Is this a serious fault?

[PelagiathePenit]

I am very honest and I correct others. My sister says I correct her almost every time we talk. It is good to be honest and correct others. I wonder if impatience is a serious fault for God. I get annoyed if I have to tell someone something more than once. If they do not change or take my advice after we have had a conversation. I can not stand people repeating themselves. I guess I see life as fast moving and always changing. So I get annoyed when people just can’t get with it. My friend says I am unrealistic to expect people to immediately drop their faults overnight. Part of me thinks people should always be hard-working, self-aware, observant and logical.

 

[Mary_Ellen]

Constantly correcting others for small faults **is **a serious fault - please back off.

While it may be honest to correct others it is not always good to do so. Not everyone is going to do things the way you see that they should be done. Maybe everyone should be “always be hard-working, self-aware, observant and logical” but in the real world they are not. Your constant harping on them is not going to change that and does not give a good witness to the Love of Christ within you.

When you see a fault in others refrain from correcting them. Swallow your pride, for this is indeed a sin against Pride, and grow in the virtue of humility. I know because I suffer from this as well. I’ve learned from experience and from the teaching of many others that when someone does something that annoys me it often points to a fault within me.

So, how do you know when a fault is serious enough to actually come forward and correct it? Jesus tells us, in Matthew, Chapter 18, that if a brother sins against us we should take it up with him. If he refuses to listen take one or two along with you. If he still refuses to listen, take it to the Church. So, correct someone only if the fault is serious enough to take it before the Church, not before.

 

[Emily2014]

I am very honest and I correct others. My sister says I correct her almost every time we talk. It is good to be honest and correct others. I wonder if impatience is a serious fault for God. I get annoyed if I have to tell someone something more than once. If they do not change or take my advice after we have had a conversation. I can not stand people repeating themselves. I guess I see life as fast moving and always changing. So I get annoyed when people just can’t get with it. My friend says I am unrealistic to expect people to immediately drop their faults overnight. Part of me thinks people should always be hard-working, self-aware, observant and logical.

How about looking for the good, the kindness and generosity etc etc in others.
People tend to respond to a warm, friendly approach, by giving the same in in return.
It’s worth a try.
God bless you and bring you joy in your life.

 

[JRKH]

I am very honest and I correct others. My sister says I correct her almost every time we talk. It is good to be honest and correct others. I wonder if impatience is a serious fault for God. I get annoyed if I have to tell someone something more than once. If they do not change or take my advice after we have had a conversation. I can not stand people repeating themselves. I guess I see life as fast moving and always changing. So I get annoyed when people just can’t get with it.

Yes this is a serious fault…it smacks of a great deal of selfish pride. Look at how much of the above is about you. You get annoyed when they don’t take your advice. **You **cannot stand people repeating themselves. You get annoyed that they “just don’t get it”.

My friend says I am unrealistic to expect people to immediately drop their faults overnight. Part of me thinks people should always be hard-working, self-aware, observant and logical.

I’m with your friend…
Do you think that a person who needs to loose 50 pounds should be able to do so overnight? Of course not. You would recognize that this takes time, commitment and effort to change lifelong habits. Even if one were to start on a program of diet and exercise today, it would take time and there would be set-backs.
Another analogy might be training for a marathon. A person does not go from being a “couch-potato” to a marathon runner over night. Even if their heart and soul are in the right place, it takes time to build up the discipline and the stamina.
It doesn’t help to have others being critical of the effort.

I think that you need to spend some time getting the beam out of your own eye. The friend you mention above is trying to help…

Sorry if any of this sounds harsh…but you are in the process of discovering in yourself the very thing you are criticizing others for…

Peace
James

 

[Paleocon]

I am very honest and I correct others. My sister says I correct her almost every time we talk. It is good to be honest and correct others. I wonder if impatience is a serious fault for God. I get annoyed if I have to tell someone something more than once. If they do not change or take my advice after we have had a conversation. I can not stand people repeating themselves. I guess I see life as fast moving and always changing. So I get annoyed when people just can’t get with it. My friend says I am unrealistic to expect people to immediately drop their faults overnight. Part of me thinks people should always be hard-working, self-aware, observant and logical.

I don’t think what you describe is sinful, certainly not gravely sinful.

Nonetheless, the vast majority of people are illogical, so pressing issues like you describe is simply not going to be effective.

 

[agnes_therese]

Try looking at it from the other people’s point of view, the people you are always annoyed with –

I am very honest and I correct others. My sister says I correct her almost every time we talk. It is good to be honest and correct others.

And how do you feel when someone is always correcting you?

I wonder if impatience is a serious fault for God. I get annoyed if I have to tell someone something more than once. If they do not change or take my advice after we have had a conversation.

So, you get annoyed because everyone else doesn’t always assume you are right and they are wrong? Why shouldn’t they be the ones annoyed because you don’t assume they are right?

I can not stand people repeating themselves. I guess I see life as fast moving and always changing. So I get annoyed when people just can’t get with it.

How do you suppose they feel about you repeating yourself with these constant corrections? How do they feel when you “just don’t get it” that they don’t agree with you, or don’t want your advice?

Really, try this exercise for a few days. I think it could do you a lot of good.

 

[SighGuy]

This is a serious fault, yes. But look how good God has been, that He has brought you here asking about it!

My pride issue often came/comes in the form of interior boasting. I am not a complainer, for example. Like St. Romuald, whose overly harsh teacher beat him with a cane on the temple when he messed up his psalms, I would be likely to be the one to say: “Master, strike the other temple, for I am almost deaf now in this side.” Here’s the problem: I boast in my heart when I see others complain.

“Look at them! They are weak, complaining, they don’t know anything about the Lord’s suffering… not like you, you suffer for God’s sake, you are favored by God…! Look at these ones, groveling about a little discomfort!” Now of course I never think it like that, but I may as well.

Without getting too deep into why this is lunacy and totally corrupt, I will say that I sought my heart for help on this issue, and I recalled a line from Scripture.
“And why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

I try to remember all the time, if I can endure, by what cause can I endure, other than God’s free love? If I do not make a gaff in this, or if I am more observant of my surroundings, or if I am smarter… “and why is this granted to me?” That is, what did I ever do to deserve this?

Truly you might say, when we merit, we can merit for ourselves greater graces. But where did my ability to merit come from? Did I give it to me? Where did my endurance come from, my patience, my ethic of not complaining? Did I assign those gifts to myself before I was formed?

What did Elizabeth do? How could she have earned such a wonder as this? But even if you argued, was she just and righteous? Then if so, by Whose Ineluctable Will was she just and righteous? Who gave her such graces?

So I try to efface myself always, and take fear and tremble as best I can, knowing that the Potter has shaped His clay for His own mysterious purposes, and to know I am so fortunate to have His graces! Who am I, what have I ever done, how could I hope to have earned such grace from God?

Remember this! Remember also that the last time this happened (just before I discovered this Scriptural passage’s help), shortly thereafter I was afflicted with severe temptations that racked me all day and night long, of a nature I am less skilled at enduring-- the thoughts of women! Luckily Our Lord sent His ministering angels to preserve me and keep me upright, but was I ever stricken! Was I ever humbled, from no where! One excels here and is deficient elsewhere.

 

[DeniseNY]

I don’t know if it rises to the level of being a sin, but it must surely make you very unpleasant to be around sometimes. I had a friend who thought she was being “helpful” by relentlessly bringing up what she as saw as “faults” in others. It’s as though she saw it as her duty to point out what was wrong with everyone around her. On many occasions, I asked her to please stop, and she couldn’t or just wouldn’t. What do you think happened to that friendship?

 

[Catholic1954]

I am very honest and I correct others. My sister says I correct her almost every time we talk. It is good to be honest and correct others. I wonder if impatience is a serious fault for God. I get annoyed if I have to tell someone something more than once. If they do not change or take my advice after we have had a conversation. I can not stand people repeating themselves. I guess I see life as fast moving and always changing. So I get annoyed when people just can’t get with it. My friend says I am unrealistic to expect people to immediately drop their faults overnight. Part of me thinks people should always be hard-working, self-aware, observant and logical.

It is a fault and sounds like pride and arrogance. You can hold yourself up to your hard-working, self-aware, observant and logical standards, but you do not have the right to expect the same of others.

 

[ready]

It is unrealistic to think that habits can change overnight. We must be patient. Always be charitable when you correct somebody, and only correct people when they are doing something that is dangerous to their soul or to the souls of others, that is, when they are doing something that is sinful. God bless you.