“…to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
One of the things I love most about Catholicism is the rich tradition that it holds and the universality of its rituals. This Church has such a long history, and through good times and bad, it has prevailed. However, I also think that this dedication to ritual and tradition can sometimes be our downfall.
A priest once told me that ritual and tradition should be used as a tool to lead us to deeper faith, reverence, and love for God. However, sometimes we become obsessed with tradition, doctrine, and ritual so much that it becomes our primary focus – set before even our love of God.
This obsession can sometimes prevent us from loving others the way Christ would or growing in genuine and intimate love for God. In the gospel, it says that loving God with our entire soul, heart, understanding, and strength and loving our neighbor as ourselves is worth more than any burnt offerings and sacrifices.
Our main focus should be giving our entire being toward loving and serving God and to giving that love to others in return. These are the highest of the commandments, Jesus says, and we should allow nothing to get in the way of living them out – even if it is our own rituals. If our focus is on rituals, and not what the rituals point to, they cease to be meaningful.
If our focus is only on tradition and doctrine, our focus is not on God. May we always remember that our primary vocation is to love – to love God, to love ourselves, to love others. If we do this, we are not far from the kingdom of God.
Ally Fritsch is a sophomore at John Carroll University majoring in Sociology and minoring in Theology and Religious studies. She works closely with John Carroll Campus Ministry and strives to live out, and inspire others to live out, a faith that does justice.
