It's Cold Outside: How Do I Get Warm? With Jesus' Fiery Love



Thomas concludes Chapter 1 of Book two with a challenge:  Can we at least once try to enter into the Fiery love which Christ offers us?  Because if we go there, we will quickly find our pettiness so distasteful that we will as quickly drop our inordinate affections that we tether so closely to our daily lives of comfort.  This makes me think of Scrooge, in "A Christmas Carol", where, in Stave 1, Marley's ghost talks about the chains that he wears.  Then Scrooge looks down at his own feet, imagining what his own chains must look like.  Scrooge knows the righteousness of which Marley speaks.  And so do we know, of those "favorite sins" we love to hold onto.

Thomas then moves, logically and thoughtfully, to advise us what the world will tell us, and how we must weigh it against God's wisdom.  He concludes that it is our unnatural attachments and corrupted affections that keep us from the Joy of living in the Spirit. 

This is not to say that Thomas condones a puritanical view of material goods.  Not at all.  Rather, he's telling us not to hold too tight to any "created thing" such that it interferes with our relationship with Jesus.  He wants us close enough that we feel the flames of Christ's love for us.

Sacred Heart Of Jesus,
Have Mercy on Me



6. If you had only once entered into the mind and heart of Jesus, and had tasted even a little of His fiery love, then you would care nothing for your own comfort, but would rather rejoice at those troubles brought upon you, because the love of Jesus makes you review your own life and easily see its defects.

      A lover of Jesus and of truth and a true internally focused disciple, that is free from inordinate affections, can freely turn to God and in spirit be elevated above the self and rest in fruitful peace and enjoyment.

7. Those who know things as they really are and not as they are stated to be or seem to be, are truly wise. They are taught of God more than of men. Those who know how to walk interiorly, and to set little value upon outward things, do not require places nor must they wait for seasons, but rather wait – anticipating communion with God.

The inwardly reflected disciple quickly recollects, because that disciple is never entirely given up to outward things. No outward labor and no necessary occupations stand in their way, but as events fall out, so do they fit to the event. Those who are rightly disposed and ordered within - they care nothing for the strange and perverse conduct of others. They are hindered and distracted in so far as they are moved by outward things.

8. If you had a right spirit within you, and you were purified from evil, all things would work together for your good and profit (Rm 8:28).

For this cause do many things displease you and often trouble you; that you are not yet perfectly dead to yourself nor separated from all earthly things. Nothing so defiles and entangles your heart as impure love towards created things. If you reject outward comfort you will be able to contemplate heavenly things and frequently to be inwardly joyful (Jas 1:2).

Until next time,
thanks for reading and praying along with me.
Be Imitators of Christ!