Archive for August, 2009

“If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost any other area of his life.”

Billy Graham as recounted by Harold Myra and Marshall Shelley The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005) 107.

“So it always is, in various degrees, with all our knowledge and certainty concerning existences, realities, and concerning the real qualities and nature of these realities. We get to know such realities slowly, laboriously, intermittently, partially; we get to know them, not inevitably nor altogether apart from our dispositions, but only if we are sufficiently awake to care to know them, sufficiently humble to welcome them, and sufficiently generous to pay the price continuously which is strictly necessary if this knowledge and love are not to shrink but to grow. We indeed get to know realities, in proportion as we become less self-occupied, less self-centered, more outward-moving, less obstinate and insistent, more gladly lost in the crowd, more rich in giving all we have, and especially all we are, our very selves. And we get to know that we really know these realities, by finding our knowledge (dim, difficult, non-transferable though it may be) approving itself to us as fruitful; because it leads us to further knowledge of the realities thus known, or of other realities even when these lie apparently quite far away; and all this, in a thoroughly living and practical, in a concrete not abstract, not foretellable, in a quite inexhaustible way.”

Baron Friedrich von Hügel in Essays and Addresses on the Philosophy of Religion, 104.

“It is not possible to take great pleasure in anything without becoming attached to it. If you lose property, and find yourself grievously afflicted at the loss of it, you may be sure that you were warmly attached to it; there is no surer proof of affection for the thing that is lost than our sorrow at its loss.

Therefore, do not fix your longings on anything which you do not possess; do not let your heart rest in that which you have; do not grieve over much at the losses which happen to you; and then you may reasonably believe that although rich in fact, you are not so in affection, but that you are poor in spirit, and therefore blessed, for the Kingdom of Heaven is yours (Matthew 5:3).”

Frances de Sales in Introduction to the Devout Life (New York: Random House, 2002) 122.

“From first to last, it [Christianity] urges detachment from possessions, and will only impart its deepest secrets to those who are willing to leave it all. It does not merely regulate possessiveness, but transcends it. It’s response to greed is generosity.”

Evelyn Underhill in Modern Guide to the Ancient Quest for the Holy (Albany: SUNY Press, 1988) 207-208.

“I knew a person who for more than ten years made use of a cross roughly formed from a branch that had been blessed, fastened with a pin twisted round it; he had never ceased using it, and he always carried it about with him until I took it from him; and this was a person of no small sense and understanding.

And I saw another who said his prayers using beads that were made of bones from the spine of a fish; his devotion was certainly no less precious on that account in the sight of God, for it is clear that these things carried no devotion in their workmanship or value. Those, then, who start from these beginnings and make good progress attach themselves to no visible instruments, nor do they burden themselves with such, nor desire to know more than is necessary in order that they may act well; for they set their eyes only on being right with God and on pleasing Him, and therein consists their covetousness. And thus with great generosity they give away all that they have, and delight to know that they have it not, for God’s sake and for charity to their neighbor, no matter whether these be spiritual things or temporal. For, as I say, they set their eyes upon the reality of interior perfection, which is to give pleasure to God and in naught to give pleasure to themselves.

But neither from these imperfections nor from those can the soul be perfectly purified until God brings into it the passive purgation of that dark night whereof we shall speak presently. It befits the soul, however, to contrive to labor, in so far as it can, on its own account, to the end that it may purge and perfect itself, and thus may merit being taken by God into that Divine care wherein it becomes healed of all things that it was unable of itself to cure.”

St. John of the Cross in Dark Night of the Soul (New York: Dover, 2003) 9-10.

“Our break with the world will be the direct outcome of our changed relation to God. For the world of fallen men does not honor God. Millions call themselves by his name, it is true, and pay some token respect to him, but a simple test will show how little he is really honored among them. Let the average man be put to the proof on the question of who is above, and his true position will be exposed. Let him be forced into making a choice between God and money, between God and men, between God and personal ambition, God and self, God and human love, and God will take second place every time. Those other things will be exalted above. However the man may protest, the proof is in the choices he makes day and day throughout his life.”

A. W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God (Eremitical Press 2009) 88.

“May it please His Majesty that the extraordinary generosity He has shown this miserable sinner serve to encourage and rouse those who read this to abandon completely everything for God. If His Majesty repays so fully that even in this life the reward and gain possessed by those who serve Him is clearly seen, what will this reward be in the the next life?”

Teresa of Avila in The Book of Her Life (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008) 138.

“Why dost thou admire these trifles? Why long for things of no real worth? How long is one poor? How long a beggar? Raise thine eyes to heaven, think of the riches there, and smile at gold; think of how little use it is; that the enjoyment of it lasts but for the present life, and that compared with eternity, the present life is as a grain of sand, or as a drop of water to the boundless ocean. This wealth is not a possession, it is not property, it is a loan for use. For when thou diest, willingly or unwillingly, all that thou hast goes to others, and they again give it up to others, and they again to others. For we are all sojourners; and the tenant of the house is more truly perchance the owner of it, for the owner dies, and the tenant lives, and still enjoys the house. And if the latter hires it, the other might be said to hire it too: for he built it, and was at pains with it, and fitted it up. Property, in fact, is but a word: we are all owners in fact but of other men’s possessions. Those things only are our own, which we have sent before us to the other world. Our goods here are not our own; we have only a life interest in them; or rather they fail us during our lives. Only the virtues of the soul are properly our own, as alms-giving and charity. Worldly goods, even by those without, were called external things, because they are without us. But let us make them internal. For we cannot take our wealth with us, when we depart hence, but we can take our charities. But let us rather send them before us, that they may prepare for us an abode in the eternal mansions. (Luke xvi. 9.)”

John Chrysostom, Homily XI, 1 Timothy iii.8-10

“Therefore, to conclude, if you are perfect, why do you long for your hereditary goods? If you are not perfect, you have deceived the Lord. The Gospel thunders in divine accents: You cannot serve two masters (Mt 6:24); and does anyone dare make Christ a liar by serving mammon and the Lord? He often cries: if anyone will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me (Mt. 16:24). Do I, when laden with gold, think I am following Christ? He that saith he abideth in Christ ought himself also to walk even as he walked (1 Jn. 2:6).”

The Letters of St. Jerome 14.5

“All that is in the world is vanity except to love God and serve Him only. This is the most noble and the most excellent wisdom that can be in any creature: by despising the world to draw daily nearer and nearer to the kingdom of heaven.

It is therefore a great vanity to labor inordinately for worldly riches that will shortly perish or to covet honor or any other inordinate pleasures or fleshly delights in this life, for which a man after this life will be sorely and grievously punished. How great a vanity it also is to desire a long life and to care little for a good life; to heed things of the present and not to provide for things that are to come; to love things that will shortly pass away and not to haste to where joy is everlasting.

Have this common proverb often in your mind: The eye is not satisfied or pleased with seeing any material thing, nor the ear with hearing. Study, therefore, to withdraw the love of your soul for all the things that are visible and to turn it to things that are invisible. Those who follow their own sensuality hurt their own cause and lose the grace of God.”

Thomas a Kempis in The Imitation of Christ (New York: Image, 1989) 32.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world–the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does–comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. 1 John 2: 15-17