THE END OF MAN
Our life is a journey toward God, a continual tending, a continual directing of all our energies toward Him.
"The end of the spiritual life," says St. Thomas, "is that man unites himself to God by love."
St. Ignatius of Loyola:
“Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. All other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him fulfill the end for which he is created.” Fr. Gabriel:
“Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return” (Gen 3,19). These words, spoken for the first time by God to Adam after he had committed sin, are repeated today [Ash Wednesday] by the Church to every Christian, in order to remind him of two fundamental truths — his nothingness and the reality of death. Dust, the ashes which the priest puts on our foreheads today, has no substance; the lightest breath will disperse it. It is a good representation of man’s nothingness: “O Lord, my substance is as nothing before Thee” (Ps 38,6), exclaims the Psalmist. Our pride, our arrogance, needs to grasp this truth, to realize that everything in us is nothing. Drawn from nothing by the creative power of God, by His infinite love which willed to communicate His being and His life to us, we cannot — because of sin — be reunited with him for eternity without passing through the dark reality of death.” (Divine Intimacy)
"Death exists, and we should reflect on it, not in order to distress ourselves, but to arouse ourselves to do good. The thought of death places before our eyes the vanity of earthly things and the brevity of life, and therefore it urges us to detach ourselves from everything, to scorn every earthly satisfaction, and to seek God alone. The thought of death makes us understand that 'all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone.'" (Divine Intimacy) St. John Bosco:
"Do not think that you live in the world to have fun, to become rich, to eat, drink and sleep. The end for which you were created in the first place is infinitely more noble and sublime, and it is this: to love and serve God in this life, and that way save your soul."
St. Augustine:
"We are Christians and strangers on earth. Let none of us be frightened. Our native land is not in this world." St. Louis de Montfort:
"It is the will of God that you be holy like Him in this life and glorious like Him in the next. Your sure vocation is the acquisition of the holiness of God, and unless all your thoughts and words and actions, all the sufferings and events of your life tend to that end, you are resisting God by not doing that for which He has created you and is now persevering you." Fr. Frederick Faber:
"It is the first truth of religion that we are here in the world for no other end than to glorify God by the salvation of our souls." St. Alphonsus Ligouri:
"No, dearly beloved Christians; the goods of the earth are not the end for which God has placed you in the world; the end for which he has created you is the attainment of eternal life." St. Gregory the Great:
"Man was created for the contemplation of his Creator, in order that he might ever seek the vision of Him and dwell in the stability of His love."
Commentaires