I cannot say how many times someone has told me they realized after COVID that they can "worship God at home," or "watch the services on Facebook." This may work for certain Christian traditions, but the more sacramental and the more liturgical you are, the less it makes any sense at all.
If going to church is no more than gathering with like-minded people to learn stuff about God and listen to inspiring messages and sing songs, then sure -- you can do that anywhere. But if church is an encounter with the living God, Who gives Himself to us in the sacraments, and if the priest is not just a dynamic and engaging figure who happens to know some stuff about God, but someone who has submitted to Holy Orders in the Church to preside over the sacraments and give eternal life to others, then that is not something that can be appreciated virtually.
I sympathize, don't misunderstand. I prefer doing Zoom mediations and depositions in the post-COVID world. COVID taught us that not everything must be done face-to-face. Telemedicine, as just one example, has grown since 2020. Convenience is great, and anyonymity can sometimes be comforting. But Christianity is not something that can be virtualized. Yes, the Church is messy. Yes other people sometimes irritate or annoy us, or tempt us to sin in other ways. Yes, the priest might be in a bad mood or the choir might be missing some of its better voices or the reader might get a frog in his throat right before chanting something (that literally happened to me last month). Maybe someone's toddler is crying or, worse, some adult is acting out. Maybe the building is too hot or it's too far to drive or I was out too late and want to sleep in.
Maybe there's a football game on that morning!
Still, salvation is, at its core, a two-fold process. We acquire union with God, then we take God's light into the world . The former can only be done in person. Priests consecrate the sacraments, and with the sole exception of emergency baptism, laity are not authorized to do so. We can't give obedience to a TV screen or a YouTube video on our phone. We must give obedience to people, starting with our priests and bishops. We can't even forgive people virtually, for if we avoid people, what is there to ever forgive? The problem with this is, who is there to ever love? Because we also can't love people virtually. Not really, not as they actually are. At best we're loving a facsimile of the person. So not only can't we receive God virtually, but we also cannot share Him virtually. God's love is communal. We are, as I've said many times, saved in community.
It remains fascinating to me, this preference for virtual "church." The entire point of salvation is learning to love others as Christ loves us. The only way to do that is in union with Christ, for it is in Him that we learn to love our neighbor. It's one reason the Orthodox Church does not serve private masses -- there must be at least one layperson present to have a valid Divine Liturgy. When it comes to God, you do have to be there.
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