Try your ownselves; if you be in the faith, prove ye yourselves, advises Saint Paul. We may very easily set ourselves down as good Catholic Christians, when we are not. Self-trial is not a work we are naturally disposed to. And we seek more to be pleased by God in our religion, than to please Him. In other words, we are over anxious for comfort and enjoyment in our Christian profession. It is good then, sometimes to be alone, and having God present with us, to try ourselves as to the reality of our religion, and if our pleasure in it rests on a good foundation; to judge ourselves, not by pleasant feelings, but by accordance of our lives with holy scripture. Self-denial, bearing the cross, and doing and suffering the will of God, have more part in Christ's teaching than promises of comfort. God was with David and. Hezekiah, and Job, and. Jeremiah, and Saint Paul, and His own blessed Son, in distresses, and in apparent low and desolate estate. Let us rest our hope, not on inward joy, so much as on God's word, on Christ's death and intercession, and on the Holy Spirit's aid, enabling us to walk watchfully, humbly, and holily, rather than comfortably. To be led out of ourselves to God in Christ, is the way of present and eternal soul safety.
- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp