Bad News and Good News

If your doctor does not really know what is wrong with you, would you trust him to give you a prescription? Probably not, because what he prescribes may make things worse.

It has been worded in various ways in a number of different places, but it has been said often: “If you don’t know the bad news, the good news is no news.”

Do you really appreciate what the salvation of Christ actually is and what it means to us? As Catholics we often presume that we do, but that is dangerous. We can only stay on the path to Heaven if we truly value Heaven. We can only truly value Heaven if we realize the intense gravity of our sin. We certainly do not want to spend our whole day beating ourselves up for our sins, but swinging in the opposite direction is not better at all.

One of the best ways we can find true penitence is to be able to see our sins the way that God sees them; as horrifying as that may be. Yet, if we fail in this, then it will have a major impact on our eternal salvation. We have to find that proper balance between being scrupulous, and being lax about our sins. Few of us will be in the perfect middle for long, so each of us needs to know where we lean, and seek to pull oursleves back to the middle.

It is hard to look for the "bad news" but when we realize it helps us better to grasp the "good news", then it is clear what is right. If we work on this regularly, then we can continue to grow closer to God and long for that salvation that He offers even more powerfully each day. For that really is the heart of what we are seeking: to hate our sins more and more, and love our God more and more.