A Pilgrimage to Guadalupe by Swami Kriyananda

Author:Swami Kriyananda
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781565895140
Publisher: Crystal Clarity Publishers

EIGHT

The Monks and the Church

SOME DISTANCE DOWN THE ROAD, I CAME UPON A CAR standing by the wayside. Outside it were three monks wearing brown habits. One of them was replacing a flat tire; the other two were seated nearby on a grassy bank, watching the operation.

“Greetings, strangers,” I said.

“Greetings, brother,” they replied smiling.

“You look as though you didn’t need help. But would you like more company?”

“Please join us,” they said graciously, and I did so.

As I settled myself on the bank beside the two “non-combatants,” I asked them humorously, “So, do you think God may have arranged for you to have this flat tire just so that we might meet?”

“Who knows?” they both answered. Then, with equal good humor, one of them continued, “His ways are inscrutable. He might have taken time out from overseeing the fate of nations, or the slow movement of galaxies, to give thought to so small a thing as this meeting.”

“Do you suppose,” I wondered aloud, “he even sees things in terms of big and small? Is He Himself big? Is size an attribute we can apply to Him? In other words, do you think He may be some sort of giant, overseeing the whole universe from outside it, or above it?”

At this, the brothers became more serious. “The universe,” one of them said, “exists outside of Him. We don’t know what He looks like, but we do know He made us all.”

“And how do you imagine He made us?” I inquired. “Out of nothing?”

“It can only have been so, for we are taught that God is ‘wholly other.’ It would be presumptuous to think otherwise.”

“You say, ‘We are taught.’ Are your personal beliefs the result only of someone else’s teaching? or are they the result of your own reflection?”

“Well, of course we abide by the dogmas taught by our Church.”

“Do you believe, then, that your church is always right?”

“Well,” said one of them, “I don’t think anyone would go that far. By the way, I am Brother Augustus. This,” he indicated the monk seated closer to me, “is Brother Pacificus. And that,” he indicated the monk changing the tire, “is Brother Francis.” In time I discovered Brother Augustus to be rather austere by nature, and slightly aloof. Brother Pacificus was altogether different from what his name suggested: a little restless, and of a jovial nature. Brother Francis was simple, and displayed a devotional temperament.

Brother Augustus continued somewhat pontifically, “Protestants have gone to great lengths to point out the Church’s mistakes. Among their criticisms are those of Mar tin Luther: the sale of indulgences. They point also to the extreme lack of charity demonstrated by the Spanish Inquisition. I think any reasonable man would agree at least with those criticisms. Still, we believe that the Church, despite its mistakes, represents most truly the teachings and legacy of Jesus Christ.

“It is well,” he added, “that one body, and even one person—the Pope—decide what Jesus meant, rather than let people randomly make up their own minds as to what he meant.

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