From the Detailed Rules for Monks by Saint Basil the Great:
What words can adequately describe God's gifts? They are so numerous that they defy enumeration. They are so great that any one of them demands our total gratitude in response. Yet even though we cannot speak of it worthily, there is one gift which no thoughtful man can pass over in silence.
God fashioned man in his own image and likeness; he gave him knowledge of himself; he endowed him with the ability to think which raised him above all living creatures; he permitted him to delight in the unimaginable beauties of paradise, and gave him dominion over everything upon earth.
...How, then, shall we repay the Lord for all his goodness to us? He is so good that he asks no recompense except our love: that is the only payment he desires. To confess my personal feelings, when I reflect on all these blessings I am overcome by a kind of dread and numbness at the very possibility of ceasing to love God and of brining shame upon Christ because of my lack of recollection and my preoccupation with trivialities.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I find it difficult to delight in things that are unimaginable, but the fact that it is unimaginable is a delight.
Consider reading 'Heaven' by Randy Alcorn. I haven't found other books like it.
-Stefan
I think I heard Luke talking about that book...From what I have heard its a popular book meant to appropriate the work of scripture and theologians, not unlike Peter Kreeft's 'Every Thing You Ever Wanted to Know about Heaven but Never Dreamed of Asking'
Post a Comment