Bishop Fenelon
"Do you think it is nothing to repress all the uneasy reflections of self-love, to press forward continually without knowing where we go, and do it without stopping? Further, to cease from self-satisfy thoughts of self – or at least, to think of ourselves as we would of another, and to fulfill the indications of Providence at the moment and no more?
"It is a sort of infidelity to simple faith when we desire to be continually assured that we are doing well. It is, in fact, [wrong] to desire to know how we are doing, which we will never know, and which it is the will of God that we be ignorant about. It is being frivolous along the way in order to reason about the way. The safest and shortest course is to renounce, forget, and abandon self, and through faithfulness to God think no more of it. This is the whole of Christianity – to get out of self and self-love in order to get into God."
Royal Way of the Cross
"This is the whole of Christianity ..." This man could bring complex subjects to their chemically pure essences as few others could. I believe he is right in this bold, sweeping statement. We are born in fear and the totality of our beings is about fear; then, if we are able, we move away from fear to the love that is God which awaits us. The self is a product of our fear and it has its place in life but the ultimate goal is love. It is to this end that Christianity guides us.
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