Mirror of Sinners on the Contempt of the World

Let us be devoutly attentive, cautious, and wise, steadying our steps in this valley of tears. With the eyes of the interior man at least, let us return to the royal road that leads to the heavenly fatherland, from which we are exiled as pilgrims, and let us walk steadily, not looking back nor straying from it, lest we fall into the depths of eternal damnation. The Lord exhorts us to this through the prophet Isaiah, saying: "This is the way, walk in it, and do not turn aside to the right or to the left" Isaiah 30:21.. Therefore, some directive for this true way must be carefully and devoutly attended to in what follows, so that Christ's faithful may be directed, all deceit excluded, along the royal road that leads to the heavenly fatherland. This road is narrow and tight; few find it, and alas, fewer still pass through or enter it. Our Savior hints at this, saying in Matthew, chapter 7: "Enter through the narrow gate, for the road that leads to heaven is tight, and few pass through it; but the gate is wide and the road is spacious that leads to the perdition of hell." There, perdition denotes grace and glory, and alas, many enter through it. Regarding this, the interlinear gloss says: "Although charity is broad, it leads man away from the earth through the narrow and arduous path." Augustine says there that it is sought by many, but not found by all. Nor do all who find it enter through it, because they are held captive by the world and turn back. Even fewer find it, and alas, fewer still contend to enter it; for no one enters without labor and without purity of soul. For it seems very narrow and difficult to pass over all worldly things, to love only one, to seek only one, and to knock daily at the door of one; not to follow the prosperity of the world, not to fear its adversities, and so on; and all this is from the gloss mentioned above. O, alas, lovers of the things of this world do not heed this, but, glued to the age and unable to recede from it, they wander as if insane. The Blessed Jerome declares this well, saying: "To laugh and rejoice with this world is not the action of a sensible man, but of a madman, for the heart of the good man is not joyful and happy with this age, but with God, since human joy is brief, fragile, and fleeting." Likewise, Bernard: "There is no truer madness than the joy of the age." Likewise, Augustine: "The joy of worldlings is the joy of madmen." Likewise, the same: "The joy of the age is unpunished iniquity—namely, to luxuriate, to wander in spectacles, to be gorged with drunkenness, to stink of filth, and to suffer no evil except the loss of God." But he who loves God flees all these things. The reason why many enter the perdition of eternal damnation through the wide gate and spacious road is, as is written in Ecclesiastes, chapter 1: "Children are difficult to correct, and the number of fools is infinite," who, alas, look more to the present life.