Is it worth so much suffering in this life? If it is not for the love of eternal life, what is so much effort, fame, money, toil and labour worth? To lighten the burden of earthly life, God gave the Commandments. With them, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light”.
Newsroom (August 27, 2021 12:40 PM, Gaudium Press) “The Lord said to a certain young man, ‘If you want to reach life, keep the commandments.’ He did not say, ‘If you want to arrive at eternal life,’ but: if you want to arrive at life, simply calling life eternal life.
Let us look above all at the love for this life. In fact, this life is the object of love, whatever it may be, even if it is full of tribulations and miseries, men are afraid that it will end, and so they are filled with dread.
From here one can see and consider how much one must love eternal life, because of the great love one has for this miserable life that will end someday.
Consider, brothers, how much you must love the life that never ends. You love this life in which you fatigue, run, worry, and yearn so much; you can only count the necessary things in this miserable life: sowing, plowing, replanting, sailing, grinding, cooking, weaving; and after all that, you find yourself with a life that ends. See how much you have to suffer in this miserable life that you love so much.
By Cicero Leite
From “Sermon 84”, by Saint Augustine.
Compiled by Zephania Gangl
