A different wavelength

"This religion stuff is nonsense."

We have all encountered people who say this and worse things. Sometimes they say it maliciously but many times, they may be genuinely clueless.

St. Paul writes of these people in today's first reading (1 Corinthians 2:10b-16):

But the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:
for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned.

They are on a different wavelength than we are.

Now we have received,
not the spirit of the world,
but the spirit which is of God;
that we might know the things
that are freely given to us of God.

Which things also we speak,
not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth;
comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

The spirit of the world promises freedom and instant gratification, but these things turn out to be traps: sacrificing long-term happiness for momentary thrills and enslaving oneself to the dictatorship of the whim.

The spirit of the world promises Answers through the infallible oracle of Science, but while technology provides its share of benefits, science and technology often create new, "unforeseen" problems, new ways to treat human beings like experimental animals or a collection of parts, and new ways to destroy life on a massive scale.

And in the end, the "answers" science provides are so often overwritten by the next scientific study and inevitably they fall short of truly answering the ultimate questions.

The eternal answers to the ultimate questions cannot be found on the physical plane and so human beings have always sought these answers in spiritual things.

For the Spirit searcheth all things,
yea, the deep things of God.

And so, if we wish to find the true and eternal answers to the ultimate questions of our hearts and in our souls, we must let ourselves be filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

Also, if we are frustrated in our dialogue with people in world, who do not seem to "get it" or who look upon the things of our faith as foolishness, we need to keep these words of St. Paul in mind:

But the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:
for they are foolishness unto him:
neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned.

Yet even within "the natural man" can be found the innate need for God that has been placed there by the Creator: a need partly manifested by the ultimate questions that only God can answer.

People often numb themselves to this need or distract themselves by immersing themselves in sensuality, drugs, hedonism, or nihilistic philosophies.

We can help them reconnect with this need and bring again to the forefront of their minds those questions for which the natural man alone cannot find true satisfaction.

We need to pray in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit of God may come upon them with the light of God's wisdom and the fire of God's love.