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How kind are you? That’s an important question to ask as you look back over your day. Many Christians get obsessed with following a variety of rules—Did I take the name of the Lord in vain? Did I tell any white lies? Did I make it to Mass today?—that they forget that one of the most basic requirements about the Christian life is to be kind. That’s not the only thing that is required of course, but without that the rest of the Christian life doesn’t make much sense. Are you kind and charitable and respectful to people? Or are you a jerk, talking behind their backs, putting your needs ahead of theirs, and maybe even short or rude or mean with people? Here in New York the great sin is sarcasm, and some days it seems like everyone wants to make fun or get the best of someone.
So maybe today you could ask yourself: Was I kind?
Thank you, it certainly is not everything, but it a lot. A great question to end each day
Benjamin Franklin had a series of 13 virtues that he would quiz himself on each day to see if he lived up to them. He seemed to have mastered 12 of the 13 virtues. His virtues came from Cotton Mather's book, Bonifacius, written when Franklin was a child. Bonifacius means to do good. While the Franklin family were critics of Cotton Mather, Ben, in his old age, wrote fondly of Mather. They met personally before Mather died when Franklin was about 20.