Isolation
My beloved faithful, our contemporary society and most authorities …are increasingly isolating us, in order that we may become lonelier, less bound to each other, and less communicative, in order that they may lead us to their intended destination. They are trying to isolate us, because communities are much harder to lead than isolated individuals.
The Communists have done this through violence. The West doesn’t use violence but another method: proclaiming that you are “unique,” that you have “many rights,” that you are an “independent man,” that you need to be alone, not confined by your parents, not obedient to them or to anyone as a child, because you are a “free man.”
This misunderstood freedom is a revolt against God, it is nihilism.
Thus we have reached the state that we see today, with all the crimes that haunt the world … where fourteen-year-old children shoot their teachers, their friends, and their parents.
We have broken the human ties with those we live near. That spiritual relationship between my brother and me, between my parents and me, between parents and children, between friends has vanished. And in this disintegration of personality, which leads towards a demonized world, we are growing increasingly isolated.
Let us remain united in faith and love with one another, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us stay united in the community of the Church, because the Church of Christ is the only beneficial social group.[1] Other groups lead to self-destruction. They attempt to destroy humankind, to make man an instrument of business,[2] a mere cog in the complicated mechanism of human society.
Bibliography
Calciu, George. Father George Calciu: Interviews, Homilies, and Talks. Edited by Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood. Platina: Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2010.
[1] [Fr. George is not speaking here of family and friends. Elsewhere Fr. George speaks of the father as the priest of the family church. He also says: “You are in Christ’s Church whenever you uplift someone bent down in sorrow, when you help someone elderly walk more easily, or when you give alms to the poor and visit the sick.” (Calciu 2010, 162) The Church of Christ exists wherever we bear the body and blood of Christ to the world; the Church of Christ exists wherever we serve our family, our friends, and our neighbor, renewing the bonds of love and thereby resacrilizing the world.]
[2] [We are treated as an “instrument of business” when we are lumped together in arbitrary groups based on common characteristics rather than as communities of persons — when our primary relationship is viewed as being the isolated customer of a soulless corporation, treated in the aggregate as consumers.]