Lumen Fidei #5: Idols, Idols Everywhere!

From #13: Idols exist, we begin to see, as a pretext for setting ourselves at the centre of reality and worshiping the work of our own hands. Once man has lost the fundamental orientation which unifies his existence, he breaks down in to the multiplicity of his desires; in refusing to await the time of promise, his life-story disintegrates into a myriad of unconnected instants.

I don't wanna go to sleep
I wanna stay up all night
I wanna just screw around
I don't wanna think about
What's gonna be after this
I wanna just live right now - C'mon, Ke$ha

Above is the bridge of a current popular song. The whole song is about drinking and hooking up at a party. Now, I listen to classic rock, so I'm not going to even pretend to be a puritan when it comes to these lyrics. But I think this illustrates quite nicely what the Pope is talking about in today's quote.

Without God, without community, our life becomes disconnected. We start to live only in the moment. No, I'm not talking about the religious practice of living in the moment; the practice of giving each moment your full attention. I'm talking about immediate gratification of desires. As we do whatever we want whenever we want, we ultimately become our own idol.

I actually really like Happy Bunny, I'm looking at my desk calendar right now.

Life can't be all about you. That leads to an empty existence. Forget the afterlife or God, your current life will suffer if you worship at the altar of yourself. You'll be lost in a haze of desires and moments. You'll just live to get past the next hurtle. You'll be attached to the self. But the self is always changing, always growing. God is never changing. Don't you want to be attached to something bigger and more permanent than yourself?

This is part 5 of a series discussing parts that struck me out of Pope Francis' first encyclical, Lumen Fidei. For links to the other parts, go here.