Spiritual And Religious

There’s a mantra that’s been around for quite a while, and many people connect with it:  “I’m spiritual, but I’m not religious.”

What does that mean?

When I think of the term “spiritual,” I think of a one-on-one intimacy with the Divine. Being apart. Choosing seclusion. Seeking solitude. And these are all good things.

When I think of the term “religious,” I think of its connection to the word “religion.” I think of sacred spaces with altars, pews and baptismal fonts. I think of Bibles, Torahs, Korans and catechisms. Priests, ministers, rabbis and imams. Corpus Christi processions. May crownings. Rogation Day services.

I think of community. I think of the Jewish communities of the Old Testament and the early Christian communities after the Resurrection of Jesus – communities of people who clung together in good times and in really hard times.

In our parish communities today, we come together to joyfully celebrate baptisms, confirmations and marriages. We also gather together and offer emotional support to one another after the deaths of our loved ones. When my mother died last year, it was the support of my parish community that helped me emotionally through the dark days.

As Catholics, our community is the Body of Christ, and I Corinthians 12 reminds us that God places the parts — each one of them — into the Body as He intends. And He has designed the Body so that “there is no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.”

Nearly 2,000 later, Father Ronald Rohlheiser reinforces that message in his book “The Holy Longing.” In it he examines these words, which are so common today: “I am a good Christian, a sincere God-serving person, but I don’t need church — I can pray just as well at home.”

He disagrees, noting that “part of the very essence of Christianity is to be together in a concrete community.”

Church, he stresses, “is the people.”

It is good for us to spend time alone with our Father in heaven. We need those walks on the beach and those hikes down solitary paths. But we need our Christian community just as much. We need to laugh and cry together. We need to sing and dance together. We need to gather together as a Body and celebrate the Eucharist as a faith community.

Sometimes, it seems, people want to define themselves as either “spiritual” or “religious,” but maybe we need to begin to see ourselves as being both.

And how do we do that? The cost is one of our most precious commodities: our time. As parents tell their children, if you want to do something well, you have to spend a lot of your time on it.

But if we do it, if we develop both, we might find ourselves with a new mantra. “I am spiritual, and I am religious.”