May 22
Daily Gleanings of the Saintly LifeWednesday in Easter Week
Love not the world. 1 S. John 2:15.
As this hidden life (of which we spoke yesterday) is obtained by deadness to the world, so by that deadness is it to be cherished, maintained, perfected. Death to the world is life to God; the life in God deadens to the world. By baptism we were made partakers of Christ's death, that we might henceforth share His life. We were deadened that we might remain dead, and His imparted life absorb into itself our whole selves, and quicken us in every part, that we might live to Him, be dead to all out of Him. Since that hour each act of sin (much more if any of us unhappily continue in any course of sin) has been a revival of that which was dead, a minishing of our life. Self-indulgence of every sort—following our own wills, love of pre-eminence, of man's praise, covetousness, self-display, self-applause—deadens our inward life. And so now each act of obedience, renunciation of ourselves and of self-will, deadness to the world's applause, its idols, its covetousness, to "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life," is an increase of our hidden life. The less we live for things outward, the stronger burns our inward life.
"Inheritors" are we "Of heaven's kingdom" blest, O tremble, lest through unbelief We lose our final rest!
Upon our brows we bear Christ's holy suffering sign; That on each saintly forehead there A glorious crown may shine.