{"id":5392,"date":"2017-04-25T19:02:12","date_gmt":"2017-04-25T09:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=5392"},"modified":"2017-06-23T10:22:57","modified_gmt":"2017-06-23T00:22:57","slug":"admit-it-isnt-church-just-sheer-boredom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/admit-it-isnt-church-just-sheer-boredom\/","title":{"rendered":"Admit it… Isn\u2019t church just sheer boredom?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Admit it… Isn\u2019t church just sheer boredom?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

By:<\/strong> Bishoy Sharobim<\/p>\n

Do you ever get bored during the\u00a0Divine Liturgy?\u00a0Do you ever feel church is just\u00a0incredibly\u00a0dry and routine? Do you ever think\u00a0to\u00a0yourself that you are wasting your time in going to church? Or that it is extremely useless and yields no profit\u00a0to your life whatsoever?\u00a0Come on, please\u00a0admit you\u2019ve had thoughts along these lines before.<\/p>\n

Maybe you ponder to yourself, \u201cOh,\u00a0I could be at home studying for my exams, or I could be catching up on lectures and tutorials\u201d and those aren\u2019t even sinful alternatives,\u00a0right? I mean by all means, shoot for the stars in terms of your studies and career.\u00a0I\u00a0really admire\u00a0seeing hard working people\u00a0and\u00a0if you didn\u2019t know,\u00a0two great modern day saints\u00a0that inspire and are dearly loved by Copts, \u00a0Fr\u00a0PishoyKamel\u00a0and Pope\u00a0Shenouda\u00a0III, \u00a0were known to have\u00a0been extraordinary successful in their studies.<\/p>\n

So\u00a0the question remains:\u00a0why do\u00a0we attend masses frequently when the benefit is less than the cost?<\/p>\n

A holy Russian bishop once wrote to an abbess of a convent the following:\u00a0\u201cThe Inward Temple. There is no need to weep much over the destruction of a church; after all, each of us, according to God\u2019s mercy, has or should have his own church\u2014the heart; go in there and pray, as much as you have strength and time.\u00a0If this church is not well made and is abandoned (without inward prayer), then the visible church will be of little benefit.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I ask you to please\u00a0kindly try to read that quote a few times and let it sink in.\u00a0I believe this quote\u00a0holds profoundly important spiritual guidance.\u00a0The part I want to highlight is:\u00a0If\u00a0this church [that is our hearts]\u00a0is not well made\u00a0through inward prayer\u00a0then the visible church will be of little\u00a0benefit.\u2026\u00a0then the visible church will be of little benefit?\u00a0What\u00a0could this line\u00a0possibly\u00a0mean?\u00a0\u00a0Does it actually\u00a0imply that\u00a0attending church is utterly\u00a0useless to me, if I don\u2019t\u00a0master the\u00a0art of prayer\u00a0or at the very\u00a0least make some sort of\u00a0significant\u00a0progress in my prayer\u00a0life (Let\u2019s ignore\u00a0any\u00a0technicality around the words \u201cinward prayer\u201d\u00a0for now).\u00a0Oh my\u00a0goodness!\u00a0What a very revolutionary\u00a0piece of wisdom?\u00a0Oh my. This quote can\u00a0finally\u00a0explain so many years of\u00a0extremely mundane\u00a0and dry church attendance and help us finally figure out just\u00a0exactly what is going on.<\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t this make sense my\u00a0brother and sisters? Take for example a university student. Perhaps this student is very\u00a0diligent\u00a0in attending the lectures for his course and rarely misses any. However,\u00a0this\u00a0particular\u00a0student becomes quite busy at home\u00a0and cannot seem to make\u00a0the effort\u00a0nor\u00a0the\u00a0time to study at home.\u00a0What do you think?\u00a0Do you think such a student will be successful in his studies? He attends the lectures\u00a0\u2013 an integral component of succeeding in one\u2019s university studies, right? Isn\u2019t\u00a0that enough for him to do well and perhaps even reach a stage where he enjoys the subject itself (because\u00a0when we become successful in things we much more tend to enjoy them)?<\/p>\n

No!\u00a0It is highly\u00a0doubted that the\u00a0student will\u00a0ever succeed in that subject. Moreover, he will probably hate the lectures and become frustrated in attending them because he would fail terribly to comprehend what is going on in. Additionally,\u00a0there is no mental connection between his brain and the study of the particular subject.<\/p>\n

We do the\u00a0exact\u00a0same thing spiritually. Yes, we attend the liturgies\u00a0regularly, perhaps even twice or more a week. However, will we benefit if we don\u2019t pray and don\u2019t\u00a0fulfil\u00a0our element of struggle and striving at home? Will we feel joy in the liturgy, or rather frustration and boredom? No,\u00a0we\u00a0definitely\u00a0will not receive\u00a0any of these\u00a0things\u00a0which\u00a0our most treasured church offers us.\u00a0Instead,\u00a0we\u00a0will\u00a0regard the liturgy in the same way as\u00a0the slothful and indolent university student who hates his work, is repulsed and frustrated by it and wants to\u00a0cease attending lectures. And all of this\u00a0is\u00a0simply\u00a0because he didn\u2019t put in the effort and time at home.<\/p>\n

So my brothers and sisters, we are\u00a0exceedingly blessed\u00a0beyond our imagination\u00a0to be born into the\u00a0glorious Coptic Orthodox church,\u00a0where there is no greater joy than\u00a0in following the teachings of the\u00a0church handed down to us by our saintly forefathers. Come,\u00a0let us\u00a0deeply internalise the\u00a0importance of prayer in the spiritual life, and having done this, then we will bear stronger arms in\u00a0applying ourselves diligently\u00a0and\u00a0consistently to the all-important work of prayer. And finally, we\u00a0will\u00a0cry out with ecstasy\u00a0alongside\u00a0the psalmist saying \u201cHow lovely is your tabernacle, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the\u00a0LORD\u201d\u00a0(Psalm 84:1-2).<\/p>\n

O\u00a0our beautiful\u00a0Lord Jesus\u00a0Christ, grant us such happiness that\u00a0is found in the Orthodox\u00a0Church!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Admit it… Isn\u2019t church just sheer boredom? By: Bishoy Sharobim Do you ever get bored during the\u00a0Divine Liturgy?\u00a0Do you ever feel church is just\u00a0incredibly\u00a0dry and routine? Do you ever think\u00a0to\u00a0yourself that you are wasting your time in going to church? Or that it is extremely useless and yields no profit\u00a0to your life whatsoever?\u00a0Come on, please\u00a0admit … Continue reading “Admit it… Isn\u2019t church just sheer boredom?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5394,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5392\/revisions\/5394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}