Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Community and History (Jan 22, 2021, Friday 2nd Week Ordinary Time)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Community and History (Jan 22, 2021, Friday 2nd Week Ordinary Time)
More than ever, we live, or I should say, particularly under this pandemic, we are forced to live a very individualistic lifestyle. This age tells you to "Be yourself". The self-realization of a personal goal often precedes family and community. The morality of our times doesn’t reflect a community’s common perception of right or wrong. Contemporary morality teaches that nobody is wrong and everyone is right. Likewise, religion tends to be very individualistic. When people say, "I am very spiritual," you can translate it into "Don’t interfere with my religious view."
Individualistic approaches to faith and religion pose a couple of risks. First, this kind of faith misses the fact that God calls people into his community. Judaeo-Christian faith never stayed within individuals without forming a community of the faithful. Through the Exodus experience, God called the people of Israel into his chosen community of faith. Jesus called the apostles and disciples to build his Church. Christ calls people through the Church and into the Church. We are called to become his mystical body of the Church.
Second, individualistic faith often ignores the fact that God works through history for our salvation. Some claim that they encountered God directly and they speak to God through their hearts. Indeed, it’s possible. However, the difficulty here is that individualistic religious experiences are often not easy to communicate to others, not easy to share and agree. This is why historical experiences of a faith community are so critical to the objectivity of the divine revelation. Although we find minor discrepancies among the four gospel books, we realize they agree on major developments of the revelation of Christ. Thus, we can trust the testimonies of the first Christians. The communal experiences of the faithful are the deposit of the faith. God transcends time. However, he also works through time and history. It is how we receive our faith from our ancestors of faith. This is what Jesus commanded, "Go out and preach the Good News. Baptize everyone!"
These days we cannot gather for the liturgy and friendship. Nevertheless, we cannot turn into an individualistic religion. Our ancestors of faith still kept the strong sense of community under persecutions, wars, epidemics, and all kinds of other disasters. Jesus still calls us into his flock, his community, to be with us.
View all episodes
By Fr Swann KimMore than ever, we live, or I should say, particularly under this pandemic, we are forced to live a very individualistic lifestyle. This age tells you to "Be yourself". The self-realization of a personal goal often precedes family and community. The morality of our times doesn’t reflect a community’s common perception of right or wrong. Contemporary morality teaches that nobody is wrong and everyone is right. Likewise, religion tends to be very individualistic. When people say, "I am very spiritual," you can translate it into "Don’t interfere with my religious view."
Individualistic approaches to faith and religion pose a couple of risks. First, this kind of faith misses the fact that God calls people into his community. Judaeo-Christian faith never stayed within individuals without forming a community of the faithful. Through the Exodus experience, God called the people of Israel into his chosen community of faith. Jesus called the apostles and disciples to build his Church. Christ calls people through the Church and into the Church. We are called to become his mystical body of the Church.
Second, individualistic faith often ignores the fact that God works through history for our salvation. Some claim that they encountered God directly and they speak to God through their hearts. Indeed, it’s possible. However, the difficulty here is that individualistic religious experiences are often not easy to communicate to others, not easy to share and agree. This is why historical experiences of a faith community are so critical to the objectivity of the divine revelation. Although we find minor discrepancies among the four gospel books, we realize they agree on major developments of the revelation of Christ. Thus, we can trust the testimonies of the first Christians. The communal experiences of the faithful are the deposit of the faith. God transcends time. However, he also works through time and history. It is how we receive our faith from our ancestors of faith. This is what Jesus commanded, "Go out and preach the Good News. Baptize everyone!"
These days we cannot gather for the liturgy and friendship. Nevertheless, we cannot turn into an individualistic religion. Our ancestors of faith still kept the strong sense of community under persecutions, wars, epidemics, and all kinds of other disasters. Jesus still calls us into his flock, his community, to be with us.