“What is more important than the practices we take on is the heart attitude behind them. If there’s anything we should give up this time of year, it’s our sense of superiority either to those outside the church or those inside the church who do things differently than we do. The cross levels us all. And that’s true whether or not you practice Lent.” ~ Trevin Wax
The one person in my live who was the most Catholic was my father. Just ask him. He would tell you the same. As a matter of fact, he was so Catholic that he was more Catholic than the pope. Yep. My brother likes telling the story of a time that he learned something in religion in grade school. Our father corrected him when he got home and he said that the Sisters told him. My father told my brother that the Sisters were wrong. When told that this was what the Sisters said that the Pope had stated, my father declared solemnly that the pope was wrong.
Ah, that “sense of superiority either to those outside the church or those inside the church.” We all show that from time to time in our lives, don’t we? We adopt an attitude that speaks to the world that we know best, that we are the best models of the Church, and/or that people should follow our example.
We’re not called to put ourselves on a pedestal and to walk a well-populated road for everyone to see. No. We are called to walk that lonely road with the Lord on the way to Calvary. We shoulder our crosses rather than shouting our praises. We lift our burdens rather than put others down. We do our best to live blameless lives rather than to cast blame upon others.
This can only be done if we walk humbly with the Lord and lose the attitude of superiority. There is only one who is superior and that is God. We are His imperfect children doing our best to accept His will. We cannot do so unless we adopt an attitude of humility.
FAITH ACTION: Ask God to help us shape our attitude in such a way as to be more humble.