If all the commandments, memorized prayers and holy days of obligation were to suddenly vanish, what would you be left with? What would your faith be? Is a relationship with Jesus even there, or are we merely carrying out an obligation? 

This is the crippling result of toxic spirituality and it can really do more damage to our souls than we may initially realize.

Let me tell you my story.

I don’t think anyone would describe me as a laid-back, easy-going kind of person. I’ve always been a rule follower. Even as a child I was seen as trustworthy, a goody-two-shoes. I wanted to know the boundaries… so I could follow them, securing my place and priding myself as the dependable, responsible one. While these qualities have for the most part served me well, I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t seeped into my spirituality at times. 

Though I was raised Catholic, received all the sacraments and attended Catholic school, faith for me was experienced as a set of rules to be followed. 

It can be all too easy for type-A people like myself to lack the joy and abundant life Christ promises us. 

Rather, I found myself settling for a rigid moralism, following all the “prescribed” steps and checking off all the right boxes. I convinced myself I was doing everything a “good Catholic” was expected to do.   

And who could blame me? With something as permanent and eternal as heaven on the line, I was looking for a sort of assurance or guarantee, even if it was false hope. 

No matter how many prayers I said or rules I followed, I knew deep down that in my own feeble brokenness there was nothing I could do to “earn” heaven. Heaven is a gift and regardless how “good” or “holy” someone might be, are they ever truly worthy to spend eternity with the One who is the source of all love and goodness? 

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” Matthew 7:21

Though I know this, it is so easy to blur the lines. I find it to be a particular temptation in the Catholic Church. From a young age we are taught to dutifully say our Hail Marys and Our Fathers, attend Mass every Sunday and follow the ten commandments. Whether accurate or not, Catholics are notoriously known as the church of “thou shall nots…”  

While this approach to our spiritual lives may seem innocuous enough, without careful consideration it can be so, so pernicious to our soul. Before we even realize it, the devil can sneak in, twisting what began as a true and sincere means of seeking the Father and mutating that connection into another dry, lifeless instruction manual with no heart behind it. Leading us into a tepid and half-hearted relationship with the Lord. 

Have you ever been there? Has it ever snuck up into your life where all of a sudden you look around and you’ve fallen into a long-list of to-dos rather than a life of adventure and intimate connection to God? 

This is of course the last thing we want to do. 

No one wants to follow rules for the sake of following rules. And God doesn’t want this for us either.

He doesn’t want us to feel obligated to Him, but actually delight in Him and His commands because they bring us life.

Still, this sort of toxic spirituality is the risk we run when viewing our spiritual life through the lens of checklists and to-dos. We can start to misunderstand His character, confusing Him as a stern disciplinarian who is just waiting for us to screw up. Instead of recognizing Him as the loving and merciful Father that He is. 

The rules and precepts are utterly pointless if not leading us to deeper communion with Our Lord. The end goal should always be about our relationship. We are created by God and for God. We are made for communion with Him. 

“God has created [man] through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.” - Catechism of the Catholic Church

We are made for love, and love is found in relationships not tired scripts and formulas. 

Keeping that in mind, we can’t be too quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The commandments and laws are given to us for a reason. The Church in her wisdom knows that. Still, the aim of all these rules and scripted prayers is not to simply follow along because the Church says so. Rather, they are shared with us as tools to draw us into a deeper relationship with the Lord, making our path to Him easier. That’s right. All the rules are there to make a joyful, rich, full life easier to find.

If they are failing to do so then our Church is nothing more than a glorified social club and our faith has been whittled down to a tired set of social codes. 

Consider this, what if a marriage were to consist entirely of flat, hollow conversations, empty traditions and stifling rules? What if there was no spontaneity, heartfelt communication, vulnerability or trust? Sure you are being faithful to your vows, not breaking any of the “rules” but we all know more is required for a healthy marriage than just doing the bare minimum. Just because you stick around in sickness and in health doesn’t mean you have a great marriage. But still, remaining faithful to your vows is an integral part of a successful marriage. These boundaries give us a greater freedom to love our spouse authentically, entirely, pouring out our lives in service to one another. 

The same is true for our faith. Following the commandments and tenets of our Catholic tradition is without a doubt needed. These guidelines give us a springboard from which we can grow. Someone who attends Mass on Sunday may begin this habit out of obligation, but by grace and commitment this obligation can transform into an avenue of deeper unity with the Father. 

I challenge us all to really examine our lives and reconsider the questions asked before: If all the commandments, memorized prayers and holy days of obligation were to suddenly vanish, what would we be left with? What would your faith be? Is a relationship with Jesus even there, or are we merely carrying out an obligation? 

The point in my journey when this finally clicked was university. I had spent my entire life closely surrounded by others who lived out their faith in a narrow, “follow-the-rules- because-they-are-the-rules” kind of way, but upon setting out on my own in university slowly I was introduced to God in a new and fresh way. 

Maybe it’s a maturity thing. It was for me. Or maybe your perception of the Church was tarnished in the past, and with it so was your understanding of God. We may begin our spiritual journey acting out of obligation, but that’s not where we are meant to stay. Toxicity in our spiritual life is not a one time thing. At least it hasn’t been for me. It’s an over and over checking the heart I am bringing to God daily. 

He desires love. He desires us, each in our own unique way. He was a real person who walked the face of this earth over 2,000 years ago. He experienced friendships, and laughter, love and loss. Just as Christ’s focus was not on the rules then, but rather the heart. So it remains today. Our primary motivation must now and always be love, for love covers a multitude of sins.