Through obedience, we become who we really are

Quote of the Day for Tuesday, April 26th, 2011:

David Mills, from an On the Square post over at First Things, from an interesting, if somewhat bizarrely sensationalist, reflection on the moral significance of being true to the self:

No one objects to being told to live like Jesus. But to live the way St. Paul says to live, or the way the Catechism of the Catholic Church says to live, that we dislike. Being chaste, or giving alms, or stifling our desire for profit, or going to confession, or watching our language, or suffering a fool gladly, that rankles, especially if we have to do it. But through obedience to the accumulated and refined wisdom of the Church, we become who we really are. It’s worth it.

Mills hits on a truly significant point here about the easiness of conforming to a vague notion of Jesus-ism (i.e. What Would Jesus Do?), which can be (and too often is) readily reduced to a projection of self-interest by anyone seeking “religious” justification for their own delusions. Not so much, as he says, with Saint Paul, or the teaching Church.