Common sense in religion is rare, and we are too often trying to be heroic instead of just ordinarily good and kind.

Common sense in religion is rare, and we are too often trying to be heroic instead of just ordinarily good and kind.

Once a priest told us that no one gets up in the pulpit without promulgating a heresy. He was joking, of course, but what I suppose he meant was the truth was so pure, so holy, that it was hard to emphasize one aspect of the truth without underestimating another, that we did not see things as a whole, but through a glass darkly, as St. Paul said.

Charity is only as warm as those who administer it.

To love with understanding and without understanding. To love blindly, and to folly. To see only what is loveable. To think only of these things. To see the best in everyone around, their virtues rather than their faults. To see Christ in them!

The idea that when the health of one member suffers, the health of the whole body is lowered is a teaching of St Paul which is timeless.

We are all called to be saints, St. Paul says, and we might as well get over our bourgeois fear of the name. We might also get used to recognizing the fact that there is some of the saint in all of us.