LOST IN THE RELIGIOUS CRISIS
We live in times of religious crisis. It seems that faith goes about ending up suffocated in the consciences of all too many people, repressed by modern culture and by the lifestyle of modern man. But at the same time, it’s easy to observe that once again there is awakening in many people the search for meaning, the desire for a life that’s different, the need for a God Friend.
It’s certain that we find extended among us a generalized skepticism in the face of grand projects and grandiose words. The religious discourses that offer «salvation» or «redemption» no longer resonate in us. Hope itself has diminished, almost disappearing, that one could really hear somewhere a Good News for humanity.
At the same time in many there’s growing the sensation that we’ve lost the clear way. Something is buried beneath our feet. We end up without goals or points of reference. We realize that we can solve «problems», but that we’re less and less capable of resolving «the problem» of life. Aren’t we more in need of salvation than ever before?
We also live in times of «fragmentation». Life has gotten compartmentalized. Each one lives in their own apartment. The humanism that sought truth and meaning globally has gone into the distance. Today you don’t hear of any who know about life, but only specialists who know a lot about one section, but ignore all about the meaning of existence.
At the same time, quite a few people begin to feel bad in this fast-paced world of facts, information and statistics. We can’t avoid the eternal questions of the human being. Where do we come from? Where are we going? Isn’t there someplace we can find the ultimate meaning of life?
These are also times of scientific pragmatism. Modern man has decided (he doesn’t know why) that the only things that exist are what can be proven by science. There’s nothing else. What escapes science, simply doesn’t exist. Naturally in this arrangement that’s so simple as to be hardly scientific, God doesn’t fit and religious faith ends up relegated to the out of balance world of the anti-progressives.
However, there are many who go about being conscious that this arrangement is very short-sighted, since it doesn’t respond to reality. Life isn’t a «big puzzle», nor is a human being just «a cog» in a world that can be unraveled by science. All around us you can feel the mystery: in the inner life of the human being, in the immensity of the cosmos, in the history of humanity.
That’s why once again arises the suspicion: aren’t the very questions that science is silent about, the ones that constitute the meaning of life? Wouldn’t it be a grave mistake to forget the answer to the mystery of existence? Isn’t it a tragedy to dispense with God so naively? Meanwhile Jesus’ words keep coming at us right here: «Repent, because the Reign of God is at hand».
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf
