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It is a long time since I went to a restaurant. I never found the experience one that enjoyed. I dislike the noise and the distraction of other people eating and ordering. But more than that the choosing of food from a menu was a chore. A set menu with limited choice was helpful but an a la carte menu was a labyrinth I would seldom enter. Usually I would have chosen my meal before hand assuming the dish was on the menu. Simple plain food. There is a danger in choosing your own meal from the multiple choices facing you.

Sometimes a similar choice faces us in our long, life long, spiritual journey. There is a danger we may fall into the trap of choosing bits and pieces of faith and spirituality that are easy for us and that we are comfortable with, while consciously or unconsciously avoiding those parts we don’t like or are hard for us. We may fool ourselves into thinking we can pick and choose which parts of Church teaching we want to accept which we can choose to reject or ignore.

Such an attitude, and it is a danger we all face, is not to be countenanced. It is an all or nothing approach. We take it all, believe it all and live under and with it all. We are not at liberty to make up our own set of beliefs to make ourselves comfortable.

If there is truth then truth is all.

This doesn’t mean a blind conformity where we park our intellect at the door. We can question, think and discuss areas we find hard but only to reach an understanding to allow us to accept them. Truth is truth, there aren’t shades of truth.

We have to be fully immersed in faith before we are truly able to understand what is presented to us.

Over the many decades of my life I have listened to many who wanted to pick and choose which parts to believe and where to obey. This is not a good path, we cannot make it all into something in our own image we cannot be self indulgent.

There was a time when Jesus was making hard and tough statements and many left him at that point, going away and shaking their heads in dismay. Be aware there is a danger of falling into that trap.

Our journey is not an easy one and as society becomes ever more secular and detached from even the most basic morality of the Christian faith, we can think of compromising in order to feel we still can fit in with the customs of the world.

Such is the path paved with good intentions and we know where that will lead us.

We have to learn not only the inner spiritual discipline that allows us to accept all that is truth whether it be to our taste or not but also to hold fast against external circumstances that surround us.

Our faith has to be attested to, in each and every circumstance every day. Let us not shy away from being bold in the service of Our Lord. We may in following this hard path of love face many mini white martyrdoms. Our blood may not be shed but we may have to bear many taunts or even mockery or hostility, if we are to faithfully follow the Lord. No pick and mix religion will see us through these difficult days. Time and again we will have to mark ourselves out as different from the flow of society, that takes courage but the Lord will strengthen us.

With Christ and His Church there is no a la carte menu. We have the truth laid before us, and that is the banner we walk under all the days of our life.