"As high as the heavens are above the earth,
so high are my ways above your ways
and my thoughts above your thoughts."
(Is 55:9)

 

In the history of the world each culture has developed its own way to perceive the eternal mystery --the way of the gods of the Greco-Roman world, the symbolic-mythological way of primitive societies, the Immanent way of India and China, the Judeo-Christian Way and the prophetic way of Islam .

 

 

Are all these religious perspectives of the mystery equally true?

Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI has well stated the modern mental outlook-- "We are supposed to think that the distinction between God and gods, between the image of God as a person and the impersonal mysticism of identity, is a distinction between images and concepts, that is, a penultimate distinction which does not affect the essentials, because all concepts and images fall short of the ineffable reality of the absolute." (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Truth and Tolerance, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA, 2004, p. 102.) This, however, is a false assumption because there is quite a difference between a personal God and the Impersonal God to whom you cannot pray.

True Religion means the conformity of our minds with the mind of God who has revealed Himself. This was experienced by Abraham, who was told to move away from Ur and the gods of his fathers, by Israel in the desert where they began to worship the golden calf or bull of Egypt and experienced God's punishment. They had to struggled against the cultural gods of Mesopotamia, Egypt and of the Cananites gods of fertility Baals and Ashtarts. In short, it was never a question of accepting the pagan gods but of affirming their faith in the true God expressed in the Shema thus:

God's revelation culminates with the Incarnation of is his only Son, Jesus Christ. "Christ is not an avatar of God ... one of the multifarious finite manifestations of the divine, in which we learn to have some inkling of the divine. He is not a 'manifestation' of the divine, but is God. In him, God has shone his face." (Ibid., p. 104)

The truth of the Triune God is something that only a divine person would know. It cannot be discovered by human reason. To God alone belongs the forgiveness of Sin and the way to achieve it, that is, through the death-Resurrection of his Son in his human nature. Therefore, Christianity is the only True Religion or the final realization of man's search for God and the meaning of life. But, since there are many Christian Churches, how do we know which one is True? The true Church is characterized as One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. All other Christian denominations fall short of the fulness of faith and only the Catholic Church measures up to the above definition. True Religion ultimately means our conformity with the mind of Christ as manifested in his Mystical Body which is the Church.

Since this is the only way to the Father for mankind, Christ told his followers:

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Mt 28:19)