Among some people who know me I have a wholly undeserved reputation for being pious. In saner moral times I would have one role in the Church: a bad example. Books like the above remind me of what an immense amount of improvement I would need in my internal life to even be a passable Catholic. Ah well, where there is life there is hope, always remembering how brief this life is.
Growing up in the 1950s everybody especially the grown men made the sign of the cross before swimming, showering, eating, sleeping and especially passing a Catholic Church, but then we had pious sisters, priests and nuns and the whole town tried to be better.
Do the best you can do and leave the rest up to God. There are plenty of piously sanctimonious people who can always do the “right” thing but have no love in their hearts or common sense in their heads.
I’ve been called pious as well….which tells me how far we have fallen as a society.
Anyone who has watched a sporting event with me on TV or has been a passenger while I’m driving would be excellent witnesses for the prosecution!
Alas, it is a good reminder of what we ought to be aspiring to.
Josh, your comment hits home. Back when I was serving on the RCIA team at our parish, two or three years after being received into the Church, we had a fifth-year seminarian who was assigned to the parish to observe the process. During a class discussion one evening, he referred to one of the other team members and me as “holy men.” I remarked to the other guy “Wait until he’s a priest and hears one of my confessions. That will revise his opinion!”