Personality Tests

Today Don has a link to an interesting personality test. Be warned, it's a little more thoughtful and involved than your typical web quiz. I took it and was labeled a "reserved experiencer," for whatever that's worth.

In religious life one takes a lot of personality tests. I've taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator many times. I'm an INTJ, though I used to be an INFJ, the most common type for catholic religious. On the Enneagram, I'm a five. These tests are supposed to promote self-awareness. Thus we supposedly become better able to understand why we act the (crazy) ways we do with the people around us.

We can't take this too far, though. The so-called psychologizing of religious life has already produced a significant backlash. If we want to know who we really are, let's read the Scriptures.

The Scriptures teach us that we, like all creatures, were created through the Word that God speaks at the beginning of time. "God said....and it happened." Through God's Word we are created to the image and likeness of God.

In the fullness of time this same Word takes on a human life in Jesus of Nazareth. Thus Jesus is the Incarnation of the Word through which we were created in the first place. So if you want to know who you really are, study Jesus. Read about him in the Scriptures. Contemplate his Spirit in the poor. Study his presence in the Blessed Sacrament. This is who you really are.