I came across this excerpt from John Henry Cardinal Newman just as I was thinking about why I hang onto my religion even in its disappointing moments.

A religious mind is ever marveling, and irrelgious men laugh and scoff at it because it marvels. A religious mind is ever looking out of itself, is ever pondering God’s words, is ever “looking into” them with the angels, is ever realizing to itself him on whom it depends, and who is the center of all truth and good. Carnal and proud minds are contented with self; they like to remain at home; when they hear of mysteries, they have no devout curiousity to go and see the great sight, though it be ever so little out of their way; and when it actually falls in their path, they stumble at it. As great then as is the difference between hanging upon the thought of God and resting in ourselves, lifting up the heart to God, and bringing all things in heaven and earth down to ourselves, exalting God and exalting reason, measuring things by God’s power and measuring them by our own ignorance, so great is the difference between him who believes …and him who does not.