Reflections on The visit of Pope Francis to Ireland 25th /26th August 2018
During the visit of Pope Francis for the world meeting of families we saw families from all corners of the world. We listened to their stories and also heard of the abuse of children at the hands of the clergy. Amid the media frenzy the overall mood was one of criticism and blame. An important message from the visit of Pope Francis was lost. Religion is simply a way to help us develop our spirituality. It is a human structure and therefore cannot be perfect. We must allow the Pope to reform the church and be held to account, but we should not disregard its teachings.
- Religion and Spirituality
If we accept that Spirituality is a discovery of our own conscious self, recognising that we are more than just a body, but that we are “spirit” with infinite potential, then we can begin to differentiate between spirituality and religion.
- Religion
Religion is a set of rules and explanations that are based on the “spiritual” experiences of others down through the ages. Spirituality allows us to discover and develop our own “religion” or set of beliefs based on our own life experience.
- Religous leaders
All of the great religious leaders, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad etc., began with deep personal spiritual journeys which empowered them before embarking on their spiritual teaching. It therefore must follow that all genuine Religions are signposts to truth and the one constant is love. Therefore religion should lead to a spiritual journey of joy, self enlightenment and self fulfilment. Most importantly we must only use Religion as a method of discovering our own Spirituality and Truth.
- World Religions
Since all world religions have been set up by others and formulated as a result of human experience, they eventually become structured political institutions and are vulnerable to the imperfections and weaknesses of such human organizations. We therefore should assess the teaching of these religions relative to our own situation.
- Spirituality and the Human Mind
Is a belief in God and an afterlife simply a prerequisite of the human condition or are we all a part of a much bigger reality?. Exploring our spirituality within our life experience and using the experiences of others through religion we can arrive at our own conclusions. The danger is, by simply living our daily lives controlled by the norms of a material world, that we may miss out on so much of our potential to achieve true fulfilment and happiness.
- Developing Spirituality
Many of us are conditioned by our career paths, our families or our relationships. We can become trapped by the expectations of society and drift away from that which brings true fulfilment and inner peace. To develop spiritually we must regularly take time out to re examine and evaluate our life. We also need time to be quiet and at peace, this allows us to explore the world in all its magnificence and diversity. It will also bring us closer to understanding how special we really are.
