DYING TO ONESELF

Posted on March 10, 2022 by franksantucci

Some religious congregations, during the time of Eugene, stressed religious commitment as “dying to oneself” by dramatically having a funeral pall for the candidates to lie on when they professed their vows. Eugene did not tolerate this spectacle, but referred to the necessity of its spirit.

Teach them well that by the religious profession one dies to the world. There is no need for us to lie under the funeral pall, as is done at Visitation and other places, to know and to practice that; we just have to remind those who may forget it.

I have not yet come to a definite solution regarding Brother N. I would have wished that this young religious show more detachment and had overcome nature. One is not good for very much when one cannot imitate the detachment recommended by Jesus Christ and practised by the saints. Oh! How lax we are! We arrive only by much reasoning, when we should fly as though by supernatural instinct!

Letter to Father Charles Bellon, 30 August 1844, EO X n 853

All discipleship means dying to ourselves so as to achieve the ideal preached by John the Baptist: “He must increase and I must decrease” (John 3:30)

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One Response to DYING TO ONESELF

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:
    March 10, 2022 at 12:18

    Dying to oneself, letting go of that which makes it more difficult to turn and give oneself to God is what I usually refer to it as “letting go.” Letting go of all that is extraneous to a life of discipleship, a life of service, a life of offering oneself as a gift to God, of living without great adornments to appear to self or others a certain amount of greatness.

    I am reminded of Fr. Albert Lacombe OMI who was being presented to the Emperor of Austria by a friend. He arrived dressed for the occasion in his cassock and wearing his large mission cross. His friend asked he would like to borrow some medals to wear but he replied he was fine – he needed only his cross. Any and all glory was to be to be accorded to God. And his cross was not something that he used to decorate himself with, but a sign of great humility.

    My own experience of letting go or seeing another who has lived a life of letting go of him or herself is that this dying to self may cause us to appear to be very alive, fully alive. Thomas Merton described this as he spoke of people that were all walking around shining like the sun. A certain detachment from the world for which no explanation or outward sign is necessary.

    It is in this way that we live out the words of John: “He must increase and I must decrease.”

    Reply

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