You either belong wholly to the world or wholly to God. - Saint John Vianney - ( 1786 - 1859 )

God has left us the choice of deciding which of the two masters in life we wish to serve. On one hand is Christ Jesus, beckoning us to come to Him that we may have life, and have it more abundantly. To see what is on the other hand, we must turn our backs to Him...

You cannot please both God and the world at the same time. They are utterly opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires and their actions. -  Saint John Vianney - ( 1786 - 1859 )

How sweet has it been to me to be deprived of the delights of a frivolous world! What incomparable joy have I felt after a privation once so dreaded. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - ( 354 - 430 )

We should always be prepared to give up readily, with the sure belief that the change comes by the Will of God. - Saint Vincent de Paul - ( 1580 - 1660 )

GRANT, O Lord, that my heart may neither desire nor seek anything but what is necessary for the fulfilment of Thy Holy Will. May health or sickness, riches or poverty, honours or contempt, humiliations, leave my soul in that state of perfect detachment to which I desire to attain for Thy greater honour and Thy greater glory. Amen. - Saint Ignatius Loyola - ( 1491 - 1556 )

IT is not a sin to possess riches; but it is sinful to set our heart upon them, to seek them with eagerness, to place our happiness in them, or to employ unlawful means to acquire them. - Saint John Baptist de la Salle - ( 1651 - 1719 )

WHAT a person desires, if he or she worships it, is to him or her a god. A vice in the heart is an idol on the altar. - Saint Jerome  - ( 342 - 420 ) 

THIS is the business of our life. By labour and prayer, to advance in the grace of God, till we come to that height of perfection in which, with cleans hearts, we may behold God. - Saint Augustine of Hippo - ( 354 - 430 ) 

THE EXAMINED LIFE  - The Confessions changes focus at this point and becomes more philosophical and theological. Here we begin to hear the self-examination of the Bishop of Hippo - Saint Augustine - and his interpretation of the nature of knowledge and of creation itself. -

- Page Six - No rest is given me from them, as there sometimes is in silence from music and from all voices. For the queen of colours, the light, flooding all we look upon, wherever I am during the day, gliding past me in various forms, soothes me when I am busied about other things and not noticing it. And it entwines itself so strongly, that, if it is suddenly withdrawn, I look longingly for it, and if it is long absent, my mind is saddened.

O Light that Tobit saw when with his eyes closed to blindness, he taught his son the way of life, and led the way himself with the feet of charity, never going astray. Or that Light which Isaac saw, when his bodily eyes were so dim by reason of old age that he could not see, it was granted him to bless his sons without knowing which was which, but in blessing them to know them. Or which Jacob saw, blind through great age but with an illumined heart, when he shed light upon the different races of people yet to come - foreshown in the persons of his sons - and he laid his hands, mystically crossed, on his grandchildren, the sons of Joseph, not as their father by his outward eye corrected them, but as he himself inwardly discerned them. This is the true Light, the only one, and all who see and love it are one. But the corporeal light of which I spoke, seasons the life of this world for those who blindly love it with an enticing and fatal sweetness. They who know how to praise you for this earthly light, "O God, Creator of All," and sing of it in your hymns, but are not taken up with it in their sleep. Such I desire to be. I resist these seductions of the eyes, lest my feet by which I walk on your path be entangled. And I lift up my inward eyes to you, that you would be pleased to pluck my feet out of the snare. You do repeatedly pluck them out, for they are entangled. You do not cease to pluck them out, but I constantly remain fast in the snares set round me on all sides, For you shall neither slumber nor sleep, who keep Israel.

What innumerable things, made by various arts and products, in our clothing, shoes, vessels and every kind of work, in pictures, too, and various images - and these far in excess of all necessary and moderate use, and all devotional significance, men have added for the enthrallment of their own eyes! Outwardly they follow what they make themselves, and inwardly forsake him by whom they themselves were made - yes, and destroying that which he made in them!

I also sing a hymn to you, my God and my joy, for these things, and offer a sacrifice of praise to my Sanctifier for all those beautiful designs which pass through men's minds and are conveyed to artistic hands, coming from that Beauty which is above our souls, which my soul sighs after day and night. But as for the makers and followers of those outward beauties, they derive from that Beauty their power of judging them, but not of using them. And this power, too, is there, though they do not see it, so they might not wander, but keep their strength for you and not dissipate it on delicious lassitudes. And though I speak this way and see this, I, too, get my steps entangled with these outward beauties, but you rescue me. O Lord, you rescue me, because your loving-kindness is ever before my eyes. For I am caught miserably, but you rescue me mercifully. Sometimes I am not even aware of this, not having become wholly entangled. At other times, the rescue is painful, because I was held fast in them.

So this is added another form of temptation, more complex in its peril. For besides the lust of the flesh, which lies in the gratification of all our senses and pleasures, whose slaves wander far from you, are wasted and perish, the soul has, through those same bodily senses a certain vain and curious desire, cloaked under the name of knowledge and learning - not delighting in the flesh, but in making experiments through the flesh. This longing, since it originates in an appetite for knowledge, and since sight is the sense mainly used to acquire knowledge, is called in divine language the lust of the eyes. For seeing properly belongs to the eye, yet we use this word in connection with the other senses, too, when we exercise them in the search for knowledge. For we do not say, "Listen how it glows!" or "Smell how it glistens," or "Taste how it shines," or "Feel how it gleams," for all these said to be seen. Yet we not only say, "See how it shines," which the eyes alone can perceive; but we also say, "See how it sounds, see how it smells, see how it tastes, and see how hard it is." And so the general experience of the senses, as we said, is called the lust of the eyes, because the office of seeing, though properly belonging to the eyes, is applied to the other senses by analogy when they seek after any knowledge.

By this it may be more clearly discerned when the object of the senses is pleasure and when it is curiosity. For pleasures seeks objects that are beautiful, melodies, fragrant, tasty, soft; but curiosity, for the sake of novelty, seeks the very opposite as well, not in order to experience their trouble, but from the passion of experimenting and knowing.

What pleasure is there to see in a mangled corpse that which makes you shudder? And yet, if it is lying near, we flock to it, to be made sad and to turn pale. They fear they will see it in their sleep, as if anyone had forced them to look at it when they were awake, or any report of its beauty had attracted them to it! Thus it is also with the other senses, which would take too long to go through. From this malady of curiosity come all those strange sights exhibited in the theatre. From it men go on to search out the secret powers of nature (which do not pertain to us) which to know brings no profit, and which men desire to know simply for the sake of knowing. From this malady, too, with the same goal of gaining perverted knowledge, we consult the magical arts. Even in religion itself God is tempted when signs and wonders are demanded of him - not desired for any saving purpose, but merely to make trial of him.

In such a vast wilderness as this, full of snares and dangers, I have cut many of them off and thrust them out of my heart, as you have given me power to do, O God of my salvation. Yet when do I dare say - since so many things of this kind buzz on all sides about our daily life - when do I dare say that nothing of this sort engages my attention or causes an idle interest in me? True, the theatres no longer carry me away now-a days, nor do I care to know the courses of the stars, nor did my soul ever consult departed spirits. I detest all un hallowed rites. But yet, O Lord my God, to whom I owe humble and single-hearted service, by what subtlety of suggestion does the enemy tempt me to require some sign from you! But I beseech you by our King, and by our pure and holy country Jerusalem, that as any consent on my part to such thoughts is far from me, so may it ever be farther and farther. But when I pray to you for the salvation of anyone, my goal and intention is far different. For you do what you will, and you give me the grace and will give me the grace to follow you willingly. 

Nevertheless, in how many petty and contemptible things is our curiosity tempted daily, and who can recount how often we give in to it? How often, when people are telling idle stales, do we begin, as if we were tolerating them to keep from offending the weak, and then gradually begin to take an interest in them! I do not go nowadays to the circus to see a dog chasing a hare, but if by chance I pass such a chase in the field, it may distract me even from some serious thought, and draw me after it - not that I turn aside the body of my horse, but by the inclination of my mind. And unless you, reminding me of my weakness, speedily warn me to lift my thoughts to you above the sight, or to despise it wholly and pass on by, I vain creature that I am, will stand gazing at it.

When sitting at home, my attention is often distracted by a lizard catching flies, or by a spider entangling flies as they rush into her web. Is the feeling of curiosity different because they are but small creatures? I go on from such distractions to praise you, the wonderful Creator and Disposer of all things; but that is not what first attracts my attention. It is one thing to get up quickly; it is another not to fall. And of such things my life is full, and my only hope is your wonderful, great mercy. For when this heart of ours becomes the receptacle of such things, and bears multitudes of these abounding vanities, then our prayers are often interrupted and disturbed by them, and while in your presence we direct the voice of our heart to your ears, such a great concern as this is interrupted by the influx of I know not what idle thoughts. 

Shall, we, then, reckon curiosity among the things to be condemned? Or shall anything restore us to hope but your complete mercy, since you have begun to changed me, first healing me of the lust vindicating myself, so that you might forgive all the rest of my iniquities and heal all my infirmities, and redeem my life from corruption, and crown me with tender mercies and loving-kindness, and satisfy my desire with good things; you curbed my pride with fear and tamed my neck to your yoke. And now I bear it and it is light to me, because you have so promised and have so made it. And in very truth it was, but I knew it not when I feared to take it up.

But, O Lord, you alone reign without pride, because you are the only true Lord and have no lord. Tell me, has this third kind of temptation left me, or can it ever leave me throughout this lifetime - the desire to be feared and loved by men for no other purpose but that I may enjoy that which is no joy? It is a miserable life and an unseemly ostentation! From this especially it comes that we do not love you nor have a holy fear of you. And therefore you resist the proud and give grace to the humble. Yes, you thunder down on the ambitious designs of the world, and the foundations of the hills tremble.

Because certain offices of human society make it necessary for the holder to be loved and feared of men, the adversary of our true blessedness presses hard on us, spreading everywhere his snares of "Well done, well done." Greedily reaching for them, we may be caught unawares and separate our joy from your truth and fix it in the deceits of men, and take pleasure in being loved and feared - not for your sake, but in your stead. having been made like our adversary, then, he may have us for his own, not in the harmony of charity but in the fellowship of punishment. He aspired to exalt his throne in the north, so that we men, dark and cold, might serve him who would become a perverse and distorted imitation of you.

But we, O Lord, lo, we are your little flock. Possess us as yours. Stretch your wings over us, and let us take refuge under them. Be our glory. Let us be loved for your sake and let your Word be reverence in us. Those who desire to be praised by the men you condemn will not be defended by men when you judge, nor delivered when you pass sentence. But when - not as when the sinner is praised in the desires of his/her soul.............. - Page Six - 

-     WELCOME TO SACRED SCRIPTURE / WORD OF GOD / HOLY BIBLE READER'S COMMUNITY     - 

Wishing you, 'Happy Reading', and may God, the Father, the Son of the living God, Jesus Christ, fills your heart, mind, thoughts, and grants you: The Holy Spirit, that is, Wisdom, Knowledge, Understanding, Counsel, Piety, Fortitude, Fear of the Lord, and also His fruits of the Holy Spirit, that is, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Trustfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control. Amen! God blessing be upon you!

Why do you call Me, "Lord, Lord" and not do what I say?' "Everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words and acts on them - I will show you what he/she is like. He/She is like a man/woman who when he/she built his/her house dug, deep, and laid the foundations on rock; when the river was in flood it bore down on that house but could not shake it, it was so well built. But the one who listens and does nothing is like the man/woman who built his/her house on soil, with no foundations: as soon as the river bore down on it, it collapsed; and what a ruin that house became!" - Luke 6:46-49 - 

If we live by the truth and in love, we shall grow in all ways into Christ Jesus, who is the head by whom the whole body is fitted and joined together, every joint adding its own strength, for each separate part to work according to it function. So the body grows until it has built itself up, in love." - Ephesians 4:15-16 - 

I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself, but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He/She will glorify me, since all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: all he/she tells you will be taken from what is mine." - John 16:12-15 -