How will it be with us in the future life?
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How will it be with us in the future life, when everything that has gratified us in this world: riches, honors, food and drink, dress, beautifully furnished dwellings, and all attractive objects — how will it be, I say, when all these things leave us — when they will all seem to us a dream and when works of faith and virtue, of abstinence, purity, meekness, humility, mercy, patience, obedience and others will be required of us?
St. John of Kronstadt, “My Life in Christ”
I wonder that as well. Consider this “Pithless Things” post (HERE) where Steven tells of a Toyota dealer near him that offers that while you wait at their dealership, you can get a massage, a shoeshine, a manicure, an appointment with a cosmetologist and generally get “more pampering while you wait.”
More pampering?! Good grief, do any of us need more pampering? I feel like the entire Advent fast is an attempt to recover from all the pampering I get all the time. It’s what the world offers in abundance to make up for what it takes away — peace, innocence, integrity and time. It takes my hours and gives back a shuttle to a nearby mall so I can shop while I wait. It takes away things that I can’t put a price on and offers many, many things that have a hefty price tag attached (though “radically slashed for BIG holiday savings!”).
Where are the next Christian soldiers going to come from? I don’t see how they could come from my generation. Where would the next St. Ignatius come from? Where would we find someone who would write to the faithful while on the way to his death in the arena and beg them only to let him go to this martyr’s death?
It is not my wish to please man, but to please God, even as you, too, please Him. For perhaps I will never have such another opportunity of attaining to God; nor will you, if you would now be silent, ever be entitled to the honor of a better work. For if you are silent concerning me, I shall become God’s; but if you show your love to my flesh [by praying for me to be spared a martyr’s death], I shall again have to run my race. Pray, then, do not seek to confer any greater favor upon me that that I be sacrificed to God while the altar is still prepared …
I write to the churches to impress upon them all that I shall willingly die for God, unless you hinder me. I beg you not to show an unseasonable goodwill toward me. Let me become food for the wild beasts, through whose favor it will be granted to me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, so let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. … But when I suffer, I shall be the freedman of Jesus, and shall rise again emancipated in Him. And now, being a prisoner, I learn not to desire anything worldly or vain.
St. Ignatius, “Letter to the Romans”
Worth thinking about on St. Ignatius’ feast day. Is there anyone alive today who would be capable of such courage and virtue? Maybe no one has to exhibit that much calm and steadfastness. Maybe it was enough that at least one person did, so many centuries ago. But if we now have given up so much just to have the empty things that the world gives in return, what will his sacrifice have been worth?
Related posts:
- Advice from one possible future
- The rugged life
- Ruskin on Art and Life
- Life as it should be
- “My Life in Christ” by St. John of Kronstadt
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Very good point. Thank you.
Maybe a little forceful for the week before Christmas. I should leave the intense stuff for the priests.
But anyway, the contrast did strike me when we were doing the service to St. Ignatius last night.
Interesting thoughts, Grace. Is our culture capable of producing saints, much less martyrs?
I think a lot of the time when I read about the martyrs, I wonder that. But then, maybe they had what they needed at that time and we have a quality that’s needed now (like something that allows us to just stay sane)?
I remember a story I heard Fr. Hopko tell on a tape. He said that there was a Desert Father who was asked by a young monk if people in future generations would be able to accomplish as much spiritually and ascetically as these monks did. And the Father looked sad and told him, “My son, the day will come when someone who merely believes will have surpassed everything we do now.” And Fr. Hopko said he thought those days had come.
That assumes we are sane.…there was another Father that said something like there will come a time when the sane man will be considered crazy. If we are “normal” in our culture, then are we truly “Christian”? Just musing out loud.