Going to Church will not save you...

...if that is all you do.

This message from today' first reading (Jeremiah 7:1-11) could not be more blunt:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel:
Reform your ways and your deeds,
so that I may remain with you in this place.

Put not your trust in the deceitful words:
"This is the temple of the LORD!
The temple of the LORD!
The temple of the LORD!"

Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds;
if each of you deals justly with his neighbor;
if you no longer oppress the resident alien,
the orphan, and the widow;
if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place,
or follow strange gods to your own harm,
will I remain with you in this place,
in the land I gave your fathers long ago and forever.

But here you are,
putting your trust in deceitful words
to your own loss!

Are you to steal and murder,
commit adultery and perjury,
burn incense to Baal,
go after strange gods that you know not,
and yet come to stand before me
in this house which bears my name, and say:
"We are safe;
we can commit all these abominations again"?

Has this house which bears my name
become in your eyes a den of thieves?

I too see what is being done, says the LORD.

Of course, we need to go to Church - attendance and participation in the worship of Christ’s faithful is a requirement - but great is our peril if we do not repent of our immorality, of our injustice, or of our worship of other gods (secular and otherwise).

May we always come to Church with hearts fully open to the Lord.