I am to be dead
The anthem that the choir sang on Sunday was so meaningful. I cannot forget the second stansa of the anthem. The words went something like this I may not be quoting it verbatim
Grow not in affections for the things of the world...
For you are already dead... and it is Christ living in you.
It was a blessed word at the right time. It was exactly what I was looking for to reslove a highly existential confusion I was going through. We all need is to die, for without death there can be no true love for God or man. It is simply not possible. But this unforunately runs contrary to our basic instinct which is self preservation and not self denial.
We can never be true Christians unless we are truly dead. In the movie 'Gladiator' Maximus Desmus Meridius (Russell Crowe) motivates his warriors just before battle 'Remember, what you are about to do will echo in eternity... fear not for you are an Almesian and you are already dead'. He wants his warriors to die an imaginary death so that they could be brave enough and allow the warm wet blood red metal of a soward to be thrust into their breast for the love of their country and fellow man.
Our Lord too talks of dieing but not this kind of physical death but the real metaphysical death of the true metaphysical self, the ego. Without the metaphysical death there can be no metaphysical rebirth, there can be no salvation. The kind of death that Christ talks of is harder than the kind of death the Maximus talks of, but that is the price for fllowing God and what we do will truly echo in eternity.
When our lives is so full of dreams, fury and passions, it is so difficult to imagine a death of self. But that is what Christ wants from us death to our selves, death to our dreams and our passions of life. After this death or this abandoment of our dreams and passions, there is a new creation a renewed self that isn't devoid of dreams and passion but has its dreams and passions renewed in Him who hung of the Cross to help find our renewed selves easily. So that we would live our lives to all its fullness by first dieing to self. He who looses his life shall gain it is the Truth of life.
Grow not in affections for the things of the world...
For you are already dead... and it is Christ living in you.
It was a blessed word at the right time. It was exactly what I was looking for to reslove a highly existential confusion I was going through. We all need is to die, for without death there can be no true love for God or man. It is simply not possible. But this unforunately runs contrary to our basic instinct which is self preservation and not self denial.
We can never be true Christians unless we are truly dead. In the movie 'Gladiator' Maximus Desmus Meridius (Russell Crowe) motivates his warriors just before battle 'Remember, what you are about to do will echo in eternity... fear not for you are an Almesian and you are already dead'. He wants his warriors to die an imaginary death so that they could be brave enough and allow the warm wet blood red metal of a soward to be thrust into their breast for the love of their country and fellow man.
Our Lord too talks of dieing but not this kind of physical death but the real metaphysical death of the true metaphysical self, the ego. Without the metaphysical death there can be no metaphysical rebirth, there can be no salvation. The kind of death that Christ talks of is harder than the kind of death the Maximus talks of, but that is the price for fllowing God and what we do will truly echo in eternity.
When our lives is so full of dreams, fury and passions, it is so difficult to imagine a death of self. But that is what Christ wants from us death to our selves, death to our dreams and our passions of life. After this death or this abandoment of our dreams and passions, there is a new creation a renewed self that isn't devoid of dreams and passion but has its dreams and passions renewed in Him who hung of the Cross to help find our renewed selves easily. So that we would live our lives to all its fullness by first dieing to self. He who looses his life shall gain it is the Truth of life.