Spiritual Superiority

[PBP]

I regularly encounter discussion on this forum and around my parish with people who proudly beat their chest and boast of their spiritual superiority. They are able to quote from the Catechism and have the priest over for dinner regularly. They volunteer to help around the parish, (as long as its not an inconvience), and are proud to have their picture taken with the pastor for nostalgia sake. But when it comes to offering themselves charitably for a stranger, they just dont have what it takes to be a true disciple. Have you ever thought of why geese fly in the formation as they do ?

 

[Epistemes]

It’s difficult to judge another person’s motives.

It’s also difficult to know a person by how they present themselves on these forums. In my own threads, I’m a regular “Pitiful Pauline”; in other threads, I can come across as knowledgeable and confident. The real me is somewhere in the middle, I believe.

 

[PBP]

It’s difficult to judge another person’s motives.

It’s also difficult to know a person by how they present themselves on these forums. In my own threads, I’m a regular “Pitiful Pauline”; in other threads, I can come across as knowledgeable and confident. The real me is somewhere in the middle, I believe.

I agree. I’m more so venting about a person in my parish who continually gets under my skin. Most recently at my dads funeral…about my dad.

 

[beckycmarie]

I regularly encounter discussion on this forum and around my parish with people who proudly beat their chest and boast of their spiritual superiority.

. . .a sure sign that one is not “spiritually superior.”

*"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed abouthimself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:10-14)*

 

[brigid12]

I agree. I’m more so venting about a person in my parish who continually gets under my skin. Most recently at my dads funeral…about my dad.

I’m so sorry for your loss. Please don’t let someone’s miscommunication at your dear father’s funeral bother you (possibly more than it would have otherwise). I will pray for you and for him!

 

[dancny]

Pray for them and for you.

Pray for them that they may see the true path God wants them to take and that they have the strength to be the person God wants them to be.

Pray that you can forgive them and that you can grow to know them better and see the way God is living in thier life.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I regularly encounter discussion on this forum and around my parish with people who proudly beat their chest and boast of their spiritual superiority. They are able to quote from the Catechism and have the priest over for dinner regularly. They volunteer to help around the parish, (as long as its not an inconvience), and are proud to have their picture taken with the pastor for nostalgia sake. But when it comes to offering themselves charitably for a stranger, they just dont have what it takes to be a true disciple. Have you ever thought of why geese fly in the formation as they do ?

This sort of disconnection is quite normal - however unhealthy - so in a sense it is nothing to worry about.​

I think this is one form of a disconnection in all of us: the disconnection between love & its practical manifestations. We all need healing, because all of us lack integrity, integritas, completeness; there are fault & fault lines in us all. And one thing that God’s Love does, is to refine people so that the fault-line is healed. Otherwise, we would all fall to pieces, for we would be nothing but a mass of fault-lines.

We can note the failings of others, as what we think we see can teach us to know our own failings better; & since for the most part we can do very little to change others, what we can do is pray for them - & hope they will do the same for us. But we can’t say others are not “true disciples” without condemning ourselves: for both they and we are measured by the same standard, which is nothing less than Christ Himself. All Christians are failures - them and us; this is why God is Gracious to us, instead of being Just; if He were Just, none of us could stand.

Just a few thoughts.