It’s always profitable to learn holiness, but spiritually dangerous to be immersed in external affairs
1 min • Digitized on October 14, 2023
From Imitation of Christ, in file "Imitation of Christ", page 251
By Thomas a Kempis
Chap. XLIV.—Of not drawing to ourselves exterior things.
1. Son, in many things it behoveth thee to be ignorant and to esteem thyself as one dead upon earth, and as one to whom the whole world is crucified.
Many things also must you pass by with a deaf ear, and think rather of those things that appertain to thy peace.
It is more profitable to turn away thy eyes from such things as displease thee, and to leave to every one his own way of thinking, than to give way to contentious discourses.
If thou standeth well with God, and lookest at his judgment, thou wilt more easily bear to see thyself overcome.
2. O Lord, to what are we come? Behold a temporal loss is greatly bewailed, for a small gain men labour and toil; but the loss of the soul is little thought on, and hardly ever returns to mind.
That which is of little or no profit takes up our thoughts; and that which is above all things necessary is negligently passed over: for the whole man sinks down into outward things; and unless he quickly recovers himself, he willingly continues immersed in them.