St. Augustine once preached a sermon in which he proposed a kind of self-test to see if we truly love God:
Suppose God proposed to you a deal and said, "I will give you anything you want. You can possess the whole world. Nothing will be impossible for you.... Nothing will be a sin, nothing forbidden. You will never die, never have pain, never have anything you do not want and always have anything you do want-except just one thing: you will never see my face."
Augustine closed with a question:
Did a chill rise in your hearts, when you heard the words, "you will never see my face"? That chill is the most precious thing in you; that is the pure love of God.
What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forgeit his soul? Mark 8:36
No comments:
Post a Comment