Are you a hypocrite? Well, it might feel like that at times. At least, it should. Anyone striving for something great should be aware of his failures and how short he falls of the ideal. Even more so when the ideal is Christ Himself. You go to Mass, pray the Rosary, and say grace before meals. But then you snap at your children, covet your neighbor’s goods (and wife), eat too much, and so on. Yes, we feel the division between what we believe and how we behave. We can feel like hypocrites at times.
Now, some of that division comes from being children of Adam. Our human nature is wounded. We’ve inherited the disintegration that’s part and parcel of original sin. Our thoughts, words, and actions are not integrated, not whole and entire. But some of this is also our own doing, our own failure to live a life of integrity. And every time we sin, we exacerbate that division.
Of course, Hypocrites! is the classic accusation thrown at serious Catholics or at anyone simply striving for more than the world’s paltry offerings. People see that Catholics fall short of what we profess. They see us live in contradiction
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