Someone once said that the biggest step in spiritual growth is recognizing that we can grow.

"New occasions teach new duties," is how that wonderful old hymn puts it.

Such intellectual and spiritual activity is desired because it is just in such endeavors that the Good News is made even richer, grace becomes even more amazing.

To accept what we know is not true is to invite the death of our faith.

We are called to dig deep into our souls and to reach high into the heavens in our search for the truth.

Never accept what you know isn’t true even if it comes from what appears to be the holiest of sources.

Thinking of the heavens, I am reminded of Galileo who is something of a paradigm for this conflict over truth. Galileo was condemned by the church for believing that Copernicus was right and that the earth was not the center of the universe.

How dare he question the church!

But in great agony, and at the peril of his eternal soul, question he did and we are all the better for it.

Of course, it wasn’t until the twentieth century that the church admitted the error of her ways regarding the great astronomer.

How long will it take us to admit other errors as well?