You shall have no other gods, including ‘trivial’ ones

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B
First Reading: Is 35:4-7
Second Reading: Jas 2:1-5
Gospel Reading: Mk 7:31-37

The theme of this Sunday’s Readings is “Be opened.”

In the First Reading, it is “the eyes of the blind,” “the ears of the deaf,” etc. In the Second, it is the eyes through which we see our neighbours. In the Gospel Reading, it is the deaf and those who cannot speak.

All the readings appeal to us to open ourselves to the truth. “Ephphtha,” Jesus said: “Be opened.”

In our society today, many people think that they are “opening” themselves to new “truths” – so called – by seriously considering the doctrines and practices of other religions, especially Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism.

No. That is a closing of oneself to the truth of Christ in favour of the old beliefs and superstitions that preceded it: Gnosticism, esotericism, astrology, pantheism, etc.

Christ is the perfect image of God the Father. In him, God revealed all he had to tell us about himself. Therefore, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, anyone now “desiring some [new] vision or revelation would be guilty not only of foolish behaviour, but also of offending [God], by not fixing his eyes entirely upon Christ and by living with the desire for some other novelty.”

During this past year, as I have delivered my course “The Catholic Faith in Plain English” online, I have become aware of how many people – good Catholics – think that they can “supplement” the Catholic faith with Buddhist meditation techniques, etc.

They are like people who think they can “supplement” the conjugal attentions of their husbands or wives with those of other men or women. No matter how small such a “supplement,” it constitutes infidelity. A faithful husband does not look outside the marriage for conjugal comfort or benefits. A faithful wife does not invoke support from a third person by criticizing her husband.

God himself described his relationship with his people as a marital covenant, and he compared idolatry to adultery.

It is because of their idolatry that he drove the original inhabitants out of the Promised Land. He warned the Israelites to stay away from them. When they fell into idolatry, He exiled them, too.

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, with your whole soul, and with all your mind; you shall have no other gods besides me.” That is the First Commandment. If we break it, we are unfaithful, regardless of whether we keep the others. Even something as apparently trivial as “consulting horoscopes” contradicts “the honour, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone,” says the Catechism.

A Catholic who seeks “spirituality” outside the Catholic Church is like the unfaithful wife in the Book of Hosea, who wants to see what other men can offer, even if she does not intend to desert her husband.

Adultery is never a sudden, spontaneous, totally unexpected act: it is always preceded by a longer drama of infidelity – which includes thoughts, words, and deeds. And the same is true of apostasy from the Catholic faith.

Christ is the Church’s Bridegroom, says the Catechism. “It is through [his] Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained.”

Nevertheless, “idolatry remains a constant temptation.” People whose understanding of the Catholic faith is weak “mistakenly” hold that Catholicism “does not inspire a profound spirituality, and so they seek elsewhere,” says the Vatican’s document on the New Age movement.

Many New Age practices seem harmless. Nevertheless, the underlying principles are irreconcilable with Catholic faith. We cannot pick and choose from Catholicism and New Age any more than a faithful wife can pick and choose from her husband’s attentions and those of other men.

Let us pray, this Sunday, that we who claim to “believe in Christ” may come to know the riches he showers on his Church, and thus receive “true freedom.”