Test Yourself!

Lamentations 3:40

Let us test and examine our ways,
and return to the LORD!

A wise man once said that all of fallen human history is sandwiched between two questions.  The first is, “What could it hurt?” followed sometime later by, “How was I supposed to know?”  The Faith teaches us that both of these questions are, when you boil it all down, dumb.  It’s dumb to do something (like, say, rebel against God and eat forbidden fruit) when someone who is in a position to know (like, say, God) assures you the results will be bad.  It’s even dumber to then pretend you weren’t being dumb.  But dumbest of all is to say, “Now we must stay the course!”  The good news of Jesus Christ is that we don’t have to stay the course charted for us by our First Parents.  We can turn around and say we’re sorry.  Better still, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we can be forgiven our conceit and self-will, and begin to live for God.  We aren’t fated to be fools, we are created and redeemed to be saints!

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Mark P. Shea is a popular Catholic writer and speaker. The author of numerous books, his most recent work is The Work of Mercy (Servant) and The Heart of Catholic Prayer (Our Sunday Visitor). Mark contributes numerous articles to many magazines, including his popular column “Connecting the Dots” for the National Catholic Register. Mark is known nationally for his one minute “Words of Encouragement” on Catholic radio. He also maintains the Catholic and Enjoying It blog and regularly blogs for National Catholic Register. He lives in Washington state with his wife, Janet, and their four sons.

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