Many Make Themselves Their Own Gods
The Most Holy Trinity
“O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!”Ps. 8
Nowadays, a culture apart from God – or rather, without God – has become normalized. People live as if God did not exist, and therefore each person deifies themselves and does whatever they want with their life, as if there were no God to obey and follow, and so they deprive themselves from the greatest treasure a man can have on earth: the true God with us.
Many live under this deception, and also under the illusion of believing in God, but in their own way, which ends up being the same as what was just said: the individual becomes the only voice that decides what to accept and what to reject, what is right and wrong — in short, they make themselves into gods, creating a faith tailored to their liking, inventing their own religion, and molding God to their convenience.
Many say, “Of course God exists, and the Bible is His Word. I believe the temple is His house,” but “I don’t need to go to the temple, because God is everywhere.” The atmosphere is full of water, but if you don’t go to a fountain, you won’t drink. And they add, “We agree with all that, but religion isn’t necessary – it often distances one from God; it imposes rules, rituals, and myths. They tell you to pray something 30 times, or 40 times for something else. That at 3 o’clock you must pray …
THESE PEOPLE CLAIM TO BELIEVE IN THE BIBLE AND TO REJECT RELIGION, but in reality, they are rejecting false concepts of religion, or certain religious practices that true religion does not actually impose. If they truly believed in the Bible, they would accept the religion from which the Bible comes and to which the Bible itself invites us. Without religion, there would be no Bible, no one to speak of God in the world, and no coherent or unified way to believe in Him.
RELIGION IS NECESSARY, and it is a natural consequence of living out what Jesus and the Apostles taught – the result of the guidance of the Holy Spirit that Christ gave to His Church, founded upon the rock of Peter. That is to say, anyone who properly studies the Bible will come to understand and recognize the importance of the Church that Christ Himself founded on Peter and the apostles. Therefore, it is inconsistent and illogical to say, “I believe in Jesus, but not in the Church or in religion,” because these come from Him — in fact, He became one with the church, as we see in many passages, for example: “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me.”
RELIGION IS NOT THE CARICATURE SOME MAKE IT OUT TO BE IN ORDER TO REJECT IT, full of irrational practices and rites. It is the way of living the faith with one’s brothers and sisters, preserving its unity and purity — because it’s easy to be deceived or to distort the faith.
THE CHURCH AND RELIGION ARE LIKE THE CONTAINER, necessary to hold the contents of faith and spirituality. Without that container, the contents cannot exist. Otherwise, it would be self-deception — or a deception from the evil one — because Christ guaranteed the guidance of His Spirit only to His Church.
Weekly Readings
Sunday: Prv 8:22-31/Ps 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 (2a)/Rom 5:1-5/Jn 16:12-15
Monday: 2 Cor 6:1-10/Ps 98:1, 2b, 3ab, 3cd-4/Mt 5:38-42
Tuesday: 2 Cor 8:1-9/Ps 146:2, 5-6ab, 6c-7, 8-9a/Mt 5:43-48
Wednesday: 2 Cor 9:6-11/Ps 112:1bc-2, 3-4, 9/Mt 6:1-6, 16-18
Thursday: 2 Cor 11:1-11/Ps 111:1b-2, 3-4, 7-8/Mt 6:7-15
Friday: 2 Cor 11:18, 21-30/Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7/Mt 6:19-23
Saturday: 2 Cor 12:1-10/Ps 34:8-9, 10-11, 12-13/Mt 6:24-34
Next Sunday: Gn 14:18-20/Ps 110:1, 2, 3, 4 (4b)/1 Cor 11:23-26 / Lk 9:11b-17
