Some people refuse to belong to any Church, claiming to be spiritual but not religious.
Spirituality indicates a desire to connect with God and to establish a personal relationship with Him.
But being only spiritual with no religious affiliation does not provide the opportunity to connect with fellow believers or to be guided by those who are more experienced.
Religion offers an organized community who express their faith openly together with shared traditions, beliefs, morals, and works.
But being religious with no spirituality can lead to simply following rules without developing a deeper intimate relationship with God.
Like Jesus, Catholics should be both spiritual and religious.
Rejecting the notion of organized religion:
Not denying God but unattached to a Church:
Is it not one of the “signs of the times” that in today’s world, despite widespread secularization, there is a widespread demand for spirituality, a demand which expresses itself in large part as a renewed need for prayer? Other religions, which are now widely present in ancient Christian lands, offer their own responses to this need, and sometimes they do so in appealing ways. But we who have received the grace of believing in Christ, the revealer of the Father and the Savior of the world, have a duty to show to what depths the relationship with Christ can lead.
Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte, January 6, 2001
Finding the answers that your heart desires:
Jesus’ Church guides and leads his people:
Faith is a personal act – the free response of the human person to the initiative of God who reveals himself. But faith is not an isolated act. No one can believe alone, just as no one can live alone. You have not given yourself faith as you have not given yourself life. The believer has received faith from others and should hand it on to others. Our love for Jesus and for our neighbor impels us to speak to others about our faith. Each believer is thus a link in the great chain of believers. I cannot believe without being carried by the faith of others, and by my faith I help support others in the faith.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 166
If we don’t know what we’re doing, it can be dangerous:
Rules that guide toward a greater end:
When they entered the city they went to the upper room where they were staying, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. All these devoted themselves with one accord to prayer, together with some women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Acts 1: 13-14
Religion and spirituality should always be connected:
The Church has devotion, doctrine, and structure:
The Truth, Goodness, and Beauty of the Catholic Church
United in prayer:
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