In his book entitled "Letters to Malcolm," C.S. Lewis makes the following statement: "There is danger in the very concept of religion. It carries the suggestion that this is one more department of life... an extra department added to the economic, the cultural, the recreational and the rest. But that whose claims are infinite can have no standing as a department. Either it is an illusion or else our whole life falls under it."
Just imagine if each of us had a chart on the wall and at the top of that chart was RELIGION and flowing from that, everything else. Activities, priorities, concerns, plans, goals. Everything else. Why? Because our whole life falls under it. From our relationships, to our recreation, to our work, to our ambitions, to our food and drink and the games we play... everything must fit comfortably with our religion or be removed from the chart. This is the ideal preached by the Prophets and Jesus.
Some of the most immoral people mistakenly consider themselves to be right with God because they contribute money and participate in ritual. They take care of "the religious thing" and do so in total isolation from all other facets of life. In effect, they treat God like a meter to be fed and forgotten.
But closer to home are those of us who forget that our religion's claims are infinite and that every facet of life must be geared to it. For example, it is so easy to forget that the focus of the Mass is not just certain events in the life of Jesus but also the details of our own lives as seen within the context of those events.
We must guard against the Sunday Liturgy becoming an assembly looking for a reason to come together, an assembly characterized more by lethargy than liturgy. A boring, disconnected Sunday "thing." I say "we" advisedly because priests can also become unplugged from reality and function accordingly.
Once again in the words of C.S. Lewis: "There is danger in the very concept of religion. It carries the suggestion that this is one more department of life, an extra department added to the economic, the cultural, the recreational and the rest. But religion whose claims are infinite can have no standing as a department. Either it is an illusion or else our whole life falls under it." Mr. Lewis concludes: "We have no non-religious activities, only religious and irreligious."
