Mirror of Sinners on the Contempt of the World

...than to the following end. To them John Chrysostom speaks, saying: "Do not look at how hard the road is, but attend to where it leads; nor do you consider how narrow the road is, but where it ends." From this, one thing is elicited: that of the many who are now running in this age, few will be of the number of the saved. The Savior hints at this in the most grave statement He made in Matthew, chapter 20, saying: "Many are called, but few are chosen." This is well prefigured in the sons of Israel, who were in such a great multitude—six hundred thousand—that they were led out of Egypt through the Red Sea into the desert by Moses, to whom the promised land was promised, by which the kingdom of heaven is signified. By the Israelite people, the Christian people is designated, who now are truly the people of God. The history is clear through the discourse of the Book of Exodus. Behold, that whole multitude of the Israelite people, to whom, as mentioned, the promised land was promised, died in the desert due to their sins, except for two, namely Joshua and Caleb. Therefore, one must be very afraid that if the figure is thus, the reality is also thus. Between the good and the bad, this difference exists: the wicked want to make a feast before the vigil, wishing to rejoice in this age temporally, and therefore in the future age they will keep the vigil for the feast they enjoyed here, where they will wail eternally. The Blessed Gregory hints at this in his 11th homily on the passage in Matthew, chapter 13: "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Thus, after present rest follow perpetual laments. Therefore, brothers, flee vain joy here, lest you fear to weep and mourn there. No one can rejoice here with this age and reign there with God. Nor, as the Blessed Gregory says, are there some who would want to come from feast to feast—that is, from the joy of the present life to the joys of felicity. The Blessed Jerome speaks of this, saying: "It is very difficult, indeed impossible, that one should enjoy the present goods and eternal delights; that one should pass from delights to delights; that one should fill the belly here and the mind there; that one should be fat in both ages and appear glorious in both." Whence Saint Cecilia says: "It is impossible that those who have worldly glory and live in the delights and pleasures of the world should enjoy the heavenly." Therefore, the Savior threatens such people with eternal punishment in place of temporal consolation, saying in Luke, chapter 6: "Woe to you who have your consolation here." Hence the Blessed Bernard says: "The austerity of the conversation of Saint John the Baptist is a messenger of eternal death to delicious sinners." For why do we, such little and irrational beasts, creatures of the earth, play around? When He, than whom no one greater has risen among those born of women, afflicted his own most innocent body, and we hasten to be clothed in precious garments and to feast splendidly, luxuriously, and delicately? Not so with impunity; not so does one go to the stars. For Augustine says: "Christ despised earthly goods, that we might despise all earthly things."