Wednesday, January 25, 2006
"DON'T LET IT GO TO YOUR HEAD !"
People who know me have sometimes heard me say that to them at a time when things were going well. It was from Dr. James Dobson that I learned the danger of praise. The moment it comes our way we get very sure of ourselves, and that pride is too often the cause of our own future foolishness. Always we must walk humbly with our God and with our fellow man. The moral test of success in any of our endeavors is truly a scary ordeal.
Some wise words came my way in email yesterday, and I wanted to pass them along. They are the words of St. Macarius (+1860):
"How harmful is the praise of man! Even though a person may have done something worthy of praise, when he enjoys the sound of praise, he is already deprived of future glory --- according to the teachings of the Holy Fathers."
Are there any among us bloggers who don't "enjoy the sound of praise"? If there are, this blogger is not among them. Welcoming rejection is a state of mind I expect to find among the living saints of this world and not the average Catholic spending his time on churchy things. And so I've put those words of St. Macarius up there for anyone else who needs to read them as much as I do.
