Three for Tween Week

Last updated on: December 28, 2007 at 7:40 am by Fr. Joseph Huneycutt

Three for Tween Week 2007-12-28T07:40:00-06:00 Fr. Joseph Huneycutt

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Just back from North Carolina, just before heading HERE … regular updates, God willing, in the new year.

1) A Complaint Against the World …

No advantages do you offer those who love you, O world, you dwelling-place of sorrows. All who draw near to you do you seduce with your treasures and with all your delights, but in the day of death both the fair countenance of the beautiful and the might of the strong will be cast down into the grave. Woe to him who loves you and is loved by you, for his joy will be transformed into cries.

In the world — the sea of sin — all my days have passed in vain. My life has gone by without bringing me any profit. I have even forgotten about the day of death. I have whirled about and gathered a burden of sins, whole sheaves of tares destined to be consumed by fire. And behold — lamentation and sighs await me in that land full of horrors.

Because I have loved you, O cunning world, from youth through old age, the time of my life has passed without my notice; and lo, in sin will death steal me away. O, if only I had never set foot in you, O world that deceives all who enter! Those who love you enjoy no pleasures, and those who hate you weep not. Blessed is he who has torn your snares asunder — he shall inherit the habitation of joy.

This world deceives even the wise with its appearance, for at times it appears desirable. It even offers benefits and treasures for loan, but in the day of death it will take them back and give in return torment incomparably greater than our sins. For a short while will it let us sin, but as a reward it will give us eternal darkness.

Righteous art Thou, O Lord, and righteous is Thy judgment that condemns the world and those who love it! Therefore do I pray Thee that Thy right hand which pulled Simon out of the sea might also pull me out of the waves and the tumult of this world that rise up against me. I have become mired in filth; the waters of the world are drowning me, they do not let me break loose to catch my breath. May Thy Cross, O Lord, be my staff and my support on the path along which I walk.

— St Ephraim the Syrian

2) A guy joins a monastery and takes a vow of silence. He’s allowed to say two words every seven years. After the first seven years, the elders bring him in and ask for his two words. “Cold floors,” he says. Seven more years pass. They bring him back in and ask for his two words. “Bad food,” he says. Seven more years pass. They bring him in for his two words. “I quit,” he says. “That’s fine,” the elders say. “You have done nothing but complain since you got here.”

Thanks to FWD from Ron Ford.

3) You, too, come to Christ … Don’t think of the long journeys … One reaches him, the omnipresent one, through love, not by seafaring. Yet, since the floods and storms of manifold temptations are common enough on this voyage, too, believe in the crucified one so that your faith is capable of climbing onto the wood. Then you will not sink …

— St Augustine

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