Religiosity

During his travels, Jesus met many interesting people. Some of them were really serious about their salvation and therefore asked him about the essence. Such was the rich young man.

As he set out on the road, someone came to him, knelt before him and asked him, “Good teacher, what shall I do to contain eternal life? Jesus answered him,” Why do you call me good? Nobody is good, only God. You know the commandments: You will not kill! You shall not commit adultery! You shall not steal! You will not testify wrongly! You won’t cheat! Honor your father and mother! But he said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all this from my youth.” Jesus looked at him with love and said to him, “You are still missing. Go, sell everything you have, give to the poor, and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me!” He grieved at this word and went away grieved because he had great possessions. (Mk 10: 17-22)

Let’s note some interesting points in this story. The young man wants to be saved. He wants to do something about it. He realizes that he doesn’t do enough. That’s why he is looking. He asks Jesus. Jesus first responds to him in the spirit of Jewish morality – keep the law. He asks which – for hundreds of orders and bans have been added to the Ten Commandments over the course of history, explaining what can and cannot be done. Jesus returns to the essence, to the Ten Commandments. The young man just states that he keeps this from his youth.

So there is a young man in front of us who observes the ten commandments. He has no great sin and lives virtually. Yet he sees that this is not enough. He doesn’t know what to bring. He may live in a situation similar to most of us. We have things right, maybe we fall down regularly in some, but otherwise we walk overall in our faith. And we also hear: something else you miss! The young man followed the commandments, but these did not alter his basic relationships with himself, with others, and with God. He remained the same as before. He asks for a new deed to be kept, but for another dead deed that leads nowhere does not solve anything because it does not touch the substance. Here we are at the fundamental difficulty of our lives, which is to understand the difference between keeping the rules of a religion and converting. We often see salvation as a necessity to keep some commandments and not as a follower of Christ. We are now talking about virtues and each time we have some tasks to do. If we remember all of them and do them, we may already have quite a large package of resolutions, and if we did not write them down, it can make us very difficult to remember everything. But even though we remember them all and try to bring them to life, we can still be totally out. They would not be true and useful. But if we have a rich youth mentality, they are useless, even harmful.

I mean, there is nothing more difficult than preaching about conversion. Most people begin to question their conscience about what they have neglected and what they should do. If I pray more, read Scripture more, go to adoration more … And it is only through the multiplication of dead works that do not transform me or bring me to God at all. The rich young man was tied to his property. It prevented him from approaching his neighbor and God. Although he was willing to do any religious deed, he was not willing to remove the obstacle that prevented him from meeting God. And this is the essence of the tragedy of non-conversion. The purpose of religion is not to do religious works, but to come to God through religious works.

What does “not pray enough” mean? How much is it – enough? Does God want us to spend more time repeating our supplications? Sv. Augustine responds to this question as follows: “May prayer be saved from multitude, but it should not lack the richness of supplications if it is focused. Because speaking a lot in prayer means giving the necessary thing unnecessary words. While much praying means long and with a religious trembling of the heart, knocking at the one we pray to ”.

Therefore, we should always pray, but this is not achieved by the multiplication of religious acts but by patient learning to focus our attention on the Lord. Again, this is not done by some mind training, but by removing what prevents us from following Christ, by purifying our desires, by elevating our mind to God, by contemplating who He is and what He has prepared for us. The more I care about the beloved person’s affairs, the more I tune in, and the longer I can stay in her presence. So we are constantly, often unprecedentedly, born of constant prayer.deeper awareness of these facts can also help us to meditate on the mystery of life. When a new life begins in the womb of the mother, it creates the conditions in which the child develops in its way of life. The mother in itself cannot cause conception, nor can she influence either sex or hair color or other things that are given. But in her way of life, she can help the child to develop healthily and fully develop all its powers. It does this by being sensitive to, accepting and conforming to life. Not by doing many things he thinks are good.
That is why we are now invited, during Advent, to let the old man die and be born of the Spirit. We are invited to remove what prevents us from meeting God and doing what makes meeting him easier. So let’s be quiet and listen to him. He shows us what our wealth is, where we revolve around ourselves, about our perfection, and where we do only dead deeds.

What do I hope for salvation?
Why do I actually pray, go to church, go to cells?
What is my obstacle on my way to God?
Which actions help me tune in to God?
Which religious act could I omit because it does not bring me to God?
Do I experience joyful moments in my life meeting God?
Can I draw on these moments in the “Dark Ages”?
I know the encouragement-