Glory to Jesus Christ. I'm Mother Natalia, a Byzantine Catholic nun from Christ

the Bradgear Monastery and this is Pines with Aquinas. Today I want to share with you

something that a priest said recently in a homily here at the monastery.

He gave this great line, comparison is the thief of joy.

In other words, what my best friend used to tell me in college was compare and despair was the

phrase that she used and I know that we all do this often in our lives especially

with our gifts and our faults I think that's where it's the most common, right?

Although someone pointed out to me recently,

when we do this, we're typically comparing our gifts

with someone else's weaknesses weaknesses and our weaknesses with their

gifts are their strengths. And I think what happens is if we are not convinced of

our own goodness,

then the differences become threats.

And I don't just mean the goodness of what we do

or the goodness of our attributes. I don't even mean the goodness of our gifts. I mean the goodness of who we are in our being.

Because if we don't know that we're good in our being, then it does become about our gifts and the things that we're doing.

And then it becomes, well, this person has this skill and I don't, or this person likes this skill and I don't or this person likes this thing and I don't and then we either cave and try to match whatever it is that they have either the gift or the preference or whatever it is, or we get overly defensive

and try to, I think, convince ourselves of our good opinion by putting down theirs.

The thing is though, if we have all of the gifts

and there's no strength that we're lacking.

That makes us God.

And if we are God, that means we don't need God.

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