Every so often it’s worth asking ourselves do we mean when we say certain things; and this perhaps even more so when we are dealing with religious language, or indeed, with the word ‘religion’ itself which appears in today’s second reading from the letter of St James.

We are used, in these days of secularism, to people rejecting or ignoring ‘religion’. I was particularly struck by the fact that a friend, not a Catholic, informed me that he did not believe in religion. This surprised me because my friend is not an atheist: he believes in God, goes to church, says his prayers and tries to be good; yet he says he doesn’t believe in organized “old” religion. Well, it seems that he must mean by ‘religion’ something rather different from what St James means.

The Greek word used by St James is derived from a notion of fear of God – or indeed the gods – and usually refers to acts of worship. We believe that Christians engage in acts of worship and speak of ‘fearing God’ in a positive manner. This is just right and correct, and indeed commanded by God in the scriptures. But St James makes it clear that ‘religion that is pure and undefiled’ is much more than that.

Religion can be used to refer to the religious organization and discipline, so that ‘catholic religion’ refers to Church structures, norms and regulations. We are often called to worship God as a community, structured and governed in a particular manner – that is right and proper. However, true religion is much more than that. Those notions of religion as belief in God, acts of worship or structures and discipline are the ones you are likely to find in a dictionary; however, they are not the ones you find in the New Testament.

Understanding religion in those dictionary terms is a risk of the kind of pharisaism that we hear about in today’s Gospel. The Pharisees, to be fair, have a clear concern for the commandments of God, which is commendable. They have a strong sense of the closeness of God as emphasized by Moses in today’s first reading. All that is well and good. However, their application of those commandments is so rigid that it loses the real meaning. The point of all those commandments is that we might be holy, that what comes from the inside might be pure, and not make us unclean, and that we might shun all those vices mentioned in the gospel passage.

I wonder whether when our contemporaries reject ‘religion’ it is in fact this ‘pharisaism’, or at least perceived pharisaism, that they are rejecting. More than likely they are.

True religion, as the Church understands it, is essential for us to do our duty to God. That certainly includes worshipping him, and being active members of Christ’s body, the Church. It also entails striving for holiness, for that is what God created us for and redeemed us. It includes, therefore, aiding the afflicted, looking for the good, avoiding those things from the inside that make us unclean. ‘Religion that is pure and undefiled… is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself from the world’ (James 1:28).

We may go to church regularly; we may seem, from the outside, to be living our lives in accordance with the commandments of God and the Church; we may seem to be people who do not murder, steal and so on; we may hear the word of God, and even endure the homily without complaining. Well done, if you do; but if that is all we do, then we deceive ourselves and are unaware of the word only and not “doers”. If that is all we do, then it is not surprising that ‘religion’ has a bad name.

We must, of course, put the word into practice. Not just seem’ religious, but be holy, helping the poor and suffering, and being pure in what comes from inside. We must be referred to as ‘religious’ and only then can we hope for the virtue of true religion to be seen and looked for what it is.