From time to time my phone asks permission to update its applications. It asks, "Do you wish to install the update? Existing user data will be saved."
It's corny, but I've come to think of it as an image for the Christian life. In the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ, God has provided an upgrade for our humanity. This upgrade--into the divine life itself--is available to us in the sacraments.
Existing user data is maintained in the process of the update. My redeemed self is the same person as my miserable self. Memories, formative experiences, tastes, talents, blind spots, and eccentricities all remain. They are transformed, however, by the upgrading of the being in which they inhere, and begin to become a means of the freedom of servanthood rather than the imprisoned misery of self.
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Faithful, or even just thoughtful criticisms are always welcome. Uninformed rudeness to other posters or to the Lord and His Church is not.
I also reserve the right to reject comments promoting things like private revelations and fringe points of view, if it seems to me like they are being presented in a misleading way.
If you raise a disagreement with something I say but I do not respond, please do not feel slighted or insulted, or imagine that this automatically means I disagree or agree with you. It's just that I don't find the comment box to be a constructive medium for certain forms of debate.