realize it, to get closer to God, to look like Him, to become born to Him. That is what the Lord expects of us - to become like Him. And in that sense - every man is good, and not only good, every man is beautiful, man is perfection.

 

Someone can be, for example, an exceptional doctor and a vicious family man, unbearable in personal relationships. One can be ready to sacrifice oneself for one's homeland, and at the same time be cruel and ruthless towards the enemy. Is that a good man? Who is it good for? The Church does not call us to be good, moreover, the desire to "be good" is very dangerous. The desire to be good to every man is not love for man, but man-pleasing and hypocrisy. A person adapts to another, in order to leave an impression on him, and in that way he provokes a good opinion of himself, a lot of mental strength is lost, and that is a terrible thing.

 

We are not called to be good, but holy, and that is a completely different measure of the human spirit. From the point of view of the philosophy that can fit into this story of ours, people can be divided into righteous and sinners. The righteous are those who consider themselves sinners, and the true sinners are those who consider themselves righteous and good people. That is why they do not even see their shortcomings, they do not feel how far they are from God, from love. Because we should always feel a great hunger for love.

 

Very scary thinking and a very petty-bourgeois notion that it is enough to be a good man. But, thank God, He helps us to feel our shortcomings through some circumstances, when we see that we have no love for people, we can resist some temptations, falls - this is also God's grace, and thus the most important sin is recognized - and that is complacency, self-love. It is the opposite of love. Love is - dissatisfaction with oneself, awareness of one's own nothingness, and holy are the people who live their whole lives in the consciousness of their own nothingness, and because of that, God's greatness becomes available to them.

 

We need to explain to ourselves what the Church is in general. This is the question of a worldly man when the Church is something incomprehensible, foreign, repulsive, far from his real life, and that is why he does not even enter it. The real answer is how no one could have answered better throughout the entire history of mankind: "The Church is the body and home of God" and adds "the pillar and confirmation of the truth". He further adds that we are all "limbs of the body", that is, parts of that organism, particles, cells, it can be said. There is already a very deep secret here, it can no longer be something repulsive - organism, body, blood, soul, functioning of the whole body and self-subordination, self-organization of those cells. We come to the question of the attitude towards faith in God, a worldly and ecclesiastical man. The Church is not only a legal institute and a social organization, but it is a mysterious phenomenon, a community of people, the Body and the House of God.

 

---

 

"Man finds it hard to get what he wants because he does not want the best.

God finds it hard to give because He would give the best and man will not take it."

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If a man came to church only because someone advised him - you are bad, you are sick, come and everything will be fine in your life - it is deeply contrary to the canonist attitude towards life in general, such a model of accepting yourself and your place in life. Maybe he will stay with that, of course, unfortunately.

 

Even with an atheist, who is a canonist in his essence and carries love and joy in himself - there is also a lack of understanding. It is an atheism of illusion. When you start talking to such a man, you realize that he is also a believing man, and that his life is essentially a church, that is, he is lovingly connected with other people. But he did not come up with the most important thought. He lives, obeying, not thinking, but his heart, intuition. Such people often suffer a lot in life, because they cannot accept many things, they try to separate light from darkness, wheat from weeds, love from hypocrisy and they cannot do that, very often feeling the futility of everything they do. Communion with God is inaccessible to them, and they do not have that fullness of existence. They have love as an activity, but love as the fullness of life is inaccessible to them.

 

When you love yourself, it is not love, it is closing in on yourself, it is almost a disease. And that is why in our time, when many people think that it is possible to live without the Church, we see such a pandemic of psychological pathologies. Especially in states, where religion is completely clearly separated from the state, where the tradition of communion with people has been destroyed, where the life of the people has been disrupted, and people are divided into islands of individual lives. One should be responsible for oneself and for others. To be responsible for oneself only in front of oneself is - tragedy, because of which sooner or later we feel our limitations and incompleteness, our helplessness and some weakness. And every man feels the need for forgiveness, because everyone, no matter how beautiful he was, some thoughts arise in the secret parts of the soul, because man is not ideal.

 

When you feel that an innocent God takes our guilt upon himself, what can appear but gratitude? Love is when a man is ashamed of himself and other people, he feels the evil they do as their own. He feels that another man has done something, but that also concerns me because I am also a man. That is the fullness of ecclesiology, that is life in the Church.

[LightTheTrainer 464]

Jordan Cardinal Jorenus, though no longer acting as the Prelate of the Priesthood, had theses to accept for his own diocese nonetheless. And thus, in the midst of his relocation back to his fellow Weefolk, he read over Erhard's thesis. Certainly, it was a skillful presentation of his thoughts, though the Patriarch could not help but disagree with the ideas written. In spite of such, he still gave his approval, the mark of ink splattered onto the page.

[Jentos 6870]

"This touches on interesting points. This is wise, yes." A monk mumbled to himself as he glossed over the thesis amidst a pile of documents he had unceremoniously piled from the Canon archives. 

[Tulan 443]

"If more people shared your view, rather than follow blind indoctrination of religious institutions. Perhaps the World would be a better place for all, no matter what religion you preach, or if you like most see that genuinely good deeds in your daily life amounts to more than a life of servitude to the church. More individual thinkers like you should be welcome."  Sigmar Baruch looked over the missive with a smile.

[KaiserJacobII 1048]

To the devout Brother Erhard,

 

After reading your Thesis I have decided to approve it. It is very well written and wise, and while I do not agree with everything you had to say, this doesn't matter. Please come find myself or another Clergyman of some authority to be ordained as a Priest of the Canon, and begin your journey.

 

GOD bless,

Francis Cardinal Albarosa