Religion
is the relationship and communication of man with God. By its very nature, the
spirit of man turns towards God, Who is his origin and his last and final goal.
Between man and God there exists a strong mystical bond, in just the way a bond
exists between a child and his father or his mother. God loves man constantly,
always and forever, and man in his natural state seeks God's love and offers to
Him his obedience. Man wants to do God's will.
This
is the natural state of things. And this is the way things were before the
disobedience and fall of man. After that disobedience and fall this
relationship of man to God weakened. Now a special kind of warmth and cultivation
is needed from the side of God. And so religion, which is natural to man,
requires cultivation--cultivation by God, because it is God Who knows how to
and is able to perform this cultivation correctly--in order to bring fallen man
back to the high position he formerly held and the level that is properly his.
Unfortunately, man frequently puts himself and his own actions in the way and
becomes an obstacle to God's work.
Man
must have good will and be receptive to the actions and gifts of God. When man
puts himself in the way with his ego and pride, he spoils things. The natural
tendency of man to love God and to accept His gifts is suppressed and almost
erased. He himself becomes the creator of a distorted religion in which truth
is mixed with deception. And so we have the phenomenon of there being so many
religions, religions made by man and, because they are man-made, not perfect.
This
is the major difference between the Christian religion and other religions. The
other religions begin from man and go towards God. The Christian religion
begins from God and descends to man. In the other religions man tries to find
God. In Christianity, God becomes God-man and reveals Himself to man. Since no
one can know God as well as God knows Himself, when God reveals Himself we have
the real truth and not deception. What we should do, then, is to accept the
truth that God offers us.
But
even in this respect, unfortunately, man frequently puts himself in the way. He
is taught and he teaches things that are not divinely revealed. He becomes a
heretic. This designation belongs to those who either create doctrines and
teachings that are not found in divine revelation or who reject the doctrines
and teachings that are found in it. For example, in the first case we have the Roman
Catholics with their doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope. In the second
case we have the Protestants, who teach that Holy Communion is not the real
Body and Blood of Christ but symbolizes the Body and Blood of Christ even
though Christ Himself said, "This is my Body" and "This is my
Blood."
We
said above that religion is natural to man. We may say that it is a universal
phenomenon. Plutarch says, "When you travel you find unwalled cities,
uncultivated, without a King, without palaces, without money, without even a
need for currency, without a number of theatres or athletic stadiums. But no
one sees a town or a city without a Holy Temple or without God."
It
is possible, however, for someone to observe that what Plutarch is saying does
not apply to us today; until very recently, if you went to Albania you saw
neither churches nor God. And whoever said that was correct, but only
superficially so. No one knew what the Albanians actually believed inside. They
could not express themselves. Everything was overshadowed with fear and
oppressed with slavery. Religion had been abolished by law. This also happened
in China between 1966 and 1979. Things have changed there. They are changing in
Albania. In spite of this, the Marxist preaching of atheism suppresses the
natural religious tendency and destroys the natural state of man; without doubt
it hurts religion and man because it removes man from his natural environment.
I asked Fr. Chrysostom, a Yugoslavian monk, "Fr. Chrysostom, does religion
have freedom in Yugoslavia?" and he replied to me, "It has limited
freedom, but what good does that do? Through atheism the Communists have ruined
and perverted the people and someone will have to start from zero."
Lord Jesus Christ, Who became man and revealed Yourself as God and Who
revealed Your Father and Your Holy Spirit to us sinners, think not of our sins
nor those of any man. Send Your Holy Spirit as a life-creating dew to touch and
to open all of our hearts for us to accept Your Divine Revelation and to live
the natural life of religion. Make us worship You correctly, make our soul seek
You, our heart beat for You, our breath praise You. The bad, make good. The
distorters, have them accept the truth. The proud and egotistical, make humble
and sensible so that they too may accept Your Divine Revelation.