Church entry is free of charge… but Temples can be empty.

Clubs have an entrance fee… and yet, they are always packed.

In our time, people have to pay for everything:

For fun.  For appearances. For acceptance.

To "experience something", even if only for a short time.

And yet… there is a space that doesn’t ask for anything:

-It doesn’t demand an entry fee.

-It doesn’t require you to make a reservation in advance.

-It doesn’t have any prerequisites.

It is the Church.

And yet…  Her spaces can be empty.

And the reason for this is because people today are not accustomed to receiving something without paying for it.

It is because we have come to consider everything that is for free must be worthless...  and that precious things are only the ones that have a cost.

We have thus arrived at the paradox of our time:

We pay, in order to forget ourselves, and we refuse to enter a place where we can find ourselves.

Clubs are full because they promise a boisterous environment.

The Church seems empty, because it offers quietude.

And modern people are afraid of silence, because it is in silence that they will confront themselves - and most of the time, they do not want to.

The Church is not a place for “moral people”.

It is not for the perfect.

It is for the weary.

It is for the wounded.

It is for those who can no longer endure pretending to be something they are not.

It is the only refuge where you don’t have to prove anything.  Just be there.

And yet… we prefer to pay to lose ourselves, rather than enter for free to be saved.

We pay to reach Hell, when Heaven is for free.

This is not an exaggeration. It is a spiritual reality.

Because “Hell” does not begin after death; it begins when one lives without God... when one fills their life with noise so they won’t have to  listen to their soul.

And Paradise?

It is not "simply a vague post mortem place".

It's a relationship.

It’s a Presence.

It’s God inside one’s heart.

Thus, the Church is not empty. She is full… of Grace.

She simply waits.

She doesn’t wait for the perfect ones.

She waits for you. Not when you will be ready;  but as you are, now.

Because God doesn’t ask you to pay.

He only asks you to open yourself to Him.

And this is what modern man fears most: that in the End, God will not ask you what you paid for during this life, but why you didn’t enter where everything was for free.

It’s not that we didn’t find God…

It’s that we were afraid to let Him find us.

Translation A.N.