Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity. John 12:25
“So let us learn then, brothers and sisters, how to truly love our own souls. Every pleasure provided by the world is going to pass away. There is a love that is useful and a love that does harm. Let love be hampered by love; let the love that does harm retire, and the love that is of use take its place.
But it’s because people don’t want to retire from that sort, that this other sort can’t gain entry to them. They are full up so they can’t hold anything else. They must pour something out, and then they can hold some more. They are full, you see, of the love of sensual pleasures, full of the love of this present life, full of the love of gold and silver, of the possessions of this world. So those who are full in this way are like jars. Do you want honey to gain entry into a jar from which you haven’t yet emptied the vinegar?
Empty out what you have, in order to take and hold what you don’t yet have. That’s why the first step is to renounce this world, and then the next is to turn back to God. When you renounce, you are emptying out; when you turn back to God, you are being filled – but only if it’s done, not merely with the body, but also with the heart.”
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) in Sermon 368.3 entitled “Whoever Loves His Soul Will Lose It” as recounted in Essential Sermons by Saint Augustine (New York: New City Press, 2007) 412-416. Augustine is one of the four doctors of the Western church, and I love reading his sermons. Get this book if you like to read a sermon when you miss your local weekly worship gathering. It’s great!
For Augustine, providence leads people to give thanks for the good things that God gives to all creation in general and people in particular. He adds that many people, however, credit themselves for their many blessings and direct the love of their hearts as well as their worship and service to good things rather than to God who gave them the good things.
How do we love our own souls rightly? We must empty ourselves of loves linked to pleasures and possessions in this present life, and instead ask God to fill us with love for Him and the things He loves. His focus is on the attachments of our hearts. When our hearts are attached to the wrong things, everything will go wrong. When our hearts are attached to God, all will be ordered rightly.
What does this have to do with generosity? When we have God’s love within us, we tap into an abundant spring from which flow fruits such as kindness, goodness, and love. Basically Augustine brilliantly notes that if your heart is right, the rest will follow rightly, and so he beckons people to renounce the world in our hearts and return to God. Only then can we become generous conduits.
Father in heaven, forgive us for loving our souls wrongly by loving pleasures and possessions in this present life. We renounce and turn from these loves. Help us by your Holy Spirit to relate instead to things as gifts from you to enjoy and share. Fill our hearts with your love so we can generously extend your kindness to the world. Make it so we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.