Are you a cradle Catholic, born into a Christian family? Has God warmed your heart with spiritual experiences on many occasions? Has he dealt generously with you in this way?

If your answer is yes you are in very grave spiritual danger as am I and anyone born into a kind of spiritual prosperity. In Scripture so often the people who fit this description are the people too arrogant to realize their extreme poverty before God so as to open their deepest heart to his purifying graces. Religious people are tempted to pretend as though they have it made, that all they have to do is follow along with the exterior dictates of their religion, and they will reach salvation. The reality is that God calls us to something much deeper, to a realization of our radicalized poverty and wretchedness before God. If we don’t accept this reality we put our souls in grave danger as the experience of spiritual poverty is the only means of receiving the riches of God’s grace.

The pride of the lukewarm religious heart is subtle, perhaps hardly noticeable at times, but more dangerous than anything experienced by people who weren’t born into a religious environment to nourish them. To whom much is given much is expected and those given more graces will be judged with less leniency.

Religion is a very good thing, but lets not be blind to the very challenging circumstances it places us under. Temptations to pride and hypocrisy can easily attract our fallen hearts when we imagine ourselves to be rich and affluent in the spiritual life when in fact we are far from living up to the call of the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, when in fact we are “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:16-17).

Come Holy Spirit and fill the hearts of your faithful people, and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit Lord and they shall be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.