Excuses: Guarded Lies

"An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie. For an excuse is a lie guarded." -Pope Benedict XVI

I find this line quoted from Pope Benedict XVI to be very interesting yet very true at the same time. I often find myself formulating excuses for the wrongs that I do, but who ever said that excuses were any better than lies. Once I truly thought about it, I came to an agreement with the former Pope. When someone lies, they know that they did something wrong and have to tell a fib in order to cover it up and avoid the truth. Whereas, when one tells an excuse, it is something that they convince themselves to be true so that they do not have to consider what they did to be wrong. These excuses guard the fact that what they did was wrong. And because they think that what they did was wrong was actually not wrong at all, they are lying to themselves. The sad thing is that they are usually unaware of these lies. For if they were aware, it would no longer be referred to as an excuse.

"Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and not tried." -G.K. Chesterton

All that comes out of Christianity is rewarding. Nothing is regretted. This is how I am interpreting the statement above and I agree one hundred percent. One of my strongest beliefs is that those who reject Christianity have either never been educated about it or never fully opened their hearts to its concepts and beliefs. This statement says that those who try out Christianity are never let down, and those who find Christianity to be a difficult religion are those who have never completely tried it out. You can't judge a person before walking a mile in their shoes and you can't do the same thing with religion. I have been fortunate to be born into a Christian family and attend a Catholic school my entire life. I know that this religion guides me to live my life in the correct way, and because of my confidence in Christianity, I wouldn't choose or try out anything else. 

Freedom for Eternity

"Freedom consists not in doing what we like but in having the right to do what we aught." -Pope John Paul II

Free will. Free choice. Freedom to do whatever you like. That last one might be an exaggeration, but these are the things that many think of when freedom is mentioned. Maybe people do believe that this is what freedom implies. Or maybe people have a skewed understanding of freedom. As a human race we connect freedom to the things that we want to do. According to Pope John Paul II, we should directly relate freedom instead to the things that we aught to do. This may include our vocation, our duty as a Christian, and whatever we must do to achieve the ultimate goal. In this way, by doing what we aught, we may get to heaven in a much easier manner. Instead of using freedom as an excuse for our sins, we can credit freedom for the reason we spend eternity with Christ.