We’re not just watching “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” for the tour of the closets and yachts anymore. We — by which I mean various media outlets with various followings, followings that undeniably exist — want them to come out of the closet. We watch as their marriages fall apart. We know all the porn-star ex-girlfriends. We watch the wife stand up again with her Academy Award and adopted baby. And do we take some relief in knowing they really aren’t perfect?

I’d like to think I don’t. I suspect I’m not alone. But somewhere, in the ravenous appetite for news about the private lives of public people, there is something unhealthy going on. Media laptops and tweets and “E! True Hollywood Story” strategy sessions are a chisel to the lives of human beings, who by nature or surgery are beautiful; their lives now lie in pieces for us all to watch and discuss.

Walk past St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York or St. Edward’s in West Palm Beach or St. Victor’s in Beverly Hills. I always thank God, particularly in those locales, that I can walk in and accept the gifts of the sacraments. No matter how beautiful our surroundings are. No matter how beautiful the people around us are. No matter where we are or who we are, none of it compares to heaven. The most beautiful, most generous, most kind-hearted person of integrity is but a simple foretaste, being an instrument of God’s love, allowing him to work through him, love with her.

But it’s only a sip from the chalice of the merciful offering of eternal bliss. And all we need to truly know Heaven, even as we try to build it in this temporary home, is to accept God’s mercy. Every day. Every moment. For as long as we live.

So often, though, instead of humility and hope, we opt for convincing ourselves we can truly be at home here on earth — that we belong here in some permanent way, that we are of this place. And so we build our mansions, instead of praying and experiencing unplanned and unearned heights of contemplation and consolation that no luxury estate can provide. And we work until it kills us, having expended all that time and energy on the most fleeting of tasks, however well-intentioned.

–Kathryn Jean Lopez, “Breaking news: Mel Gibson is a sinner”