I started reading Matthew, and it occurred to me that I kind of suck.
Something that I love about Christianity is its demand that you forfeit your pride.
But is it something that I do? "Weeeeeeeeeeell"
In theory, I love it. People completely misunderstand "Catholic shame" (or worse, maybe they don't and reject it anyway), and there's this idea that it's an unhealthy mindset. It's not. It's the mindset that prevents you from turning yourself into an insane degenerate beast addicted to pleasure. Shame is your soul's anchor to reality. It's the thing that encourages self-improvement. It's the thing that stops you from what is REALLY the most unhealthy mindset possible: Pride and blind self-affirmation. Shame is so epic and powerful that it saved me in ways before I even found God, for example by encouraging me to stay physically fit.
But it's not enough to appreciate something in theory, it really does have to be practiced. So great, I'm not a fatass who proudly lives in sin. But don't I still struggle with sin? I'm not Jesus Christ, so the answer is obviously yes.
Why then should I be very focused on the sins of others? Others who aren't even in my life.
Long before knowing where it came from, I always liked a line from a preddy cool song that goes "I'll magnify splinters while trees grow from my eyes."
Matthew 7:3-5
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.)
The shrill whining about "hypocrisy" that often comes from proud sinners isn't moving to me. But Christ's own words are. And He clearly has no tolerance for faithless lip service.
This isn't to say sin should be tolerated. If some man dressed as a demon is trying to read books about anal to your kids, remove your kids at once and fight for the sicko to be disallowed from harming any other children. But there's different "levels" of attack and defense, and not all of them are valuable. How much time and energy should I actually be dedicating to just angrily complaining about freaks like fake pastors on Tiktok? How often should I share a meme about some poor autistic guy who was memed into castrating himself? I surely do it more often than it's warranted, especially when I'm just preaching to the choir of my friends. Am I doing it out of a righteous hatred for sin--which is righteous-- or am I doing it because it makes me feel superior?
I can't allow myself to fall victim to Pride under the guise of righteousness.