Few people, including among those who profess to love God, have a true and pure love for God. Most of those who profess to love God only love the goods that He gives them, but do not Few people, including among those who profess to love God, have a true and pure love for God. Most of those who profess to love God only love the goods that He gives them, but not God Himself. Many among them may even love God for the good He gives them, but they do not love God for His own sake. This is owing to their attachment to the things God gives.
Without detachment from all things and an attachment to God alone, one will not only never advance in the spiritual life, but fall away from the faith, although having once received the knowledge of Salvation. Such people are like the seeds that fell among the thorns ‘who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature’ (Luke 8:14). Detachment from all things except for God Himself, is fundamental to developing virtue and advancing in the spiritual life. God is the only thing one should be attached to.
Anyone who has been in the Church long enough will have witnessed people who grew up in the Faith or heard the Gospel of Salvation as a child but fell away as soon as they reached adulthood where a world of leisure, pleasure, and treasure awaits. Plenty of these young people become enticed by the various pleasures and treasures of the world, only seeking indulgence in such things. They reject Christ’s invitation to Salvation and abandon Him in spite of His grace that offers a perfect, absolute, unwavering, unconditional, eternal divine love far sweeter than any human love can be.
Nor is it only young people who are ensnared by the things of the world. Most people are, whether old or young. Many young people eventually grow out of their taste for empty hedonistic pleasures found in partying, drunkenness, fornication, and whoremongering, only to pursue a life of security, status, and prestige when they decide to finally settle down after chasing such empty pleasures. They marry for the sake of greater financial security, social status, and acquiring the prestige that comes with marriage. They work hard in their careers to maintain their marriage and family life which they pursued with materialistic motivations.
While their change in attitude may seem honourable to many, the only thing that has changed in them is their desire for security and stability, but their worldliness and lack of spirituality has not. There is nothing admirable or honourable about people desiring marriage and family, especially if it they suddenly desire it for financial security, social status, and prestige after years of pursuing a hedonistic lifestyle. Such is the love of the world and most professing Christians have a false appearance of holiness, but are full of the love of the world, enamoured by the lusts of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
Piety Before God requires Detachment from the All Things Except God Himself
Detachment from all things, including the good things that God gives, is of fundamental importance to the spiritual life. One must master detachment from the world to become holy. The holier one becomes, the more detached from all temporal earthly things one becomes, including one’s family. Attachment to anything other than God is not only a lack of piety; it is idolatry, and no idolater will inherit the Kingdom of God. Being attached to anything other than God leads to eternal Damnation.
Many claim that they are attached to both God and their families, but that is error. There is no such thing as attachment to God and anything else at all, including family. That is the sin of idolatry of family which is one of the most common sins among professing Christians – a respectable sin they attempt to justify by perverting scriptures and the spiritual writings of the Church Fathers.
They use marriage and family as a false guise of holiness, and push others to marry and have families, but the truth is that their marriage and family are their idols. Such people lack all manner of understanding and wisdom, and yet are arrogant enough to accuse others who affirm the Church’s teaching that celibacy is superior to marriage as either spiteful and bitter towards those who are married with family, ignorant on matters pertaining to conjugal desires, or trying to justify the Church’s or their own personal agenda.
To be attached to anything other than God is to have a disordered love. Some claim that it suffices to love God more than anything else, but that one can still love other things, such as one’s career and family. Of course, one must love God more than anything else, but one must be detached from everything except for God Himself to love both God and all other things in a rightly ordered manner.
For all love that one has for anything other than God must be a detached love ordered towards God as the ultimate end of that love. Any love that one has for any other person, including one’s family, must not be born out of attachment for them, but a love that is ordered towards God, and born out of a love for God. Otherwise, such love will be disordered and unholy, an idolatrous self-love that loves what it does for one’s own sake.
To love anything other than God for its own sake, it is to love the things of this world. No one can love both God and the things of this world. One either loves God with a whole-hearted undivided love or loves the world. Thus, it does not suffice to love God more than the things of the world, but that one must have no attachment to the things of this world, treating them as vain, living as if one did not possess such things, whether it be wealth, health, marriage, or family, whether in one’s joys or sorrows. For as Saint Paul teaches:
This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away.
(1 Corinthians 7:29-31)
Love for anything in this world is disordered and unholy. All love that is rightly ordered is a love that loves God and God alone. For God Himself is love, the source of all true love and the object of all true, proper, and rightly ordered love. Without having a proper, rightly ordered love for God, one cannot love anyone or anything rightly at all. Anyone or anything that one loves will be born out of a disordered love that is ordered towards oneself.
The Root of all Worldliness is Self-Love
As Saint Clement of Rome aptly said: “This world and the world to come are two enemies. We cannot therefore be friends to both; but we must decide which we will forsake and which we will enjoy.”
Why so? The world is enamoured by self-love and which seeks nothing but to indulge in the lusts of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. It is the kingdom of the devil. The world to come is the Kingdom of God that is a world of rightly ordered love, and which loves God and God alone who is love. It is a world of nothing but pure, sweet, absolute love where everyone is bound by ties of perfect charity to each other. To love the world and the things of the world is to hate God. For as John the Apostle exhorts:
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life— is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
(1 John 2:15-17)
The love that the world has for anything is always ordered towards self-love, seeking to gratify their lusts of the flesh, lusts of the eyes, and pride of life. Their love for their loved ones, their family and friends, is born out of self-love, not love that is rightly ordered for the sake of the objects of their love. Any good they will for their family and friends is ultimately ordered towards and born out of their own lusts and pride.
The root of all worldly loves is self-love. There is the love of money, love of wealth, love of health, love of pleasure, love of leisure, love of career, love of honour, love of respect, love of admiration, love of romance, and love of family. The worldling loves such things that are passing away. Yet, since he does not know God, those are the only things that he can love, and must love in the hopes of finding any joy and pleasure in this life at all which is itself an ordeal. What a pity it is to not know God, both in this life and the life to come!
Hating the world and things of the world is not hatred of the unbeliever or the worldling. Instead, hating such is to be detached from the world and the things of the world, not pursuing such things, but pursuing God wholeheartedly. To the contrary, hating others is way of the world, not the way of Christ. Hating others including the enemies of one’s faith is worldly and to be a friend of the world, not God. Such hatred stems from self-love that seeks to satisfy the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, all of which are always in opposition towards God, and cannot be made obedient towards God:
For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
(Romans 8:5-8)
Hating the people of the world is neither holy nor righteous before God, but unholy and righteous. It is the world who hates others and are themselves hated by those who hate them. Thus, to hate one’s neighbour, including one’s enemies, is antithetical to loving God. To claim that one is pious before God and hate one’s neighbour is nonsensical, for to be pious before God is to love one’s neighbour, who can often be one’s enemy. As the Apostle of John writes so bluntly: “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15).
For as the scriptures describes the world in which the believer was once formerly part of, that ‘we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another’ (Titus 3:3). The people of the world live by ‘hating one another’ and are themselves ‘hated by others’, rebellious, foolish, slaves to their lusts of the eyes, lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life, and filled with ‘malice and envy’ each and every single passing day.
The way of Christ is to love the people of world who He came to save, not condemn it. As the scriptures teach: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.’ (John 3:16-17). Therefore, the lover of Christ is to love, not hate the people of the world in emulating Christ who came to save them, out of His deep, unconditional, unwavering, unfailing, ever-faithful eternal love for them. The lover of Christ is to hate that which is evil out of piety towards God, assenting to what God regards as evil, and out of love towards his neighbour, seeing him and thus accordingly, treating him as a beloved Creation of God.
Nor does hatred of the world mean to isolate oneself from society as some professing Christian sects think, who set up their own communities far away from civilisation in remote country towns, reject modern technology, science, and medicine, fleeing from all secular education, and who only permit their children to be homeschooled within their own community. Such people are delusional, all without realising it, in thinking that isolating oneself from society is what it means to be holy and righteous before God.
These types superstitiously condemn secular art, music, and literature as inherently worldly and evil, as well as religious art, music, and literature not approved by their sect, as heretical and of the devil – which they condemn even more aggressively. They think that all secular artists are satanic, and that listening to certain genres of music, such as rock or metal is unholy. They brand those who listen to such music as ‘evil’ and ‘demonic’, harshly castigating any person who does. The only type of music acceptable to them is contemporary gospel music. Even the Gregorian chants of the early Church are branded by these professing Christian extremist fanatics as ‘satanic’ for being ‘religious’ – a pejorative term that they use to refer to people who affirm tradition and liturgy.
They despise intellectuals and think it is sin for a Christian to be an intellectual, claiming that since one is not to follow human thinking, but the divine only, the intellect is inherently evil, and that one must therefore shun the intellect. They are filled with all manner of suspicion towards any intellectual knowledge and reject anything that is not stated in the scriptures which they regard as the only source of truth. They especially disdain any study of theology and the idea of theology itself, claiming that to do so is to be full of the spirit of religion, and of pride and arrogance in seeking knowledge which they are so filled with animosity towards.
Not only do these arbitrary rules not address holiness or righteousness; these rules are simply morally wrong for they usurp the authority of God by redefining what holiness and righteousness is and is not. It is no wonder that these sects and cults who isolate themselves from society are full of rebellion against governing authorities, for they think themselves to be the true authority who determine what is right and wrong, owing to their rebellion against God. Since all governing authorities are instituted by God, regardless of whether they acknowledge or realise it, anyone who resists governing authorities, rebels against God (Romans 13:1-7).
These people are strict on that for which there is no obligation to be strict, and lax towards that which that for which there is an obligation to be strict. Their appearance of holiness is nothing but a façade that conceals their inner wickedness. All their rules about morality are arbitrary and tyrannical. All their affirmations of any precepts of the true moral law of God are motivated by their own self-love, rather than a love for God.
This warped mentality of theirs is the logical outworking of their false view about what it truly means to be holy and unholy. As long as one has an erroneous view about God or loving God, one will have an erroneous view about all other matters and be guided by one’s lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life.
Loving the World is to be Attached to the Present World and Things of the World
If not loving the world is not hating the people of the world, what does it mean? Loving the world is to be friends with the world, approving of its ways of envy, malice, greed, pride, lust, and selfish ambition. It is to be at peace with its rebellion against God and its wickedness which are conceived from these vices that are innate to the fallen state of human nature.
Some attempt to argue that one can refuse to be at peace with the world’s rebellion against God and its wickedness but still pursue the things that it esteems. Being friends with the world, however, is to pursue the things of the world and what it esteems, which is anything other than God Himself. As Christ rebuked the Pharisees: “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God” (Luke 16:15).
What are the things that the world esteems? Honour, selfish ambition, and vainglory. All the things in this world that the world seeks, be it money, career success, financial security, marriage, romance, family, leisure, and travel, are ordered towards its pursuit of these vices. These are what the world lives for, the love and pursuit of which are all born out of the sin of pride.
So full of love for these vices is the world who lives and breathes for such things that it is willing to sacrifice its health, dignity, and soul to satisfy its pride. Many willingly sacrifice their health for the sake of worldly honours conferred to them by professional success. Many even die from overwork because of their selfish ambition for financial security. Many willingly sacrifice their dignity, as well as the risk of disease and violence by prostituting themselves just for the sake of a bit of money. Many willingly allow themselves to be abused in a romantic relationship – sometimes even to the point of being close to be murdered – for the sake of social status and financial security. Many willingly overindulge in leisure and travel despite not enjoying these activities for the sake of giving the appearance that they are living what the world regards as a ‘good life’. Many are willing to foolishly subject themselves to the pain of unnecessary financial losses for the sake of easy financial gain, not for only their financial security, but also to receive honour and admiration from others.
People often wonder why anyone would willingly subject themselves to pain, whether it be the loss of health or income, or abuse. They are shocked when they hear that a person who lives a life enviable in the eyes of the world has endured a health scare, a long-term battle with depression, marriage breakdown, family distress, or severe financial problems. This reaction occurs not only because the world holds such people in high esteem, thinking that they could have no problems in life, but also because it erroneously thinks that people who attain such things do so because of their virtue and wisdom.
The worldly mind thinks that virtue and wisdom, in accordance with its own understanding, makes a person immune from the sufferings in this world. It rejoiced with those who are share its values and succeed in life, simply because they have attained what they live for, and thus, they seek to emulate them, both filled with admiration and often harbouring a secret disdain towards them.
People who are successful in the world, however, almost always achieve success through immoral or inhuman means, whether it be through adultery or the exploitation of the worker – a sin that cries out to God for justice. Only a rare few are successful because of sheer talent, skill, or intellect. Most successful people in the world lack any real talent, skill, or intellect and only became rich and famous because the winds of fortune came blowing towards them at the right time.
Yet, these people are highly esteemed, impressing the world because they are regarded as having deservedly attained their honour and vainglory, having fulfilled their selfish ambitions that most desire but cannot achieve. This stirs up admiration in worldlings who enviously look on at those who have attained the vainglory they have attained and desire to emulate them.
Those who become successful purely by sheer talent, skill, or intellect are the opposite; they almost never, if ever, have a smooth path, and their rise to gaining any recognition at all is a long, arduous one in which they inevitably face many doubts, both from others and oneself, critics, scorners, and mockers.
The world celebrates highly esteemed people and presumes that anyone who refuses to or despises such people are simply bitter or envious. This presumption is born out of their love of the world that expects others to desire that they desire, and likewise celebrates those who attain that they do desire. It despises lowly esteemed people for their low value in its eyes, and is filled with even more disdain towards those who refuse to give what they perceive to be due honour and respect towards those who it esteems highly. It is not only who one esteems, but who one disdains for refusing to honour, admire, or respect someone that reveals the true inclinations of one’s heart, whether it loves God or whether it loves the world.
Those who profess Christ often have the same mindset of celebrating those who attain earthly, temporal things that are good but ultimately vain, that they think everyone should aspire for such things, and insist that others must celebrate them and rejoice for those who attain such. These people misinterpret the verse that exhorts “Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15) without realising their interpretation of it is based on their worldly, fleshly view of happiness and sadness, and of joy and sorrow.
The world is in bondage to the lusts of the eyes, lusts of the flesh, and the pride of life, all without realising it because they are blinded by the lusts and the pride of life. They lack the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to see that the problem lies in their lusts and pride that leads to all manner of disordered desires. These disordered desires, in turn, lead to disordered thinking because of the darkening of the intellect that is moved by the rebellion of the will to suppress its knowledge of truth (Romans 1:21).
Owing to its pride, the miserable soul that chases after what it intuitively knows to be merely fleeting ephemeral pleasures and treasures in the world cannot accept that it is joyless and lacks peace. This blindness is part of the curse of sin that is the result the disordered desires of the flesh.
Detachment from the World Cultivates Spirituality
It does not follow that detachment from the world leads to a joyless, miserable life. To the contrary, with detachment from the world comes more joy and peace in this life, as one’s heart no longer lies with the temporal goods of this world, but with world to come and in the treasures in heaven. For as Jesus said:
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
(Matthew 6:19-21)
If a person thinks this world is all there is, all his treasure is on earth in his eyes, and his heart will be focused on this world and the things of this world. He will live in the moment only, and have no sense of eternity, aligning his life with the temporal, earthly cares of life. His peace depends on the vicissitudes of life, affecting his mood itself. His soul is greatly afflicted by the sufferings in this life that when too great become insurmountable to him that all hope is lost, and despair overwhelms him to the point of losing the will to live. His mere taste of happiness can only be found in the things of this world, yet such is not true happiness that is full, sufficient, and eternal. He may sincerely think certain earthly temporal goods may give him such true happiness, but his happiness relies on the attainment of that thing, whether it be money, career, leisure, romantic love, marriage, or family. Whenever he faces the threat of loss or damage to such things, he loses all sense of happiness and is thrown into a state of turmoil interiorly.
A person who is focused on heaven and lives for the eternal, the heavenly, and the things of God has a perspective antithetical to that of the worldling. Whereas the worldling holds the things in this life to be treasure because his heart is attached to such things, the spiritual person holds the things in this life to be worthless that even the many sufferings in this life seem trivial. The person who is living a spiritual, mystical life is one who can wholeheartedly declare, as Saint Paul declared:
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death
(Philippians 3:8-10)
How many of us have reached that point in our spiritual journey where we can truly declare the same from the bottom of our heart? Not many! Very few have reached that level of detachment from the world or have even come close.
It is often older people or otherwise people near of end of this life who have spent their lives chasing after the treasures and pleasures of this world who ponder about the meaning of it all. It is a painful truth for many because of their attachment to the world, and one they find hard to accept because of it. Most professing Christians are full of the love of the world despite claiming to love Christ and follow Him because it is the natural inclination of the human condition to find comfort in what one can see, to desire what feels comfortable, and to take pride in living what one perceives to be prosperity.
Though under the state of grace, a person who is being sanctified has not yet reached the state of perfection in his holiness before God. The lust of the eyes, lust the flesh, and the pride of life within him remain, which is why he must mortify the flesh (Colossians 3:5). For the person being sanctified unto his Salvation, he battles daily the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. For whoever lives ‘according to the flesh [will] die, but if by the Spirit [one puts] to death the deeds of the body, [one] will live’ (Romans 8:13).
Mortification is the process of putting to death the deeds and will of the flesh as part of the process of becoming more holy and advancing in the spiritual life. Without mortification of the flesh, there can be no Salvation for the flesh only marches to the drum of death. Everything the flesh desires is unspiritual, hostile towards God. People seek such things that satisfy the flesh and the pride of life despite knowing the pain that it causes because the flesh can never be satisfied without gratifying itself.
Only when one realises what it truly means to be dead to the world and dead to the flesh can one gain true wisdom from above. As Saint Alphonsus wrote: “Great secret of death! It makes us see what the lovers of this world do not see.” Indeed, the lovers of this world do not and cannot understand the doctrine of detachment because they are blinded by their love of this world that they fail to understand why they should not be attached to it. The very concept of detachment does not even occur to them, even as their attachment to the world causes much sorrow.
Attachment to World leads to Spiritual Apathy
Consequently, attachment to the world leads to spiritual apathy. Those who are in a state of spiritual apathy will not be able to advance in the spiritual life and attain greater holiness, owing to their attachment to the world. To be attached to God and God alone, one must master detachment from the world and the things of this world.
Saint Philip Neri declared: “Give me ten men really detached from the world, and I have the heart to believe I could convert the world with them.” Indeed, it takes immense courage to set about to convert the world, but an even more immense heart of charity to desire the world to be converted and find the peace and joy in God that He created them for. It is because most Christians are attached to this world and the things of this world that they lack zeal for Christ. So filled they are with the love of this world that they are zealous in pursuing all manner of earthly temporal pursuits, be it career, wealth, romantic love or family, and have no zeal for Christ at all.
These professing Christians are those who Jesus describes in the Parable of the Great Banquet. They are those who desire the gains of following Him, which is eternal life, but also still desire to pursue earthly, temporal goods, unable to forsake such things:
When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”
(Mark 14:15-24)
Such people are hesitant to forsake all things for Christ and do not understand what it means to truly follow Christ. They are those who are invited to the Banquet spoken of in the parable but will not any of taste of it. Any zeal that they profess to have for Christ is false. Any love they profess for Christ is ordered toward their self-love. Their profession of their great love for Christ are nothing but vain, empty words, born out of a heart that only wants the benefit one can get from Christ, but are unwilling to forsake all for Him. Christ, however, makes clear what the cost of discipleship is:
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
(Luke 9:25-33)
What hinders most who are called, invited to partake in the grace of Salvation, from forsaking all for Christ is the great cost that it entails. Of the many who are called, ‘few are chosen’ (Matthew 22:14). Many who have been granted the grace of receiving the knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will not be willing to forsake all for Christ and are thus among those who are called but not chosen to enter the gates of Heaven.
It is one thing to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and profess His Name, and another to be saved until the end. Only few of those who profess Christ will be saved until the end. The greatest hindrance to one’s Salvation is attachment to the world, by which one is unwilling to detach from the world and the things of the world, whereby one succumbs to the allure that mammon promises, losing sight of the promises of God, being weighed down by one’s lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
The cost of following Christ is indeed great, but the cost of following the world is even greater. For those who forsake all for Christ will gain it all, but those who do not forsake all for Christ will lose it all when the time will come, when this earth will fade away, and the new earth and heavens will come (1 John 2:17).
Let us remember the words of Christ: For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
(Matthew 16:25)
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