A similar bit of correspondence: "Dear Abby: We don't go to church. Instead, my husband and I and our three children sit down to a hearty breakfast on Sunday morning and afterward have a friendly discussion. . . . We believe that God's spirit is within us (all) and that ours are helping hands which can be used to make this spirit evident here on earth."2

These are, obviously, not evil or atheistic people, but they are typical of untold numbers of "believers" who have cut themselves off, consciously or subconsciously, from any kind of organized religion, whether Christian or non-Christian. At various periods of the Church's history's, people, both scholars and peasants, clerics and laity, have become disenchanted with the "institutional" Church. Some have gone so far as to reject the external and visible components of religion and opted for a purely "spiritual" relationship with God, a kind of "religion of the heart." There is always a kind of temptation to find fault with the exterior structures and go in search of the "simple" religion of Jesus as he preached it in first century Palestine. The fact that there are some eighty million "unchurched" people in the United States alone-millions of them our fellow Roman Catholics-may be an indication of this frame of mind.

This simplistic way of thinking is expressed in many different ways. Catholics often hear the objection: "Why do I have to tell my sins to a priest? Doesn't God forgive me if I tell him I am sorry?" A waitress in Norway remarked that most Norwegians do not attend church: "Our cathedral is the great outdoors," she said. This is what might be called the cult of the "Boy Scout God." Others will justify their non-attendance at any religious ceremony, especially church on Sunday, by maintaining-perhaps in all sincerity-that they are good, honest, law-abiding people who do their utmost to love both God and neighbor. They witness the lives of their "institutional church" friends and feel that attendance at church does them no good whatever: on Monday they are back at their old habits and sinful ways. What good have church services done them? Why not then, just stay at home on the so-called "Lord's Day," watch football on TV, have a barbecue, and just take it easy?

Others will use Scripture to justify their "stay-at-home" religion. Did not Christ himself say: ". . . the Kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20)? And, a fitting text for Quakers, who have no sacraments, sacramentals, or religious symbols: "While you have the light, keep faith in the light; thus you will become sons of light" (John 12:36). For Quakers, each person has direct illumination from God, and therefore no need for anything like a magisterium. Their doctrine of the "Inner Light"-Christ is "the true light which enlightens every man that comes into this world" (John 1:9)-holds that "The first function of the Light is to emancipate a person from adherence to any creed, or obedience to ecclesiastical authority, or submission to any prescribed form of worship."3

Evangelicals hold that "The Church is invisible because the constitutive factor of the Church, faith in the heart, is invisible for men and known only to God." Consequently, "all who declare the Church to be wholly visible-Romanists-or at least semivisible-recent Lutherans-are perverting the nature of the Christian Church."4 Adolf von Harnack, the liberal Protestant theologian, held that

Jesus' whole doctrine consisted in teaching that God is our Father and all men are brothers. The kingdom of God which He proclaimed exists merely in the hearts of men. It has no external form or organization.5

Why not go directly to God and bypass all these obstacles like sacraments, religious symbols, and public worship? Jiddu Krishnamurti, the Indian philosopher who died in 1986, "often declared that human beings needed neither spiritual authorities nor organizations. 'The important thing,' he said, 'is to free your mind of envy, hate and violence, and for that you don't need an organization.'"6

Much of the above is very appealing, and certainly one's personal relationship to God is absolutely essential to leading a Christian and Catholic life, but, taken by itself, it is a perpetual snare and delusion, and an extremely dangerous one at that.

It is common knowledge that, among Catholics, Mass attendance has decreased alarmingly. The causes, to be sure, are manifold: disagreement with, even open rebellion against, official Church teaching, especially in the sensitive area of morality; disappointment with, even disgust for the liturgy; boredom; laziness, etc. But is it not very possible that many have been taken in by this so-called "direct approach"? Even if this is not completely verifiable, we all need to be reminded of why religion of the heart is dead wrong, and the shepherds of the flock should tell their flocks why this is so-at least as a warning. One of the frustrating problems, of course, is that we priests so often find ourselves "preaching to the choir": the very ones who desperately need instruction on this crucial matter are not there on Sunday-or any Sunday-because their only Mass "obligation" is on Easter and Christmas. Somehow, however, through the witness and testimony of the good people who sacrifice to come every Sunday (and during the week) maybe we can reach these nominal Catholics.

Why, then, is the "direct approach" so wrong, both theologically and logically?

First of all, this approach is erroneous because it denies, at least implicitly, the cardinal doctrine of the Incarnation: "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14). He is the "sacrament of the encounter with God,"7 the visible, tangible, audible sign and cause of God's grace, truth, and love, at least as long as he lived among the people of Palestine of the first century. But now he continues as this fundamental sacrament through his Church, especially through the seven sacred signs we call sacraments, and even through the sacramentals, which have been compared to the touching of the edge of Christ's garment.8 But the most striking witness to the truth that God wants to save us through visible means is Christ himself: once he appeared on the scene, it should have been clear that the way back to God is through the visible, or as Tertullian put it: Caro est cardo salutis-the flesh is the hinge of salvation.

Furthermore, "religion of the heart" denies two crucial aspects of our human nature as God created us: our corporeal side and our social side. With regard to the former, we simply cannot pretend that we are angels, pure spirits. We are creatures of sense, five of them in fact. We need to see, hear, touch, taste, even smell God's grace. We are weak, sinful, lazy, forgetful bodily beings. We are prodigious button-makers: "Go, Giants, go!"; "Just say 'no'"-and a million other sayings, both religious and not so religious. Probably one of the best businesses to be in is the T-shirt business, those companies who have printed mottoes, humorous and sometimes obnoxious statements, sometimes within a week of some event: "I survived the '89 quake"; "I love Jesus"; "Vote for Stupnagel." "I love a parade," the old popular song proclaimed. Try to ban forever, or even for one year, the annual St. Patrick's Day parade in New York and you will probably have a rebellion on your hands. Suppose it is your birthday, and all your friends assemble quietly in your front room and simply sit there, mentally wishing you all the best. This is inhuman! Besides, you would be somewhat justifiably offended: no presents, no verbal greetings, no hugs or kisses!

We humans have a built-in need to express externally what is within: this is why we celebrate externally such things as anniversaries. This holds true of religion. The Church demands, for example, that at every Mass there be a cross on or near the altar. Why? Lest we, priest and people, forget what the Mass is all about: the representation of Calvary. As the Council of Trent affirmed: on the night before he died, our Savior left "to his beloved spouse the Church a visible sacrifice, such as the nature of man requires . . ."9 (emphasis added).

We need to feel the water of Baptism to understand better that it is a sacred bath, a drowning of selfish human nature. In Confirmation we can smell the aromatic balm (balsam) in the sacred Chrism, reminding ourselves of the words of St. Paul: "We are an aroma of Christ for God's sake . . ."( 2 Cor. 2:15). So many feel that Christianity, especially the Catholic variety, has a very foul odor! In the Eucharist, we can even taste salvation. In the sacrament of Reconciliation, we need much more than a vague promise of forgiveness: we need to hear someone with Christ's authority say out loud: "I absolve you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit." When we are seriously ill, we need to feel the soothing oil of the sick. In marriage, the couple need to hear the vows of commitment until death. In Holy Orders, the ordinand needs to sense the imposition of hands, hear the prayer of consecration to priesthood, and feel the sacred vestments which set him apart from other men.

Joseph Nolan tells a beautiful story of an old and exiled Lithuanian couple who had been sent to Siberia as part of a farm colony, where they were cut off from all visible signs of religion. They used their savings to come on a bus to Moscow, to receive the Eucharist in the only Catholic church in that city, and to go to confession. Doesn't God love and forgive them without a ritual ceremony? Can't they have a spiritual Communion? These are the questions of someone who believes only in the "direct approach" to God. The author answers: "All true-but they came because they are human. Christ was human. His body became a sign. Those signs continue through the body called humanity, or particularly that section of humanity called the church."10 Carroll Stuhlmueller, commenting on the book of Ezra and the return of the Jews to their ruined city of Jerusalem to rebuild their temple, remarks tellingly:

External symbols are necessary for identity and survival. The Jews concentrated energy upon this project, so that they could celebrate their history and repeat their hopes and dreams. Within the temple their ancient traditions of Passover out of Egypt were kept alive and were relived in their new circumstances.11 (Emphasis added.)

Again, with regard to the new temple, he states: "Without a strong symbol that we are a people of God, with spiritual and moral aspirations, we will sink into materialism. Even in our poverty we will still cling to our trinkets and be jealous of others for theirs."12

Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy forcefully reminds us:

The purpose of the sacraments is to sanctify men, to build up the body of Christ, and finally, to give worship to God. Because they are signs they also instruct. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen, and express it; that is why they are called "sacraments of faith." They do indeed impart grace, but, in addition, the very act of celebrating them disposes the faithful most effectively to receive this grace in a fruitful manner, to worship God duly, and to practice charity.13 (Emphasis added.)

An analogy might help: Suppose I invite you to a baseball game, but you have little or no interest in that sport. But as soon as you arrive, you see the enthusiastic crowds, hear the music, smell the hot dogs and peanuts, listen to the crack of the bat, and little by little, chances are you will become a fan and really get something out of America's favorite pasttime.

Similarly, but in a much higher degree, if you have no desire to attend Mass, go to confession, etc.; if you feel bored or tired and will not profit at all, go anyway: the very atmosphere of the beauty of the church, the rich ceremonies, the gestures of priests and people, the music, the prayers, will awaken faith, hope, and charity. You may still feel bored and think you have not profited spiritually, but keep trying. The externals of the Church do work, as experience teaches.

James Hitchcock laments the "demise of popular piety . . . itself part of a larger development in the Church which is perhaps the most significant aspect of aggiornamento, although it has rarely been noticed-the disappearance of all symbolism unique to Catholic life."14 This is all part of the "religion of the heart." Hitchcock goes on to maintain that the most significant Protestantization of the modern Catholic Church is not in the doctrinal area; it has been "the quiet suppression of almost all specifically Catholic symbolism.''15 He gives examples of liturgies commonly celebrated in rooms bare of all statues and crucifixes, with posters proclaiming humanistic slogans; of symbols retained but changed into "universal" humanistic meaning, e.g., the Mass as a community meal (and presumably nothing more), the Resurrection as our willingness to change our lives. A fanatical Puritanism hacks away at traditional customs as meaningless or superstitious and the physical aspects of worship as totally unimportant, e.g., vestment-free Masses, holding services in living rooms, storefronts; the abolition of the sign of the cross, genuflection flowers, and incense.16 Again, we see a denial of our bodily human nature.

Speaking of the sacraments, Schillebeeckx says that

They are the divine act of redemption itself, manifest in the sacred environment of the living Church, making a concrete appeal to man and taking hold of him in a living way, as really as does the embrace of a mother for her child. And it is not enough for the child merely to know that the mother loves it; it needs the actual embrace to perfect the experience of love.17 (Emphasis added.)

The "direct approach to God" is a direct attack on our social nature. The simple example of the faculty to speak indicates clearly our need to communicate. "No man is an island" has been quoted many times, but it remains true, especially nowadays when the whole world is becoming more and interdependent: economically, politically, socially, culturally. The computer has immensely increased this interdependence. Yet, so many fail to see, or will not see how we are also, and much more importantly, religiously interdependent: how much we need each other. But they pay no attention to this and stay away from institutionalized religion, and, if Catholic, abandon the Mass and the sacraments. Andrew Greeley speaks rather brutally one might say, when he points out:

The reason for a Church is simple enough: no man is an island. We cannot live by ourselves. We are responsible to others because of a basic human phenomenon: we need others to survive. The isolated loner is not more than human; he is less than human; he becomes a savage, an animal hunting in the jungle by himself. . . . Religion, like every other form of human behavior, is necessarily social. We have a Church because we need to respond to God's gift of himself, to the Good News that our wildest dreams fall short of the truth. The Good News is too startling, too staggering, too demanding for us to be able to do anything about it by ourselves. We need the help of others.18 (Emphasis added.)

Loners, consciously or subconsciously, are really saying: "I can go it alone. I don't need others. Let the weak and the ignorant-the "great unwashed"-make their weekly trek to church. I do not need them." This type feels no need for the strength and comfort which comes only from communal religion. He or she feels self-sufficient, in no need of the example and advice of others; no need to realize that others also struggle to live the Creed we recite each Sunday, to live up to the readings and the homily, to keep the ten commandments. What arrogance! What stupidity! What selfishness!

William Barclay remarks:

Suppose a war in progress. A man says: I'm in complete sympathy with the aims of this war but I won't join the army. I'll carry on a war all by myself. It is beyond doubt that all his energy and courage will be wasted whereas if he joined his fellow countrymen he'd be of far more use. It is so with the Church. If a man is on the side of Christ, then his place is in the ranks of Christ. It is by making common cause with the friends of Christ that he will be of most effect in the world.19

The "religion-of the-hearters" are in direct opposition to this, and hence will accomplish little for Christ. They have forgotten that we belong to an army-or better yet-to a family, a "communion." Stuhlmueller brings out another important value disregarded by the "direct approach": "Without community or family prayer, we will miss again the encouragement to be men and women of prayer."20 Individualism will soon set in like dry rot if we deny, even implicitly, our social nature as God has given it to us.

The direct approach, moreover-and this is crucial-denies the entire history of the New Testament. Jesus Christ simply did not found an invisible or even a quasi-invisible Church. He chose twelve visible men, gave them visible authority to be exercised in a visible way by teaching, governing, making laws, and sanctifying people. Go! Baptize (dunk in water); lay hands on the sick; Take this bread and wine; teach!

Christ and his parents set the example: there was no exaggerated "religion of the heart" for them. In St. Luke we read: "He came to Nazareth where he had been reared, and entering the synagogue as he was in the habit of doing, he stood up to do the reading" (Luke 4:16, emphasis added). Can anyone in his right mind even imagine Our Lord saying: "I don't need all this external worship, and besides, it's boring, and so are the others who drone on and on with their explanations of the Torah"? If, in his human nature, he needed external religion, who are we to say that we are better than he? "His parents used to go every year to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover" (Luke 2:41). Again, can any sane person imagine Mary or Joseph complaining that the "homilies were boring; that the music was abominable; that she, Mary, was the Mother of God, conceived without original sin, and in no need of all this mumbo-jumbo? And would the humble and obedient Joseph think in like manner? Are we better than they?

Paul VI spoke out in no uncertain words concerning the institutional character of the Church. In an article in the British Catholic newspaper, Catholic Herald, the Rome correspondent relates that "The first duty of Christians in these days of the lay apostolate is to 'discover the institutional character of the Church' and to devote themselves to the work of this 'social Church', said the pope to an audience of thousands in St. Peter's Square last week."21 It was not enough for a Christian to be committed to the "ideal and spiritual Church," he declared. "The true community which 'reflects and perpetuates the mystery of the Incarnation,' he explained, is 'visible, concrete and organised.'"22

The correspondent continues with some very significant comments: "The Pope's words come at a time when a number of priests in Britain and other countries have left what they term the institution of the Church and said publicly that they did so because in their view true Christianity was to be lived in an unorganised community of believers."23 How easily deluded some people, even those who should know better, can become.

Some may use as their rationalization for absenting themselves from Sunday Mass and other forms of public worship, the weak argument that one person missing will not matter. This is truly myopic. If you plan a grand Thanksgiving dinner, and Uncle Harry is convinced he will not be missed, he is seriously wrong. Even one person's absence makes a difference. One solitary parishioner's absence from the Eucharist weakens the whole community.

This whole phenomenon of a "religion of the heart" leads easily to a comfortable, easy-going, and lazy-man's religion. It can bring about a private interpretation of Scripture and doctrine, since its followers draw more and more into themselves and become more and more subject to one of the great curses of this latter part of the twentieth century: subjectivism.

Pride also enters: the person of the "direct approach" is saying, in effect, that Christ was a fool to give us the Eucharist, Reconciliation, and the other sacraments. They don't need such superfluities. What they fail to see is that they could easily be committing spiritual "suicide." Recall Christ's words: "Let me solemnly assure you, if you do not eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (John 6:53). If they wonder why they cannot overcome temptation, or why life seems to be impossibly difficult, even hopeless, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Yes, a person can be forgiven his sins without actually going to confession: how else can non-Catholics be saved? Yes, God loves each person, whether Christian or not. But Catholics have absolutely no excuse whatsoever for not receiving the sacraments: for them, as Leo XIII emphasized, the sacraments are the chief means of grace (Satis Cognitum), always available! "Religion-of-the-hearters," wake up and smell the coffee! n

1 San Francisco Chronicle, December 3, 1975.

2 Ibid., November 3, 1978.

3 John A. Hardon, S.J., The Protestant Churches of America, (Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1963), p. 220.

4 Ibid., p. 132.

5 Hugh J. O'Connell, C. SS. R., Keeping Your Balance in the Modern Church (Ligouri, Missouri; Ligourian Pamphlets, 1968), p. 58.

6 San Francisco Chronicle, February 19, 1986.

7 E. Schillebeeckx, O.P., Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter With God (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1963).

8 Godfrey Diekmann, O.S.B., "Two Approaches to Understanding the Sacraments," in C. Stephen Sullivan, Readings in Sacramental Theology, (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1964), p. 13.

9 Josef Neuner, S.J. & Heinrich Roos, S.J., ed. by Karl Rahner, S.J., The teaching of the Catholic Church (New York: Alba House, 1967), p. 295, #512.

10 Joseph T. Nolan, "Do We Still Need the Sacraments?" U.S. Catholic, June 1973, p. 13.

11 Carroll Stuhlmueller, C.P., Biblical Meditations For Ordinary Time-Weeks 23-24 (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), p. 55.

12 Ibid., p. 63.

13 Walter M. Abbott, S.J., The Documents of Vatican II (New York: Guild Press; America Press; Association Press, 1966), p. 158.

14 James Hitchcock, The Decline and Fall of Radical Catholicism (New York: Image Books, 1972), p. 173.

15 Ibid., p. 174.

16 Ibid.

17 Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament, p. 199.

18 Andrew M. Greeley, The Great Mysteries: An Essential Catechism (New York: Seabury Press. A Crossroad Book, 1976), pp. 94-95.

19 William Barclay, And Jesus said: a handbook on the parables of Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970), p. 202.

20 Stuhlmueller, Biblical Meditations, p. 63.

21 Catholic Herald, May 24, 1968.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.