I think community that is not built on God is toxic and idolatrous.
That is true, but a God-centred community doesn’t mean that all that they do together is pray. It’s by necessity people need to eat, clean, do maintenance, and exercise.
I think when Christ is not really the center of what is going on then other things become the center, like business, and sports and such. I think much of this is deeply sinful and also a great distraction.
I think what you’re doing here is setting up a false dichotomy, where it’s either Christ or other stuff. You aren’t leaving open the option that Christ comes into the other parts of your life, such as Athletes in Action in sports (yes I know it’s an Evangelical group, but it’s still putting Christ in sports).
I was unable to find a single priest who even practiced contemplative prayer anywhere near me, not a single priest who spent serious time with God and who knew the deep ways of prayer. Now maybe the church does not feel that this is necessary for their priests and if that is the case who am I to argue against it but I cannot help to feel that the often lukewarm devotion to God found in the clergy directly affects the parish and makes them lukewarm too.
I hope I’m just misinterpreting here.
When I hear someone talking about “Deep ways of prayer”, my brain immediately goes to Gnosticism. I’m not saying that about you, but you might want to pick a better way of explaining it.
I’m quite hurt by your accusation of “lukewarm” devotion to God. I know many priests who you would probably consider “lukewarm” who are very devoted people, but also enjoy other subjects of conversation.
Another fear of some priests is trying not to force their spirituality on the people. Priests have certain personal devotions too, and they don’t want to make it seem like everyone else has to have
these devotions. There are many orthodox spiritualities to be found within Catholicism.
I met many people from that parish who were secretly reading other religious material, secretly going to other meditation groups and such.
Priests can make the invitation for people to follow Christ, but he isn’t going to (nor does a priest have time, to be frank) to check up on every parishioner to check on what they’re reading. At some point, people have to take personal responsibility.
Now I believe in Christ and I believe that contemplative prayer is a more accurate way to get that deeper life but it is not being offered to them. I feel that contemplative prayer is a deep need for many people and has the potential to heal and transform many people but they are going to need a community for that and where are they going to get it? Do they matter? Do you think that the people who are leaving that Catholic faith in droves are not seeking elsewhere?
You have to be careful here. Contemplative prayer is indeed one type of prayer life, but that doesn’t mean that everyone needs to follow this one type of prayer. Like I said above, there are different spiritualities that one can follow within Catholicism.
I am lucky because I found a trappist monk who was qualified to be my spiritual director but what about the rest who although craving something deeper don’t even know it exists because the priest is to busy drinking beer and talking about sports (I don’t mean that as an insult and you can insert other distractions from prayer here if you like)? At the very end of my RCIA training someone asked the question "this all sounds wonderful but how do I actually get spiritual, how do I get closer to God in prayer and the priest actually said “we aren’t trained for that.”
Well that’s the question, isn’t it? How does one get closer to God?
I’m going to go all philosophical for a moment if you don’t mind. Largely on the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard. I tend to agree with some of Kierkegaard’s ideas, and one of the big ones is that you can’t teach people faith. It’s not something that you can pass down from parents to children. Certainly you can teach people
about faith: You can tell them who Jesus was and about the Apostles and the early Church but that’s not teaching faith, that’s history. There’s a huge, chasm-sized difference between knowing
about something (or someone) and knowing someone. The first way (about something) is merely about an object, while the second is on an intimate level. Faith is something that is personally experienced and comes as a grace from God. It’s not something we can cause or give on our own.
If someone thinks they can just tell someone “this is faith and this is how you get it”, then they’re just wrong.
So how do you get closer to God in prayer? The answer is already in the question: “In prayer”. Our relationship with God is just like any other relationship, and it will be improved through communication (prayer). The only thing the priest could have really said was “Just keep praying”, which the person probably would have thought was a stupid and unhelpful answer (which is why the priest probably didn’t say it), but it’s really the only answer.
It makes me wonder though (back to the original question) why you don’t like to socialize with people? It is in those points that you get to share your faith with others and give them an example. But, faith sharing does not come right away. Something I learned from CCO (here in Canada) is the idea that first you have to establish relationships with people before you can talk about faith. Once they see you as a full person and not just as a label (“the God guy”) is when they themselves will start to become open to receiving the grace of faith from God.
scares many away. I love to go to mass everyday. most days I can, because there is no better way to begin the day than with Jesus and worship~
