QUOTATION: The Collapse of Christianity

When Christianity collapses into purely this-worldly preoccupations—as it has, sadly, in much of Europe—it rapidly dries up.

--Robert Barron, Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism

QUOTATION: The Ambitious Man

The ambitious man is always fearful, always under tension lest he say or do anything which might make him displeasing in the eyes of men. He pretends humility, feigns honesty, displays affability, shows off his kindness, is accommodating, is compliant, honors everyone and bows to everybody, frequents courts, visits important people, rises and embraces, claps his hands and fawns. A famous quotation describes him well: “If there’s no dust he’ll still brush it off.” He is prompt and eager where he knows he will please, hesitant and lukewarm where he thinks he will not. He condemns evil and detests iniquity, but what he praises and blames varies with the person, so long as he will be thought competent and be deemed welcome by one and all. But see how he must keep up a grave battle in himself, and a very hard conflict it is, with Iniquity hammering at his soul and Ambition leading him by the hand; for what the one suggests he do, the other will not permit. And yet Iniquity and Ambition, mother and daughter, plot for one another: the mother lives in the open and the daughter, kept in hiding, never resists—one claims a public and the other a secret domain.

--Pope Innocent III, The Misery of the Human Condition

QUOTATION: Worldliness is Incompatible with Holiness

As it is an impossibility, to have our eyes raised towards Heaven and fixed on the earth at -the same time, so is it impossible that a person who is attached to the things of earth should love those of Heaven.

--St. John Climacus

QUOTATION: When You Decide to Become a Serious Christian...

As soon as the children of this world perceive that you desire to follow a devout life they will shoot at you a thousand arrows of mockery and detraction. The most malicious will calumniate your change as being hypocrisy, bigotry, and artifice. They will say that the world has frowned on you and that being rejected by it you turned to God. Your friends will make a world of objections which they imagine to be very wise and charitable. They will tell you that you will fall into a melancholy state of mind; that you will lose credit in the world; that will you will make yourself insupportable; that you will grow old before your time; that your domestic affairs will suffer; that you must live in the world like one in the world; that salvation may be had without so many mysteries; and a thousand similar trivialities. 

My Philothea, all this is nothing but foolish and empty babbling. These people are not interested in your health or in your welfare. “If you had been of the world,” says the Savior, “the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” We have seen gentlemen and ladies pass the whole night, even many nights, together at chess or cards. Is there any concentration more absurd, stupid, or gloomy, than that of gamesters? Yet worldly people do not say a word, nor do their friends ever trouble themselves about them. Should we spend an hour in meditation, or rise in the morning a little earlier than usual in order to prepare ourselves for Communion, every one runs for a physician to cure us of our hypochondria and jaundice. Such persons can pass thirty nights in dancing without experiencing any inconvenience; but if they watch a single Christmas night, every one of them coughs and complains that he is sick the next morning. Who does not see that the world is an unjust judge, gracious and favorable to its own children, but harsh and rigorous toward the children of God?

--St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life.

QUOTATION: Worldliness

Do not have Jesus Christ on your lips, and the world in your hearts.

--St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Romans, 7

QUOTATION: The Wisdom of the World

The wisdom of the world is that of which it is said, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise (1 Cor. 1:19; cf. Is. 29:14), i.e. those whom the world calls wise." "The wisdom of the flesh is an enemy of God" (Rom. 8:7), and does not come from above. It is earthly, devilish and carnal (Jas. 3:15). This worldly wisdom consists in an exact conformity to the maxims and fashions of the world; a continual inclination towards greatness and esteem; and a subtle and endless pursuit of pleasure and self-interest, not in an uncouth and blatant way by scandalous sin, but in an astute, discreet, and deceitful way. Otherwise the world would no longer label it wisdom but pure licentiousness.

--St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom

QUOTATION: The Worldly Man

The worldly man bases his conduct on personal honour, on "What will people say?", on convention, on high living, on self-interest, on ceremonious manners, and on witty conversation. These seven principles are the irreproachable supports on which, he believes, he can safely depend to enjoy a peaceful life. The world will canonise him for such virtues as courage, finesse, tactfulness, shrewdness, gallantry, politeness and good humour. It stigmatises as serious offences, insensitiveness, stupidity, poverty, boorishness and bigotry. He obeys as faithfully as he can the commandments which the world gives him:

You shall be well acquainted with the world. You shall be respectable. You shall be successful in business. You shall hold on to whatever is yours. You shall rise above your background. You shall make friends for yourself. You shall frequent fashionable society. You shall seek the good life. You shall not be a kill-joy. You shall not be singular, uncouth or over-pious.

--St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom

QUOTATION: The Worldly Do Not Understand the Cross

Wise and honest people living in this world, you do not understand the mysterious language of the Cross. You are too fond of sensual pleasures and you seek your comforts too much. You have too much regard for the things of this world and you are too afraid to be held up to scorn or looked down upon. In short, you are too opposed to the Cross of Jesus. True, you speak well of the Cross in general, but not of the one that comes your way. You shun this as much as you can or else you drag it along reluctantly, grumbling, impatient and protesting. I seem to see in you the oxen that drew the Ark of the Covenant against their will, bellowing as they went, unaware that what they were drawing contained the most precious treasure upon earth.

--St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom

QUOTATION: Worldliness

At issue here is the question: "To whom do I belong? God or to the world?" Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.

--Henri Nouwen

QUOTATION: The World's Love

As long as I keep running about asking: "Do you love me? Do you really love me?" I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with "ifs." The world says: "Yes, I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and buy much." There are endless "ifs" hidden in the world's love. These "ifs" enslave me, since it is impossible to respond adequately to all of them. The world's love is and always will be conditional. As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain "hooked" to the world-trying, failing,and trying again. It is a world that fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart.

-- Henri Nouwen

QUOTATION: Serving God

No one can serve God perfectly who does not try energetically to break the bonds of the world and rise above all earthly cares.

--St. Bonaventure

QUOTATION: Expect Mockery

The more divine a religion is, the more the world will ridicule you, for the spirit of the world is the enemy of Christ.

--Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

QUOTATION: Worldliness

The world hates Christians, so why give your love to it instead of following Christ, who loves you and has redeemed you?

-- St. Cyprian of Carthage

QUOTATION: Spiritual Worldliness

Spiritual worldliness is nothing other than a radically anthropocentric attitude. This attitude would be irremediable in the case-- supposing it were possible-- of a man endowed with all spiritual perfections who did not refer them to God.

--Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (Pope Francis), "Corruption and  Sin",  The Way of Humility, 2005

QUOTATION: Dying to the World

Withdraw your heart from the world before God takes your body from it.

-- St. John of Avila

QUOTATION: Sin

Sin enters our life when the waves of the world enter through the cracks of our weakness.

--St. Augustine

QUOTATION: Bad Clergy is God's Punishment

The most evident mark of God's anger, and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world, is manifest when He permits His people to fall into the hands of a clergy who are more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds. They abandon the things of God to devote themselves to the things of the world, and in their saintly calling of holiness, they spend their time in profane and worldly pursuits. When God permits such things, it is a very positive proof that He is thoroughly angry with His people and is visiting His most dreadful wrath upon them.

--St. John Eudes

QUOTATION: Worldliness

We know what befalls a man whose sense of taste suffers in an illness, how he ceases to have a true judgment of flavours and begins to loathe pleasantly-tasting things and to crave for what is loathsome. So it is with the man whose inclinations are corrupted from his conforming himself to the things of this world. He has no longer a true judgment where what is good for him is concerned. It is only the man whose inclinations are healthy and well directed, whose mind is made new again by grace, who can truly judge what is good and what is not.

--St. Thomas Aquinas, Meditations for Lent

QUOTATION: Followers of Jesus vs. The Worldly

My dear brothers and sisters, there are two companies that appear before you each day: the followers of Christ and the followers of the world. Our dear Saviour's company is on the right, climbing up a narrow road, made all the narrower by the world's immorality. Our Master leads the way, barefooted, crowned with thorns, covered with blood, and laden with a heavy cross. Those who follow him, though most valiant, are only a handful, either because his quiet voice is not heard amid the tumult of the world, or because people lack the courage to follow him in his poverty, sufferings, humiliations and other crosses which his servants must carry all the days of their life.

On the left hand is the company of the world or of the devil. This is far more numerous, more imposing and more illustrious, at least in appearance. Most of the fashionable people run to join it, all crowded together, although the road is wide and is continually being made wider than ever by the crowds that pour along it like a torrent. It is strewn with flowers, bordered with all kinds of amusements and attractions, and paved with gold and silver.

On the right, the little groups which follow Jesus speak about sorrow and penance, prayer and indifference to worldly things. They continually encourage one another saying, "Now is the time to suffer and to mourn, to pray and do penance, to live in retirement and poverty, to humble and mortify ourselves; for those who do not possess the spirit of Christ, which is the spirit of the cross, do not belong to him. Those who belong to Christ have crucified all self-indulgent passions and desires. We must be true images of Christ or be eternally lost."

"Have confidence," they say to each other. If God is on our side, within us and before us, who can be against us? He who is within us is stronger than the one who is in the world. The servant is not greater than his master. This slight and temporary distress we suffer will bring us a tremendous and everlasting glory. The number of those who will be saved is not as great as some people imagine. It is only the brave and the daring who take heaven by storm, where only those are crowned who strive to live according to the law of the Gospel and not according to the maxims of the world. Let us fight with all our strength, let us run with all speed, that we may attain our goal and win the crown.

Such are some of the heavenly counsels with which the Friends of the Cross inspire each other.

Those who follow the world, on the contrary, urge each other to continue in their evil ways without scruple, calling to one another day after day, "Let us eat and drink, sing and dance, and enjoy ourselves. God is good; he has not made us to damn us. He does not forbid us to amuse ourselves. We shall not be damned for so little. We are not to be scrupulous. 'No, you will not die'."

--St. Louis de Montfort, Letter to the Friends of the Cross

QUOTATION: Worldliness

As long as we love the things of the world we lose the fruits of divine love. We cannot serve two masters.

--St Clare of Assisi