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False Gods

“No one forces us to choose today between idolatry and faithfulness, but we so often freely worship false gods when we ground the meaning and purpose of our lives in some vision of cultural success or personal fulfillment that serves only to inflame our passions and blind us to the humanity of those who seem to stand in our way.” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)


“Every goldsmith is put to shame by his carved images; because they cast false gods that have no spirit in them. They are vain works that are ridiculed, and in the time of His visitation they shall be destroyed.” [Jeremiah 10:10-11]…Let us never imagine that idolatry belongs only to the religious life of the ancient past. The truth is that idol worship aptly describes the devotional life of many “sophisticated” people living in so-called advanced societies.” (OCPM 10/12/2016)


“St. Paul says that God through creation gave signs of His existence and presence to everyone in the world. Some people have failed to recognize that created things are signs pointing to God. Instead of seeing the created order for what it is, and what God is revealing to us, some turned created things into their gods. Idols are nothing more than created things which have become people’s gods. Even angels are created beings and some have made some of them into their gods. Many early Christians thought idolatry was the original sin of humans. They thought Eve and Adam in disobeying God made other things their gods.” (Fr. Ted Bobosh)


“This reading compels us to come to terms with our “little idols.” Perhaps we do not openly worship a “big god.” We do not make the “god of this world” the center and purpose of our lives. But while we worship God the Holy Trinity, we might still pay lesser homage to the “little gods” of success, reputation, comfort, entertainment, etc. The “god of this world” blinds its followers to the Glory of God in Christ. But the “little” gods also weaken our spiritual sight. To the extent that we nurture these “little idolatries” in our hearts, we do not have a clear vision of Jesus Christ, the Light of the World. Do we want to see Christ more clearly so that we might follow Him more closely and live with him more faithfully? Then we should throw out whatever “little gods” still reside in our hearts. We should get rid of these “little veils” that we might plainly see “the light of the Glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).” (Fr. Basil)


“A temple is the place where ancient people met their gods, and therefore pagan creation narratives are essentially the stories of the building of a temple. How did that narrative work? In most of these stories, the god forms a garden or mountain and humans build a temple in it, a place for their god to dwell. They then place an idol of the god—usually a statue image—into the temple. They performed a ceremony called the “opening of the nostrils” or sometimes “the opening of the eyes,” and through this ritual the god’s spirit was understood to be breathed into the idol, making the idol a body for the god, essentially trapping him inside. The human worshipers would then wash, clothe, and feed the idol, hoping to get from the god what they desired in exchange for this service of hospitality. In Genesis 2, we see something quite similar, except God Himself builds the sacred space, and He places an image in the midst of that sacred space, an image of Himself (Gen. 1: 27). It is not a lifeless idol, however, but a living man, into whom has been breathed not a god who is trapped there and available for control, but rather the “breath of life,” God’s Spirit freely inhabiting man and enlivening him for communion. God then takes care of this image of His, providing everything to him freely. If idolatry is about satisfying human desires by making deals with a god, then God’s design is about His freely given providence for humans through communion.” (Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick)


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