You Cant Take It With You

A day is coming, when we will leave this world and all that is in it. Those things which we hold to be so precious today, we will leave behind to rust or rot or for some one else to use. They will no longer be of any use to us. Since we cannot take worldly things with us into the next life, why are we so attached to them in this life. Does this attachment do us any harm? Ecclesiastes 1 answers this question: There is also another grievous evil, which I have seen under the sun: riches kept to the hurt of the owner. For they are lost with very great affliction: If our worldly goods are injuring our soul, they must go. To keep them would be foolishness. Let us first see if we have any attachments. Let us go first to the kitchen. Is there anything in here that we love? Oh yes, I love T-bone steak. And I love Coke. And what would the world be like without garlic and onions? Move on throughout the house and even go out into the world. What other things do we love? Oh yes, I love my computer. And don't forget my best friend, television. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind. 2 Notice that Jesus tells us to love God with our whole heart, soul and mind. Elsewhere we are told to also love God with out whole strength. If I love God wholly, then there is no room left to love anything else. True, we must also love our neighbor, but we do so for the love of God. So our love of God necessarily includes the love of our neighbor, both friend and foe. The love of God excludes the love of anything else. So in our journey we have found things that are impeding our love of Almighty God. Saint Augustine says: A man who progresses during prosperity has to await times of adversity before he can learn what progress he has made. When he is rich in the goods of this world, he may be certain that he places no stock in them; but when they are taken from him, he then discovers if they had a hold on him, for generally, when we have them we think that we don't love them, but when we don't have them, then we discover that we yearn for them. The criterion is this-if we do not grieve when our goods are absent, then only can we be certain that we did not set our heart on them when they were present. Consider you have been off to town. You come home to find your home has burnt down to the ground. You have nothing left. How would you react? Will you say with Job: the Lord has taken away, blessed be the Name of the Lord? Saint John Bosco advises the Pope to teach children their catechism and to preach detachment from earthly things. Let us proceed to what Pope Pius XII said in the last year of his life. In his interior life, the man who wants to serve God perfectly and lives for Him, must be wholehearted in his detachment from the world; for God is a King Who cannot be served perfectly if we do not serve Him alone. What created good can ever compare with Divine Perfection, much less be equal to it? The man who has not yet freed his soul and kept it free of the pride of this world
1 2

Ecclesiastes 5:12-13 Matthew 22:37

and its concupiscences, cannot ascend to God on the wings of undivided love and live in union with Him. How can he hope to be united to God not only through that vital bond of sanctifying grace, but also through the ardent love which is known only to the dedicated followers of the perfect life? Unless he be one of those most perfect souls who are blessed with God's grace beyond ordinary measure, how can a man, a sharer in the infirmity that follows from Adam's sin, keep his heart detached from earthly things without detaching himself from them physically to a greater or lesser degree? There is no one (outside of ecclesiastical duties imposed by obedience) who enjoys everything which the world affords, who relishes all the delights and pleasrues of the human senses-nowadays so increasingly accessible to their devotee-without losing out to some extent in his spirit of faith and his love for God. Actually, the man whose craving for luxury grows from day to day, imperceptibly loses his desire to be holy and runs the risk of becoming at long last so lukewarm in the fervor of his love, so feeble in the light of his faith, that he will fall miserably from the lofty heights on which he had set his heart. Both in matters of doctrine and in matters of opinion, as well as in courses of procedure, your principles of judgment must be different from those of the world. Your manner of life must be different. The way you exert your influence must be different. Your principles of judgment and evaluation should be based on the Gospel of our Lord and the teachings of the Church; for "it pleased God by the follishness of our preaching to save those who believe." (I Corinthians 1:21; "for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." (I Corinthians 3:19); "but we, for our part, preach a crucified Christ." (I Corinthians 1:23) If a man would guard his mind from contagion of undue association with this world, he must nourish his thoughts with spiritual reading and reflection on divine things; he must be well versed in the writings of both older authors and more recent ones who radiate an unrelenting faith and a sterling asceticism. Otherwise how can he perceive things that are true? (See the Prayer from the Mass of the Holy Ghost), Pope Pius XII, Haud Mediocri, 2-11-58.

Third Foundation of Christian Life and Sanctity: Detachment From the World and Worldly Things
From Saint John Eudes It is not enough for a Christian to be free from vice and to abhor every kind of sin. Beyond that, it is necessary to work with diligence and resolution at the task of becoming perfectly detached from the world and from the things of the world. When I say "the world," I mean the corrupt and disordered life led in the world, the damnable spirit that reigns over the world, the perverse sentiments and inclinations which men of the world follow, and the pernicious laws and maxims by which they govern their behavior. By the things of the world I mean everything that the world so highly values and loves and strives after, namely, the honors and praises of men, vain pleasures and satisfactions, 2

wealth and temporal comforts, friendships and affections based on flesh and blood, on self-love and selfish interests. Consider the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, and you will see that He lived on earth in most perfect detachment, stripped of all things. Read His holy Gospel, listen to His words, and you will learn that "everyone of you that doth not renounce all that he possesseth, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14, 33). So, if you really desire to be a Christian and a disciple of Jesus Christ, and if you wish to continue and express in yourself His holy life of detachment from everything, you must strive to achieve an absolute and universal detachment from the world and from worldly things. To do this, you should frequently reflect how the world always has been and always will be opposed to Christ, whom it has persecuted and crucified, and will persecute and crucify, even to the end of time. Consider that the sentiments and inclinations, the rules and maxims, the life and spirit of the world are so opposed to the sentiments and inclinations, rules and maxims, life and spirit of Jesus that it is impossible for them to subsist together. Christ's sentiments and inclinations lead entirely to the glory of His Father and our sanctification, while those of the world lead only to sin and perdition. The laws and maxims of Jesus are very mild and holy and reasonable. The standards of the world are laws and maxims of hell, and are diabolical, tyrannical and finally unbearable. The life of Jesus is a holy life made beautiful by all kinds of virtues; the life of the world is a depraved life, full of disorder and of all sorts of vice. The spirit of Jesus is a spirit of light, of truth, of piety, of love, confidence, zeal and reverence for God and for all that belongs to God; the spirit of the world is a spirit of error, of unbelief, of darkness, of suspicion, of dissatisfaction, of impiety, of irreverence and hardness of heart towards God and all the things of God. The spirit of Jesus is a spirit of humility, of modesty, of self-distrust, of mortification and abnegation, of constancy and of firmness. But the spirit of the world is, by contrast, a spirit of pride, presumption, disordered self-love, fickleness and inconstancy. The spirit of Jesus is a spirit of mercy, charity, patience, gentleness and of unity with others. But the spirit of the world is a spirit of vengeance, envy, impatience, anger, slander and disunion. Finally, the spirit of Jesus is the spirit of God, a holy and divine spirit, filled with every grace, virtue, and blessing. It is a spirit of peace and tranquillity, which seeks nothing but the interests of God and of His greater glory. The spirit of the world, on the contrary, is the spirit of Satan, for it necessarily follows that, since Satan is the prince of this world, the world is animated and governed by his spiritan earthly, carnal and animal Spirit; a spirit motivating all kinds of sin and accursedness; a spirit of unrest and anxiety, of storms and tempestsspiritus Procellarum (Ps. 10, 7), a spirit seeking only its own convenience, satisfaction and interests. Judge then, if it be possible for the life and spirit of the world to be reconciled with the life and spirit of Christianity, which is none other than the life and spirit of Christ. If, therefore, you desire to be a true Christian, that is, if you desire to belong perfectly to Jesus Christ, to live His life, to be animated by His spirit and conduct yourself according to His maxims, it is absolutely necessary for you to make up your

mind to renounce the world entirely and bid it farewell forever. I do not mean that it is necessary for you to leave the world and shut yourself up between four walls, unless God calls you to do so. But I do say that you must try to live in the world as though you were not of the world, that is, you must make a public, generous and unwavering profession of living otherwise than as the world lives, and of rejecting its laws and maxims. And I tell you not to be ashamed but to enjoy holy pride in being a Christian, in belonging to Jesus Christ, in preferring the saintly maxims and truths that He left you in His holy Gospel, to the pernicious maxims and falsehoods by which the world deceives its disciples. I urge you at least to have enough courage and resolution to make a clean break with the standards, sentiments and inclinations of the world, and to despise all its empty speeches and deceptive opinions, just as the world makes a show of impious temerity in despising the laws and maxims of Christianity. It is in this alone that true courage and perfect generosity consist: for what the world calls courage and power of character are nothing but cowardice and pusillanimity. This, then, is what I mean by detachment from the world: renouncing the world, and living in the world as though not of it. If you would more firmly establish this detachment from the world in your soul, it is not only necessary for you to strive to break away from the world, but you should even develop a horror for it, like the repugnance in which Christ held it. Now Christ had such a horror of the world that He not only exhorted you through His beloved Disciple: "Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world" (I John 2, 15), but He also tells us, through His Apostle St. James, "that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God" (James 4, 4), that is, He considers as His enemies all those who love the world. He assures you that His Kingdom is not of this world (John 18, 36) any more than He is of this world, and that those whom His Father has given Him are not of this world, just as He is not of it (John 17, 12-16). And another thingmore terrifying stillis that He solemnly protested, on the very day when He wrought the greatest miracle of His goodness, namely, the eve of His death, when He was about to pour forth His Precious Blood and give up His Iife for the salvation of men, "I pray not for the world" (John 17, 9). And in these words He thundered a most frightful anathema, a curse and an excommunication upon the world, declaring it to be unworthy of any share in His prayers or in His mercy. Finally, He assures us that "now is the judgment of the world" and "now shall the prince of this world be cast out" (John 12, 31). And, in fact, the very moment the world fell into the corruption of sin, it was judged by divine justice and condemned to be burnt and consumed by fire. And although the effect of the sentence was deferred, it will none the less be carried out at the end of time. Consequently, Christ looks upon the world as the object of His hatred and His curse, and as something He plans and desires to burn in the day of His wrath. Enter, then, into the feelings of Christ towards the world, and towards all things that are in the world. From now on, view the world as Jesus Christ does, that is, as the object of His hatred and malediction. Look upon it as something He forbids you to love, under pain of incurring His enmity. See it as a thing He has excommunicated and cursed with His own lips, with which you may not, consequently, communicate without participating in the same malediction. See the world as something He desires to burn and reduce to ashes. Look at all those things which the world most values and loves, like pleasures, honors, riches, worldly friendship and affections, and all other things of this

kind, as things which simply pass away, according to this divine utterance: Mundus transit, et concupiscentia ejus (I John 2, 17 And the world passeth away and the concupiscence thereof). See all these things as nothing but smoke, deceit and illusion, as vanity and affliction of spirit. Read these truths and reflect upon them often, and each day pray Our Lord to impress them upon your mind. To arrive at these dispositions, take a little time each day to adore Jesus in His perfect detachment from the world, begging Him to detach you from it entirely and to impress upon your heart hatred, horror and abomination for the things of the world. For your own part, see that you do not indulge in the useless visits and conversation that are customary in the world. If you are taken up with these idle occupations, in the name of God leave them at all costs and fly as you would from a plague, from all the places and persons and from any company where the talk is only of the world and worldly things. Since such things are discussed with esteem and affection, it is very difficult to avoid carrying away some harmful impression from these conversations. Besides, you will gain nothing from them but a dangerous loss of time; you will find in them nothing but unhappy dissipation of mind and affliction of spirit, and all you will bring away will be bitterness of heart, coldness in piety, separation from God, and a thousand faults that you may have committed. As long as you seek out and love the company of men of the world, Jesus Christ whose delight it is to be with the children of men will not take His delight in you and will not give you any taste of the consolations with which He refreshes those who find all their joy in conversing with Him. Fly then, from the world, I say to you again, fly from it, abhor its life, its spirit and its maxims. Do not make friends with any persons except those whom you can help, or those who can help you and animate you, by word and example, to love Jesus and live in His spirit.

Saint Alphonsus on Detachment

It is also necessary to endeavor to be at all times in the state in which we desire to be at death. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord." (Apoc. xiv. 13). St. Ambrose says, that they die well who, at the hour of death, are found dead to the world; that is, detached from the goods from which death shall separate us by force. We ought, then, from this moment, to accept the spoliation of our goods, and the separation from relatives and from every thing in this world. Unless we do it voluntarily during life, we shall have to do it through necessity at death, but with extreme pain and great danger of eternal perdition. Hence St. Augustine says, that to settle during life all temporal matters, and to dispose, by will, of all the goods we shall have to bequeath, contribute greatly to a tranquil death; because, when all worldly affairs are already adjusted, the soul may be entirely occupied in uniting herself with God. At that hour, we should think and speak only of God and of paradise. These last moments are too precious to be squandered in earthly Thoughts. At death is completed the crown of the elect; for it is then, perhaps, that they reap the greatest harvest of merits, by embracing, with resignation and love, death and all its pains. But the Christian who has not been in the habit of exciting these sentiments during life, shall not have them at the hour of death. Hence, some devout souls, with great spiritual profit to themselves, are accustomed to renew, every month, after being at

confession and communion, the protestation of death along with the Christian acts, imagining themselves at the point of death, and to be near their departure from this world. Unless thou dost this during life, thou shalt find it very difficult to do it at death. In her last illness, that great servant of God, Sister Catharine of St. Albertus, of the order of St. Teresa, sent forth a sigh, and said, "Sisters, I do not sigh for fear of death, for I have lived for twenty-five years in expectation of it; but I sigh at the sight of so many deluded Christians, who spend their life in sin, and reduce themselves to the necessity of making peace with God at death, when I can scarcely pronounce the name of Jesus.'' Examine, then, O my brother, if you are now attached to any thing on this earth, to any person, to any honor, to your house, your money, to conversations or amusements; and reflect that you are not immortal. You must one day, and perhaps very soon, take leave of them all. Why, then, do you cherish any attachment to them, and thus expose yourself to the risk of an unhappy death? Offer, from this moment, all to God; tell Him you are ready to give up all things whenever He pleases to deprive you of them. If you wish to die with resignation, you must from this moment resign yourself to all the contradictions and adversities which may happen to you, and must divest yourself of all affections to earthly things. Imagine yourself on the bed of death, and you shall despise all things in this world. "He,'' says Jerome, "who always thinks that he is to die, easily despises all things." If you have not as yet chosen a state of life, make choice of that state of life which you shall at death wish to have selected, and which shall make you die with greater peace. If you have already made choice of a state of life, do now what you shall at death wish to have done in that state. Spend every day as if it were the last of your life; and perform every action, every exercise of prayer, make every confession and communion, as if they were the last of your life. Imagine yourself every hour at the point of death, stretched on a bed, and that you hear that "Proficiscere de hoc mundo" ("Go out of this world") which announces your departure from this world. O, how powerfully shall this thought assist you to walk in the way of God, and to detach your heart from this earth! "Blessed is that servant whom, when his Lord shall come, he shall find him so doing." Matt. xxiv. 46. He who expects death every hour, shall die well, Though death should come suddenly upon him.

Affections and Prayers

Every Christian ought to be prepared to say at the moment the news of death shall be announced to him, "Then, my God, only a few hours remain during the short remainder of the present life, I wish to love Thee to the utmost of my power, that I may love Thee more perfectly in heaven. But little remains for me to offer to Thee. I offer Thee these pains, and the sacrifice of my life in union with the sacrifice which Jesus Christ offered for me on the cross. Lord, the pains which I suffer are few and light, compared with what I have deserved; such as they are, I embrace them as a mark of the love which I bear Thee. Provided I am to love Thee for eternity, I resign myself to all the punishments which Thou wishest to send me in this or the next life. Chastise me as much as Thou pleasest, but do not deprive me of Thy love. I know that, on account of having so often despised Thy love, I deserved never more to love Thee; but Thou canst not reject a penitent soul. I am sorry, O Sovereign Good, for having offended Thee. I love Thee with my whole heart, and place all my trust in Thee. Thy death, O my Redeemer, is my hope.

To Thy wounded hands I recommend my soul. "Into Thy hands I commend my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, the God of truth." Ps. xxx. 6. O my Jesus, Thou hast given Thy blood for my salvation: do not suffer me to be separated from Thee. I love Thee, O eternal God, and hope to love Thee for eternity. Mary, my mother, assist me at the awful moment of death. To Thee I now consign my spirit; to Thee I recommend myself. Deliver me from hell.

Commentary
We have seen above that Saint John Bosco in speaking to the Pope of these times, tells him to preach detachment from earthly things. In reading from Saint John Eudes and Saint Alphonsus Ligouri above we see the necessity of this detachment. In fact, our very salvation could depend on it. Assuredly no one will go straight to heaven, who has any attachment to the world whatsoever. Saint Gemma Galgani was told by Jesus to give up a relic she had, because of her attachment to it. Above we saw what Saint Augustine said about attachment. The only way we can know is how we react when it is taken away. By measuring our reaction then, we know. Of course, we can also know by our reaction when told we should give something up. Do we give it up as advised, or do we refuse? Detachment, an ascetical term signifying the withholding of the affection from creatures to fix it on the Creator, Creatures may be the occasion or mortal, or of venial sin. The first case determines the detachment necessary for salvation; the second, what is required as the foundation of the higher life. Beyond these is that of the highest perfection, carried often to renunciation and actual privation, imitating through love the perfect poverty of Jesus Christ. The New Catholic Dictionary. Basically we either love creatures, or we love the Creator. You can't have it both ways. What we try to do is divide our love into pieces, and give God part and the rest to our self and our pursuit of worldly pleasures. Let us remember what Sacred Scripture says: She that lives in pleasures is dead while she is living. 3 Saint John Vianney tells us: It consists of three classes: the first is composed of those who are entirely for the world; the second are those who are entirely for God; and the last consists of those people who would like to belong to the world without ceasing to belong to God. 4 He then reminds us: No, my friend; you either belong wholly to God or wholly to the world. 5 And this reminds us of what Jesus tells us: He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth. 6 So we can conclude that if we are not wholly with God, then we are wholly with the world. There is no middle ground. At the Birth of Jesus Christ let up pray for detachment from earthly things. Saint John Eudes says: The spirit of martyrdom is the spirit of perfect detachment from the world and everything that is in the world. Those who are to sacrifice their lives to God must also sacrifice to Him all else besides. And Cardinal Mercier in his Retreat to
3 4 5 6

I Timothy 5:6 Sermons of the Cure of Ars, page 11 Sermons of the Cure of Ars, page 14 Luke 11:23

Priests: Even from simple Christians, from the ordinary faithful, Christ expects detachment (from the world). To be happy, He tells them, they must have the spirit of poverty, they must be clean of heart, they must weep for their sins and suffer persecution for justice' sake. (Matthew v, 1-10) Saint Alphonsus says: The first preparation for Holy Communion is detachment from creatures, and disengagement of the heart from everything that is not God. Elsewhere he says: In order to make mental prayer well, it is necessary to unite to the external silence interior silence, that is, detachment from earthly affections. Speaking of certain persons attached to the world, our Lord said one day to St. Teresa: "I would wish to speak to them, but creatures make such a noise in their ears that they do not give me a moment in which I can make them listen to me." What noise is the world making in your ear? It is time to shut the world off, so we can listen to Almighty God, Who only speaks to us in silence. But I must have some recreation. This is indeed true, for we must take a break in order to prepare our self to return to work. Let us see what Saint Francis de Sales says in Introduction to the Devout Life: In order that playing and dancing may be lawful we must use them as a recreation, without having any affection for them. We may use them for a short time, but we should not continue until we are wearied or stupified by them. We use them but seldom, for if we use them constantly, we turn a recreation into an occupation. What has happened is that recreation for many has become an occupation. In fact, many build their lives around their occupation. You can watch TV, but you cannot love TV. You can even have some of the good things God has given us, but we cannot become attached to them. In order to detach our self from them, we must give them up on occasion. Pastors are told to teach us that the whole life of a Christian ought to be a perpetual penance. 7 When we do enjoy lawful things, let us remember that soon we will give them all up in order to enter into a better life. Tell me says St. John Chysostom, if you were elected king but were obliged to spend the night preceding your entrance into your capital city where you were to be crowned, if you were compelled to pass that night in much discomfort in a stable, would you not joyfully endure it in the expectation of your kingdom? And why should not we, in this valley of tears, willingly live through adversities, in expectation of one day obtaining the kingdom of heaven? My friends, we are in the stable, the Kingdom we desire comes after death in Heaven. Let us live so as to be ready to go immediately into Heaven the moment we breathe our last breath. At death we will exclaim: Oh blessed penance, that prepared for this moment. Pope Michael Our Lady of Mount Carmel July 16, 2012 22nd Anniversary of Our Election as Pope.

Catechism of the Council of Trent under Extreme Unction