Day 275: Superstition, Idolatry, and Magic (2110-2117)

• It’s Day 275!! 

• “YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME”

• SUPERSTITION

• Superstition sneaks into so many places in our lives

• There are other mini superstitions

• We give a power that belongs ONLY to God to something that is not God

• IDOLATRY

• Idolatry is giving worship or our heart that belongs to God to something that is not God

• DIVINATION AND MAGIC

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, we love you. We love you, and we receive your love. We acknowledge that you are the giver of every good gift. You are the God of the universe. And you know our names. You are the God of the universe, and you have called us to be yours. You are the God of the universe, and every hair on our head is counted. Lord God, every strand of DNA, you know. And who we are matters to you. What we do matters to you. Help us to fully belong to you. Help us to receive your love. Help us to receive your attention. And help us to receive your attention. And help us to find a place deep in our hearts where you are the Lord. Help us to create a life, to craft a life where you are the center, where you are everything, because God, you are the center, because God, you are everything. Help us to do this. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Paragraph 2110 says, “The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion.”

• SUPERSTITION

• Paragraph 2111 says, “Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.”

• When we think if we do this thing, something is going to happen because of it

• Like if you rub your lucky rabbit’s foot and it comforts you and makes you think something good is going to happen etc.

• It is trying to derive this religious feeling from a random action

• We can even be superstitious about our Catholic practices

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike’s example of making the Sign of the Cross when he drives by a Catholic Church…

• Fr. Mike is not superstitious, he is a little stitious 😉

• Sometimes we reduce our actions, even in church, to their external performance

• That doesn’t mean we do not still go through the motions

• It means that our challenge is to match the external with the internal

• IDOLATRY

• We can actually turn to false gods, call them by name, and give our lives to them

• THAT IS PROHIBITED!!

• Remember the false god Baal?

• Paragraph 2113 says, “Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, ‘You cannot serve God and mammon.’ Many  martyrs died for not adoring ‘the Beast,’ refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.”

• The human heart is an idol making factory

• We can make anything into a god

• We can take any good thing or bad thing and make them into ultimate things

• We commit idolatry whenever we honor and revere a creature in the place of God

• How many people are more invested in their politics than they are in worshiping the Lord?

• All of our lives find their unity in the adoration of the one God

• THIS IS SO IMPORTANT FOR US!!

• DIVINATION AND MAGIC

• The Church does not presuppose that divination and magic are empty

• There are spirits that dwell before God as His messengers and worship God day and night

• They are called angels

• There are also fallen angels aka demons

• There are more powers in this universe than just God’s divine power

• There is also demonic power

• The Church says avoid divination and magic because they are EVIL

• Paragraph 2115 says, “God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.”

• One of the calls of virtue is to be prudent and prepare for the future

• We need to avoid unhealthy curiosity about the future

• Paragraph 2116 says, “All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.”

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about some tv show back in the day called “Long Island Medium”...

• Apparently she is Catholic and also talked to dead people

• That needs to 100% be avoided

• If we seek that kind of thing out, we need to repent of that

• Because there is power there and it is dangerous

• Paragraph 2117 says, “All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others-even if this were for the sake of restoring their health-are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another’s credulity.”

• There are cultures that still exist right now that have witch doctors or shamans

• Going to a shaman to heal a loved one is evil and absolutely must be avoided

• What is a charm? 

• Objects that are intended to give some kind of good luck or benefit

• Even if it is part of tradition or culture, avoid magic and sorcery at all costs

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT to see you on the other side of the tracks!!