Sep 06 2008
Rejecting The World
No. I am not talking about a complete removal of one’s self from the world.
From St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans:
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Rom. 8: 2-8 RSV)
What I am talking about is the rejection of worldly things and serving God. I seems the world today is one big temptation.
Materialism, for example, is one of the greatest obstacle to obtaining eternal life. People these days are obsessed with obtaining as much wealth as they can get, just to have more than the next person. Sorry, but, as the saying goes, you cannot take it with you. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins and must be guarded against. This does not mean one cannot earn a living and save to retire from the toils of working at some later time. It does mean that one must be prudent in what they do with this money.
A second area, and just as dangerous, seems to be the sexualization of today’s society (especially when it come to the entertainment industry) whether it be porn, homosexual marriage, or the likes, it seem everything is coming down to a perverse level that society wants to “normalize”.
A third area, is the “death culture”. Today, abortion, embryonic stem cell, and euthaniasia are all becoming more and more acceptable. These are all forms of murder which is expressly forbidden by the Commandments.
Underlying all of the above is Relativism. Relativism allows one to say there is no real moral truths and everything is acceptable if one believes it is “all right”. When the Seven Deadly Sins are not considered sins anymore, society is in big trouble.
We must all reject the immoral trappings of the world to better serve God. There is no way around it.
As Our Lord says:
No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Mt. 6: 24-25 RSV)
