Loving the world sans worldliness

THE secret is to see to it that our mind and heart are

always with God. We should not allow ourselves to be fully taken by

the charms and deceiving allurements of the world. We have to be

completely detached from it, which does not mean that we should hate

it. On the contrary, we have to be immersed in it as much as possible

and yet love it but in the way God loves it.

  

            That is the challenge! So the question to ask is: How does

God love it so we can also love it the way he does? We just cannot

rely on our ideas and ways of loving the world, because without God

that loving would be suspicious at best.

             We can enumerate a few relevant points. First of all, God

loves the world because he created it and endowed it with all the

qualities, both actual and potential, in order to serve us. That is

the purpose of the world. We in our turn should use the world the way

God wants us to use it. And this ultimately is to give glory to God.

  

            Let’s remember that as Creator, God has given everything

in the world its proper nature and laws whose purpose is nothing other

than to give glory to himself. We on our part can only use and develop

the world properly when we respect the nature and laws of everything

that is in it. More than that, we should try to discern how each thing

in the world becomes a living part of the abiding providence of God

over all of us.

  

            Let’s remember that God commanded us, first through our

first parents, that we should “subdue the earth,” which means we

develop it as much as we can. God does not want us to flee from the

world, or to consider it as essentially bad.

  

            In fact, we are asked to be always fruitful and productive

while using and developing the things of this world. This is how we,

as the masterpiece of God’s creation, can prove that we are giving

glory to God, or are truly loving him, repaying his love with love,

which in the end is the ultimate purpose of why are placed in this

world.

  

            This does not mean that there are no dangers in the world.

Precisely because of the sins of men and the wiles of the devil, there

are certain things in the world that can be extremely dangerous to us.

  

            St. John in his first letter went to the extent of saying

that “everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the

eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the

world.” (2,16)

  

            We cannot underestimate these powerful dangers. That’s why

we should do all to struggle against these elements in the world.

Doing battle against these things in the world is one clear way of

loving it, because we would then be purifying it of the effects of our

sins.

  

            Everyday we have to make a plan and strategy of how to

effectively handle this abiding predicament of ours. We should give

our all in developing the potentials of the world in all its aspects,

and at the same time purifying the world continually of the effects of

our sins.

  

            This is how we can love the world without being worldly!