When Saint Anthony the hermit saw how many snares there are in the world, he called out, “Who can ever escape so many dangers?” and heard a Voice say, “Anthony, humility alone walks securely; he who goes with head bowed down need not fear to fall into these snares.”
Wrote Saint Alphonsus: “Indeed, the devil is working in the interest of hell when he inspires a soul with a desire for the esteem of the world. For when a soul loses humility, it runs the risk of being hurled into the abyss.”
“The less we have here,” added Saint Teresa of Avila, “the greater will be our joy in Heaven, where our dwelling shall correspond to the love with which we imitated the life of our Divine Master here on earth.”
It is through discipline that we control wrong thoughts, replacing them swiftly with right ones, and it is through the same discipline that anything can be removed that might darken us, that might hold us back.
Discipline prepares us for eternity.
Heaven is discipline combined with freedom because true discipline frees you.
Joy, even in adversity.
When we’re disciplined in one thing, we grow disciplined in others.
Start with whatever you can. Just persist. God doesn’t expect you to be perfect, in case this place called earth seems impossible! He wants effort.
Persist and the bad habits, the darkness, will flee from you. Knowledge will come. You will better love.
Simply hold a light in the murkiness. (This is the key: just hold up the lamp of love.)
“All of the people who go through this come away believing that the most important thing in their life is love,” said a very prominent researcher of death experiences. “For most of them, the second most important thing in life is knowledge. As they see life scenes in which they are learning things, the Being points out that one of the things they can take with them at death is knowledge.”
And the greatest thing we bring: love.
[resources: What You Take To Heaven]