Reflection
Lent calls us to stop using religion as an excuse for not examining our real motives for everything we do in life including the spiritual. Lent calls us to rend our hearts, to attune our conscience to the voice of a loving God and ask ourselves down deep, if and why we are “religious” at all. Or are we just one more generation of money-changers in the temple who go to church more to get something for ourselves than to become something because of it?
Joan Chittister
Prayer
Seek first the reign of God.
Action
Consider what “religion” means to you. Does your adherence to a particular religion nourish yoru spiritual desires? Does it infuse your life? Your attitude toward others? What is the reality to which you are called? How will you try to get there?
Suggested Reading
Religion that God accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James 1:27
By this all will know that you are my disciples—if you have love among yourselves.
John 13:35
Being a Christian is not just about following commandments: it is about letting Christ take possession of our lives and transform them.
Pope Francis
True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.
Albert Einstein
The key to entering into the Divine Exchange is never our worthiness but always God’s graciousness. Any attempt to measure or increase our worthiness will always fall short, or it will force us into the position of denial and pretend, which produces the constant perception of hypocrisy in religious people.
Richard Rohr
True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.
Louis Nizer
True religion is not about possessing the truth. No religion does that. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers.
John Shelby Spong
True religion is when you serve God to get nothing else but more of God. Votes: 3
J.D. Greear
True religion always moves us to serve others and to give our lives to see those oppressed find freedom.
Erwin McManus
The essence of all religions is love, compassion, and tolerance. Kindness is my true religion. The clear proof of a person’s love of God is if that person genuinely shows love to fellow human beings.
Dalai Lama