I’m not much of a Facebook fan –
I subscribe to it because it’s the only way I can keep track of my extended
family’s activities – so when I stumbled on one of those social media quizzes
that purport to demonstrate one’s expertise (“You
know you are a native of X if you can correctly answer these 10 questions…”),
I surprised myself by being lured into taking one designed to test how much I
knew about the Catholic religion. With questions like:
·
What was the name of the last Pope?
·
What color represents Ordinary Time on the
Liturgical Calendar?
·
When does Advent occur?
I quickly realized that it was
not a serious exercise in religious knowledge. Needless to say, I answered all
the questions correctly, producing this breathless statement by the author of the
test: “You aren’t one of those people who calls themselves Catholic without
knowing the religion really well – you know all there is to know!”
Would that
were true.
Like all of the world’s great
religions, Catholicism seeks to steer a line between knowing its principles and
practicing them…between the facts of the faith and spirituality. It’s not
unusual for many, if not all, churchgoers to err on one side over the other. I
imagine most of us know someone who likes to assert: “I’m spiritual but not
religious.” I suppose that statement is intended to mean that the individual
eschews the institutional world of religion in favor of a vague sense of being
“spiritual.” The problem with that approach is its assumption that the terms
“spiritual” and “religious” can be separated from each other. At some level,
someone who is spiritual (acting out of a belief in a divine being) is, to a
greater or lesser extent, also religious (understanding a system of behaviors
which flow from a belief in a divine being). One may only weakly follow the
tenets of organized religion or even reject
specific religious institutions and their practices, but being spiritual and
religious go hand-in-hand.
As a Catholic school, La Salle,
for example, emphasizes the importance of being both spiritual and religious. I am fond of saying that,
at La Salle, we welcome students of all – and no – faiths out of our firm
understanding that Catholic values can make an important contribution to the
moral (spiritual) development of all adolescents. This is why all of our
students are expected to study Religion each year; and it is why we expect all
students to participate in our various Service programs. Knowing the Gospel and
practicing its exhortations (“So in everything, do to others what you would have
them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”) provide an
essential foundation for negotiating the unstructured, often chaotic, world our
students will inherit when they leave us.
Christian churches began the
season of Advent last Sunday. It is typically understood as a time to prepare
for the Christmas celebration on December 25th. Regular churchgoers
know that it is more than just a time of preparation. It is equally a time for
us to be both spiritual and religious – to remind ourselves of the need to
consciously embrace the values that are continually transforming the world for
the better as well as to participate in religious activities which focus our
attention on how God can give us the grace to become better persons. Near the
front entrance to the School is our version of the Advent wreath, containing
three purple candles and one rose candle. A purple candle is lit on the first
two Sundays of Advent. The rose candle is lit on the third Sunday (symbolizing
that the period of preparation for Christmas is half over) and the final,
purple candle is lit on the Sunday before Christmas. On Christmas day, the
colored candles are replaced with white ones to symbolize the entrance of God
into human history.
I love this beautiful religious
tradition because it simply and elegantly reminds me of how important it is for
me to live my life as if God were about to arrive any day. It subtly reinforces
the facts of my faith and encourages me to embrace them as guiding principles
for how to live my life. Saint Anselm captured this dynamic when he adopted the
motto: Faith seeking understanding.
So while a perfect score on a
Facebook quiz won’t impress even the most casual of Catholics, it reminds me –
as does the season of Advent – that it is important to be both spiritual and
religious, especially now when our fragile world is beset by so many seemingly
intractable challenges.
