“… The true disaster is to offend God, to do anything that displeases Him.” (Saint John Chrysostom).
In the book, “A Year with the Church Fathers” at page 334, Saint John Chrysostom is quoted as saying…
“There is nothing to be dreaded in human ills except sin – not poverty, or disease, or insult, or ill treatment, or dishonour, or death, which people call the worst of evils. To those who love spiritual wisdom, these things are only the names of disasters, names that have no substance. No, the true disaster is to offend God, to do anything that displeases Him.”
And I have been reflecting on those rather powerful words today.
You see, it is easy enough for those of us who have been given the gift of faith to say that we wish to please God, but quite another thing to actually make that the entire focus of our lives. I take myself as an example. In the morning I decide that I shall love God with a love that nobody ever loved Him before, and within the next five or ten minutes I have literally done at least three things that have offended Him. That is how weak my own discipline and faith is.
And yet, I come back to those words of that Saint, “…the true disaster is to offend God, to do anything that displeases Him.”
And that is really what my life focus should be on.
Here I am, praying for the aversion of all these other different disasters. I pray for health, wealth and happiness for myself and for those I love (and for those who I know only as one soul among many in the Spiritual Communion of Saint of the Church). And yet, even despite all of this, I so often forget to pray for what is most important of all – the GRACE to be able to live a life and act in a way that will no offend my Beloved.
And I have been reflecting on that today. You see, health, wealth and happiness are all fleeting. It does not really matter if the sick are healed or if they die. It does not really matter if I have enough money to be able to live a comfortable life or if I am homeless and destitute on the street. And it does not really matter if I am happy in my life or not.
You see – eventually – all of us will be sick unto death. Eventually, all of us will die and in our physical death not one single thing piece of wealth that we have earned or received will come with us or be of use to us. Eventually, all of us will die and in our death we shall all breathe our last breath with great sadness to be leaving behind the only life that we have every really known.
And when I think of it like that, I realise, that though I shall continue to pray for the health wealth and happiness of myself and my loved ones (and for you too), I shall FIRST pray for the GRACE to please my Beloved in all things.
Because in the moment of my death – THAT is the only thing that shall count…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.