Hey, stupid!

In today's first reading (Galatians 3:1-5), Saint Paul gives the good people of Galatia a vigorous slap in the face (emphasized by the use of a politically incorrect word in the Lectionary translation):

O stupid Galatians!

Who has bewitched you,
before whose eyes Jesus Christ
was publicly portrayed as crucified?
I want to learn only this from you:
did you receive the Spirit from works of the law,
or from faith in what you heard?

Are you so stupid?

The bottom-line message for us is simple: don't be stupid.

We need to cultivate the habit of double-checking ourselves from time to time, touching base with the sources of our faith and the truth we have received from Christ, so that we may not - by sloppy syllogisms, cumulative incremental compromises, or the silken whispers of temptation - drift away from what is true and right.

That would be stupid.