Transcending This World

Image result for manger

In this time of incredible vitriol and worldliness, of great confusion among the faithful, who have become very political, we may want to step back, say a prayer, take a hearty breath, and remember that all things around us pass -- are temporary -- and will be trivial, except for how we responded, with the eyes of Heaven.

What did, and what does, the Great Infant teach us?

What did the splendor and surficial turmoil of the world mean to Him -- or was He too busy with more important (eternal) matters? At the manger, was there strife? Where was (is) His Kingdom?

Let us once more revisit the famous work, Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis, a book even saints read regularly. For it emphasizes this: cleansing before Christ-Mass.

One excerpt:

"My son, says Our Lord, it behooves you to give all for all, and to keep nothing of your own love, for love of yourself hurts you more than any other thing in this world. According to your love and your affection, everything more or less cleaves to you. If your love is pure, simple, and well-ordered, you will be without inordinate affection for any creature.

"Desire nothing it is not lawful for you to have, and have nothing that can hinder you from spiritual work or that may take you from inward liberty of soul.

"It is a marvel that you do not fully commit yourself to Me with all your heart, with all you can have or desire. Why are you thus consumed with vain sorrow? Why are you weary with superfluous cares? Stand ready to My Will, and you will find nothing to hurt or hinder you.

"But if you seek this thing or that, or would be in this place or that place for your own profit and your own pleasure, you will never be at rest, and you will never be free from some trouble of mind; in every place, something you dislike will be found.

"When transitory things are possessed and greatly multiplied in the world, they do not always help a man's soul to peace. But they help, rather, when they are despised and fully cut away from the love and desire of the heart. And this is to be understood not only of gold and silver and other worldly riches, but also of the desire for honor and praise in the world, which shortly vanish and pass away as smoke upon the wind.

"Place helps little if the spirit of fervor is absent, and the peace a man gains outwardly will not stand whole if it lacks true inward peace of heart. Though you change your place, it will improve you little unless you stand firm and steadfast in Me. For by new occasions that daily arise you will find the very things from which you fled, and perhaps they will much more perilous and much more harmful than the first were."

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A Prayer for the Purifying

"Confirm me, Lord, by the Grace of the Holy Spirit, and give me Grace to be strong inwardly in soul and to cast out from it all unprofitable business of the world and of the flesh, that it may not be led by unstable desires of earthly things. And grant that I may behold all things in this world as they are -- transitory and of short abiding, and I myself also to pass away together with them, for nothing under the sun can long abide, but all is vanity and affliction of spirit. Oh, how wise is he who feels and understands what I have said to be true.

"Therefore, O Lord, give me true heavenly wisdom, that I may learn to seek You and to find You, and above all things to love You, and to understand and know all other things as they are, after the direction of Your wisdom, and not otherwise. And give me Grace, also, to withdraw myself from those who flatter me, and patiently to tolerate those who grieve me. It is great wisdom not to be moved by every blast of words, nor to give ear to him who flatters, as it were, with the song of the sirens. The way so begun will bring him who walks it to a good and blessed ending."

[resources: The Imitation of Christ]