Morality is not exactly a secondary matter in Christianity, but it is a derivative one. Our morality should issue naturally from the plenitude of our religion; if it does not, it is either mere respectability or a matter of instinct, or else — very often — insufferable hypocrisy.
— “Diary of a Russian Priest” Fr. Alexander Elchaninov

I really should dislike it when Fr. Elchaninov knows me too well. Given that he died 26 years before I was born, he’s got a lot of nerve. But I don’t know what else you’d call it when he focuses in so precisely on a problem that it’s taken me many years to try to find the right words for: that being good is not always the same as just being nice. As he says, goodness should be the natural result of a humble heart coming into contact with the mercy of God and receives the teaching of the Church. Niceness is the kind of simple courtesy that allows us to get along when standing in line, bumping someone’s cart in the supermarket or coming up with a compliment for someone’s meatballs at the potluck. The first is a quality so close to God’s heart that Christ told the lawyer that only one could be called good and that was God. The other is, as Father E. puts it “mere respectability.”

Niceness can be just as thin and cold and brittle as ice, and it can deftly pass itself off to the practitioner as moral excellence and real human warmth. I have met people who could say “Have a nice day” and make it sting as much as an insult. But then it occurred to me that I do the same thing when it suits me. I just like to think that it isn’t too obvious when I do it, or that the latent hostility and pettiness behind some of my niceties won’t come through.

Perhaps the disclaimer to make is that if artificial morality is the best I can muster, I should at least do that. There’s no harm, certainly, as long as I don’t mistake it for the real thing. Glass can look a lot like a diamond, but if you’re offering it as a gift, you should know the difference.