"Better-Than-Thou" Attitudes
Tuesday of the Thirty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time
My dear encountered couples:
When we are successful, when there are people who look up to us, when we are religious and pray a lot, there is always the possibility we begin to get a higher opinion of ourselves than is good for us. We might start thinking there are things about us that make us better than others, that we are more special than they in God’s eyes. Could we begin acquiring a divinity complex? And that everybody should look to us for advice and wisdom?
“Take care not to be misled,” Jesus said. “Many will come in my name saying, ‘I am he’ and ‘The time is at hand.’ Do not follow them.”
We all think that Jesus is talking about somebody else. Even those cult leaders who pass themselves off as being Christ himself might not realize it is they that Christ is warning the people against. It is possible we all at times are tempted to think there is something about us that should make people sit up and take notice, stand up and start cheering. And though that may be true to some degree, for we all have some remarkable qualities, let us not get carried away with ourselves. All the good we have in us has been put there by God. Not as a reward, not that we deserve it, but because God, who is the only God, is Love, and he likes to make us as much like his Son as possible.
We are all special in God’s estimation, but in different ways. We each have much to share with others, much also that we need to receive. Let us be sure to fight off any “better-than-thou complexes,” let us rather concentrate on doing all we can to become better than we are now. Let us take care not to be misled about others, not to be misled about ourselves.
