Click here to read the Sunday readings from the USCCB website.

In today’s readings, we hear of the magi from the east who are seeking the newborn baby Jesus.  They say, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.”

So here we have a case in which nature has led people to God. In this case, literally. The Magi were expert astrologers, they looked to the stars to find God.  They studied the stars to understand His will for their lives, and here, finally, they have found it, or at least they are closing in on it.  Nature has led them this far.

I think about some of my friends who tell me that they don’t really go to Church anymore because they find God in nature.  And at some level I totally expect to find God in creation: God created the earth, it is beautiful, even when it is covered in snow and ice. God created nature with His fingerprints so we’d be able to recognize Him in nature, we should be able to recognize His handiwork in the great outdoors.

But we shouldn’t stop there, you see that the Magi didn’t.  They got to the Holy Land, they went to the capitol, to Jerusalem, they were within six miles from Bethlehem and they couldn’t find the newborn Messiah, so they stopped to ask the religious leaders.

The religious leaders all assembled and gave them the answer to where the Christ was to be born, saying, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written through the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler, who is to shepherd my people Israel.”

The chief priests and scribes knew from scripture, from their religion, where to direct the Magi to find the Christ Child, and they did, they were able to locate what they had been lacking in nature through the prophets and interpreted by the religious leaders.

Oftentimes today, people will talk about being spiritual but not religious.  My thought is that we are all spiritual to a degree, we all recognize God’s presence in one way or another, whether that is in the beauty of nature or any number of ways, but being only spiritual can only get us so far on our journey towards God.

 

For people who say they are spiritual but not religious, my sense is they want to distance themselves from the bad things that have come from religion, and still have their relationship with God, just seeking Him through nature.

This is also understandable.  Religious people have done bad things throughout history, no question, from David and Bathsheeba to the priest sexual abuse scandals of today, what should be good religious people who supposedly love God have done terrible things.

However we can’t throw the baby out with the bath water here, we need to realize that spirituality alone will only be able to get us so far on our journey to God. The God of personal Spirituality can only be found on our own terms. It is lacking true depth, that God of nature never makes a personal demand, never calls us to something higher than we can imagine for ourselves. 

You see, religion makes demands of people, and spirituality lets us do whatever *feels* right. Well, there’s a lot that might *feel* right in the moment, but that doesn’t make it right! 

Religion is helpful to us because it brings us the rest of the way.  It says, okay, you want to live a good life, a life of truth, and beauty, and justice, and peace, this is the way, these are the ideals, it is a higher call: here is the mind of God, here are His purposes, here is His plan for our salvation.

It’s something like how we come to know a person from the outside, taking in our impressions, before we actually listen to him or her.  We size somebody up based on our own categories and our own observations, judging them on our own terms.

But then they speak, and we are amazed by what they say, their true personality is revealed, we know them so much better than our preconceptions, or worse, someone else’s preconceptions.

And I often wonder if that is what happens with religion, with the Catholic Church specifically, it is judged not by what she says, but by what other people say she says, oftentimes her enemies.

So we need to let the Church speak.  

We need to let Jesus speak, He is the “word that became flesh and dwelt among us” after all.  We need to read scripture.  

We need to look to the Catechism and other Church documents.  

We need to let the friends of Jesus speak, not his enemies, to get a better understanding, a better love for who and what true religion really is, a better love for God, who calls us to something higher, to who He created us to be.

Sure, some of its leaders have and most likely will continue to fall short of those ideals along the way, but the beautiful thing about God, especially a relationship with God in the Catholic Church, is that He is always willing to help us get back up again, to forgive us of our sins through the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross.

We are all spiritual at some level, we are all seeking God.  My encouragement is to seek Him on his terms, in the places where He wants to be found, namely, in the Church and in the Bible.  Religion and spirituality are not at odds, our spiritual God is found in nature, but that should serve to draw us deeper into our religion like it did for the Magi. 

You see, the so called spiritual God and the so called religious God are the same. They’re not separate. God is using any means necessary to draw you to Himself. Nature is a tool He uses to show that He is beautiful and good and true. He wants us all to know the rest of the good, true, and beautiful too, and we find that in the Church. So be spiritual, and be religious.