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Catherine Marie Rhodes is the pseudonym of a member of the Catholic Media Coalition and a contributor to Spero News.
Thanks for this article. I was actually thinking of taking a yoga class. :(
Reminds me of that article you posted last year, in which a group tried stopping a Hindu-themed mass.
Oh brother. I have little tolerance for those whose faith is challenged by yoga of all things.
Good story.
Although I think yoga is generally quite silly, it can be approached purely as a set of physical stretching exercises without any spiritual/religious component.
I would compare it to kung fu, which theoretically should have a large Buddhist component, since the creators of the activity were Buddhist monks and the activity was designed purely for religious reasons: monks were not permitted by the rules of their communities to carry weapons.
I am reminded of a "team development" weekend that a firm I used to work for sent me on.
We were all required to take part in a meditation session. The hippy guru guy, by way of introduction, gave us a set of recommendations on physical positions to take during meditation and on themes and ideas to focus on in meditation.
As soon as he shut his yap, I kneeled and said my rosary.
Lesson: as long as you are aware of any New Age/pagan agenda, you can safely ignore it.
I don't think exercises of any type should be occurring inside the church. I guess I could understand it if the actual Church were under construction and this was actually the parish hall.
However, I think we need to be careful about condemning all yoga exercises.
There really seems to be some twisting going on here. Take a good look at these two sentences: "There are those who claim there is nothing wrong with practicing Yoga for exercise purposes only, but even the teachers of Hindu have stated that the philosophy and the practice of Yoga are inseparable. From Johanna Michaelsen’s book “Like Lambs to the Slaughter” (pp 93-95) she states, “You cannot separate the exercises from the philosophy… The movements themselves become a form of meditation.”"
Did you catch it? The author, Johanna Michaelsen is saying you can't separate the exercises from the philosopy. It isn't a yogi saying it, it's a lady who's anti-yoga. Even if a yogi did say it, what are we going to do, make a list of every body motion that exists in yoga and never move our bodies like that again?
Now I'm not going to say yoga is harmless. It isn't. That meditation, focus on the light crap is defintely the occult. But to say stretching puts you in league with the Devil? I'm not buying that one.
Yoga WAS a denomination of Hinduism centuries ago and it's still one the six "official" orthodoxies of Hinduism.
However, 99% (my number) of the Hindus today are Vedantists, that is, they don't subscribe to the Yoga denomination of Hinduism.
Yoga is more than incompatable to Christianity, it's galaxies apart, with absolutely nothing in common.
The yoga I teach is strength, flexibility, relaxation and breathing. I never heard of ANY religion embracing relaxation. Lol. But the discipline of nonreligious yoga is a good thing.
I always encourage the spiritual seekers to go elsewhere for their "quest." They AIN'T gittin' yoga spirituality from me.
And she's so unostentatiously humble, too. I just had to sigh ...
As a Catholic contributor, I never write for human respect. If that were my purpose, I would have already curtailed writing. Because my intent is to speak the truth, I never expect a pat on the back. But I maintain it pleases me to learn that my work does not always fall on deaf ears.
Wonder if she can do anything about my priest that WEARS AN EARRING!!!!!
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