In April of 2013, my sister Molly took her four young children to the Boston Marathon. By God’s grace, they only attended the beginning of the race. A bomb was detonated at the end of it, killing three people and injuring over 250 others—16 of whom lost limbs.
The front page of the April 22, 2013, Wall Street Journal had a curious headline. It said: “Turn to Religion Split Bomb Suspects’ Home.” The article stated a “growing interest in religion” was what led to the senseless violence in Boston.
A “turn to religion”?
A courageous Catholic bishop (who runs marathons) noted that the problem was not religion. The problem was radical Islamist jihadism. The bishop stated that generically blaming “religion” for terrorist bombings misunderstands the true nature of religion:
It is highly unlikely that a “growing interest” in Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, or Christianity or any other major world religion would have resulted in the Boston Marathon bombings. Blaming “religion” is a way to avoid offending Muslims. But doing so has the effect of defaming all religions, making it a scapegoat for those wanting to advance secularist and atheistic views. (Bishop Paprocki, Springfield, IL, Catholic Times)
What exactly is religion? Webster’s dictionary defines religion as:
. . . a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
A better definition of religion comes from St. Thomas Aquinas:
Religion is the virtue which prompts man to render God the worship and reverence that is His by right. Objectively, religion is the voluntary acknowledgment of man’s dependence on God through acts of homage.
The misguided and confused of today say, “I’m spiritual, not religious.” But these people do indeed have a religion. Every human being that has ever lived has had a religion, a set of beliefs in regards to life and the universe, which includes devotions and rituals. It may not be “organized,” but it is a religion.
Every human worships something, too. If people turn away from the religion that was handed down to them, the faith of their fathers, then they’ll turn to something else. They’ll do that because as Aristotle wrote, nature abhors a vacuum. The empty space has to get filled with something else. And what have people filled that space with here in our sad modern day? All too many have filled it up with themselves.
Look around at our “selfie” culture that is constantly taking pictures of itself. Psychologists are now writing books about the epidemic of narcissism, the inflated sense of self-importance. This has seeped into the Holy Sacrifice of Mass, where for the last 60 years we’ve been looking at each other more than together toward the Lord, and singing songs about ourselves, instead of Him. At the same time, we have seen an epidemic rise in Satanism, which should stand to reason. If people are going to think they can be like God, then Satan will be close by. That point is made clear in the beginning of the Bible, with the fall of Adam and Eve.
Saul Alinsky, a non-observant Jewish man, and a Marxist “community organizer” from Chicago, a year before his death in 1972, published Rules for Radicals, a book he dedicated to Lucifer. The book contains ten rules, or “commandments” on how to amass power using a moral code to govern the conduct of human affairs. That would make it an organized religion of sorts, would it not? Its moral code could be summed up like this: “The end justifies the means.” Nothing, however immoral, is off the table when facing off with one’s opponent, for in this religion, in the end, one only has to answer to himself, his god within.
It’s interesting: Christ, an observant Jewish man, was also a community organizer. He had 72 disciples hit the streets of Israel after giving them detailed rules for their radical mission:
Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Jesus Christ started an organized religion that was the fulfillment, the completion of the Old Covenant. As St. Paul wrote:
For neither does circumcision mean anything, nor does uncircumcision, but only a new creation. Peace and mercy be to all who follow this rule and to the Israel of God.
And when God, through Isaiah, wrote, “Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent,” He was not speaking of a tiny strip of conquered land on the eastern edge of the Roman Empire. No, He was speaking of the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of Christ. The Old Law of circumcision and kosher food were set aside for the New Law, which is the life of grace. Christ then is the means that justifies us for our final end—eternal life in heaven.
This is all played out for us in Christ’s one Eternal Sacrifice, the one that sends Satan flying out of the sky into hell. What then could Satan hate more than the Holy Sacrifice of Mass? What then wouldn’t he do to have it destroyed? Nothing immoral would be off the table.
It’s interesting that in modern times at Holy Mass too many priests have turned from being men who offer sacrifice into men who offer things like jokes. Why is that? Well, they do so to fill up the emptiness. For when Mass is stripped of its sacredness, mystery, and fear of the Lord, then it has to be filled up with something—because nature abhors a vacuum.
Now, certainly, Christ, being human would have laughed at times. But here’s the problem: He wasn’t laughing and joking on Calvary. He was bleeding. Because He was human. And He is still bleeding for you, for your sins. Real metal spikes were driven into Christ’s real flesh into a real wooden cross to pay your ransom. That fact is made mystically present at Holy Mass, which leaves you with real substantial food for your soul.
So, turn to the religion Christ started and get a growing interest in it. For Christ gave it to you as the one and only means of your salvation. Come and acknowledge your dependence on God through the perfect act of homage, the Holy Sacrifice, which is Christ’s prayer to His Father on your behalf.
In the silence at Mass look up to the cause of the universe, the superhuman agency hanging on the cross for you. Look at Him and beg Him to fill the emptiness inside your heart with His Sacred Heart, emptied for you on Calvary. Beg Him to spread prosperity over the New Jerusalem like a river, and His mercy like an overflowing torrent.
Photo by Albert Canite on Unsplash
