"The end of devotion is not, to become extraordinarily devout. It is possible to fill one's life with practices of piety and yet not to get more Christ-like. It is possible to spend much time in devotion, and yet to be hard and critical and to lack a-missionary and loving spirit. It is a terrible, as well as a salutary, thing to remember that it was devout people at a time of special devotion who killed our Lord."
"God Himself must be the sole end of our devotion. There is no great danger of our worshipping graven images, but there is a very great danger of our worshipping mental images of our own imagining. God has been revealed to us in the dear figure of Christ, and the supreme revelation of God is a naked man dying on the gallows in the dark. We have to be dispossessed of our mental images of a sentimental Christ by this stark reality of the perfect sacrifice of the Cross. He is our model. ' He never thought of Himself or His own interests. He never did one single action because He was bribed in any way to do it. He never abstained from any for fear of what might happen to him. In all things He sought only and always his Father's will."
"The end of devotion is attained when the complete taking of all things meets with the complete giving of all things. Death, the great taker, is defeated when he meets Christ, the great giver. The supreme devotion of our Lord's life was consummated as He laid down His life for His sheep and yielded His spirit in perfect faith to His Father. The true end of devotion is the gift of ourselves and all we have to God."
Fr. Andrew, Meditations, pg. 166
No comments:
Post a Comment