Goodness and Rightness

1) The key to morality is to strive to know the right and to do it. Otherwise, we are bad.
2) Morals are matters of love, are matters of effort.
3) Real sin is the failure to act, the failure to love. In fact, throughout the Gospels, sin is not attributed to obvious wrongdoers, but consistently to those who don’t bother to love.
4) What have I done for Christ? What am I doing for Christ? What will I do for Christ?
5) Appreciate that parents have limitations and recognize that parents are capable of causing considerable harm. The parent may be wrong, but not because of any failure to love.
6) Hearts of sinners have not been “bothered” or “unsettled”; they are content, complacent, resting assured.
7) We ought to be modest about our self-understanding. In terms of rightness, we might be more upright. In terms of goodness, we might not necessarily be more loving.
8) For our lives are not personal achievements. What we have now in our lives is not an accomplishment, but a gift.
9) As saints get older, they realize that there is plenty for them to be thankful for because of God’s mercy. They also grow in the self-understanding that they are probably not as good as they thought they were.
10) As people get closer to God, they realize that most of the light is radiating from God onto themselves, and not, vice versa.
- extracted from James F. Keenan, S.J. Commandments of Compassion