Into a foreign land

News of the Holy Father's approaching travel to the Czech Republic was made public this week. In a few days' time, he will travel to this country, which has known it's own history of ups and downs, to do his part to reinvigorate the small Catholic population who call that land home.

On Tuesday of this week, the online news source ZENIT published a story about this papal voyage, entitled Papal Visit to a Land of Nonbelievers. Through the eyes of the Prior of the Carmelite Monastery of the Infant of Prague, the report speaks of the fact that the Czech Republic is for all intents and purposes a secular country, but that the people, although they do not practice their religion as their forefathers (and mothers) did in years of yore, still cling to the tradition of the Infant with a special curiosity and love.

This reflection about a land so far away may cause some of us in other parts of the world to pose similar questions about our own homelands. Where once there was a fervent adherence to the practices and faith traditions of the Church, they seem for all intents and purposes to have been abandoned by the masses. People in this part of the world will still say that they pray, but that they want little or nothing to do with organized religion.

The reasons for this are varied and myriad. Some of them can be addressed by those of us who are on the other side of the fence, and others cannot. One way that we can try to help is by using the power of the internet, to speak to those who are no longer physically present, but who prefer the anonymity of their computer screens in the quest for answers, questions and discussions. We continue to welcome those who come to our doors, but more and more, religion is seen as a commodity which can be consumed when needed, and left on the shelf when not. Sadly, this relegates it to the same rhelm as most other widgets (at least in the minds of some), and the question of relevance for religion in such a society is at times the source of much debate.

In the words of the late Holy Father, John Paul II, the questions of life posed today are no different from those of yesteryear. People search for answers to questions about love, about understanding and about acceptance, when Christ alone has the answers that will satisfy. Would that people of this generation would be courageous enough to look in the right places for the answers, instead of wandering far and wide, expending great efforts to deny the only true answers to their quest.