Blake Was Right
A few years ago, when I was blessed with the privilege of entering the Orthodox Catholic Church, one of my teachers spoke of the Church’s vast repertoire of prayers for specific occasions. Echoing a now well-worn expression, he said that for every occasion, “There’s a prayer for that.” Indeed, for many coming to Catholicism, whether Western and Roman or Eastern and Orthodox, it can all seem a bit mechanical, as if salvation were a great complex of machinery, and we need but perform the proper rituals to be forgiven and saved. But salvation is not just about forgiveness. Ultimately, it is about theosis—becoming a saint through becoming like God (sanctification through divinization). And there is no app for that. ...