The Divine Lamp

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1. Earthly goods, such as riches, honor, pleasure, cannot by themselves make us happy, for they cannot satisfy our soul, they often only make life better, and invariably forsake us in death.

Earthly goods deceive us; they are like soap-bubbles, which reflect all the colors of the rainbow but are really only drops of water. Earthly joys are like artificial fruit, beautiful to behold, but disappointing to the taste. Earthly pleasures are like water: they do not quench the fire of the passions, but only make it burn more fiercely. Man can no more be happy without God than a fish can live without water. Hence St Augustine says: “Restless is the heart of man, until it rests in God.” No sensible or material goods will nourish or satisfy the soul. Hence our Lord says to the Samaritan woman: “He who drinks of this water will thirst again.” Riches will no more staisfy the soul than salt water will quench thirst, In the days of the early empire of Rome, when riches and sensual pleasures abounded, suicide was most widely prevalent. Earthly possessions are a continual source of anxiety; he who rests in them is tormented by them, like a manwho reposes on thorns. As the fresh waters of the river are changed into the salt waters of the sea, so all earthly pleasures sooner or later turn into bitterness. Forbidden pleasures soon bring misery after them, like the forbidden fruit. Tjhey are like bait that has a hook concealed in it. Earthly goods all forsake us when we die: We brought nothing into this world, and certainly we can take nothing out of it.” When the Pope is crowned a handful of tow is kindled , and when it blazes up the choir sings: “Thus passes the glory of the world.” As a spider spins a web out of its own bowels and in a moment a broom sweeps it away, so amn labors long years to obrain some honor, or possessionj, or office. Some obstacle comes in the way, death or sickness visit him, and all his labor is gone for nothing. As the glow-worm shines in the night, but in the light of day is an ugly insect, so the deilights of earth are brilliant during the night of life on earth, but under the light of the day of judgment will show themselves to be vain and worthless.

Earthly goods are given to us only that through them we may attain eternal happiness.

Every earthly creature is intended as a step to bring us nearer to God. As in the workshop pf the painter, brushes, colors, oils, are all destined to serve to the completion of the picture, so all things in the world are intended to contribute to our eternal happiness in heave, Not to use earthly things for this end is to lose the hope of eternal happiness; but to make them our end and to be dependent upon them no less deprives us of the end for which they were created. Earthly goods are like the surgeons instruments; if the are ill-employed, they kill instead of cure. We must therefore use them only in so far as they help us towards the attainment of our last end. When they hinder us we must cut ourselves free from them. We must not serve them, they must serve us.

2. Only the Gospel of Christ is capable of giving us partial happiness on earth, for he who follows the teaching of Christ is certain to have peace of soul.

This is why Christ sayus to the Samaritan woman: “He that shall drink of the water that I’ll shall give him, shall not thirst forever.” And again: “He that comes to me shall never hunger.” The teaching of Christ can alone satisfy a man. The reason for this is, that earthly sufferings do not render unhappy the man who follows Christ.

3. He who follows Christ will have to endure persecution; but those persecutions can do him no harm.

St Paul tells us that “All who live godly lives in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”

The whole life of the Christian is a carrying of the cross and a suffering of persecution. Christ Himself says: “The servant is not above the master.” That is, the servant of Christ has no claim to a better lot than his master Christ. We must expect the men of the world (that is, those who seek happiness in this life) to regard us as erratic people and as fools, to condemn us and to hate us. To be loved and praised by the world is to be the enemy of Christ. The principles of this world are in contradiction to those of Christ, and the world regards as a fool him whom Christ calls blessed.

Yet Christ tells us: “Everyone that hears my words and does them, shall be like a wise man who built his house upon rock.”

He who trusts in God builds on solid ground. The patriarch Joseph derived advantage, not from harm from persecution; the pious David was persecuted, first by Saul, and then by his own son Absalom. From his own experience he was able to say: “Many are the afflictions of the just, but out of them all the Lord will deliver them.” All the saints of Christ have been persecuted, but God has brought to good the evil their enemies thought to do to them. “If God is with us, who can be against us?”

4. Perfect happiness is impossible on earth; for no man can entirely avoid suffering.

The end of the worldly is misery, as we have seen, and the just man is persecuted. No one can escapes sickness, suffering, death. The world is a valley full of tears; it is a big hospital, containing as man sick men as their are human beings. The world is a place of banishment, where we are far from our true country. In the world good and ill succeed one another like sun and storm. Prosperity is the sure forerunner of adversity. In life we are on a sea, now lifted up to heaven, now cast down to hell. Society is always sure to full of all kinds of miseries, whatever efforts may be made to improve the conditions of mankind. Vain indeed are the hopes of the modern school of social democrats who dream of gradually abolishing all evil and misery in the world. (From THE CATECHISM EXPLAINED by Bishop Spirago