Fast or Feast

I was listening to a replay of Archbishop Fulton Sheen today on Relevant Radio. Are any of you old enough to remember watching him in black and white on television? I'm not....but I heard it was so! It's amazing how pertinent his talks are even today, some 40-50 years later.....even the talks about communism. Anyway.......

He uses a lot of analogies. I know I've said this before, but I love analogies. Today he was saying that there are two philosophies by which people live their lives.

One philosophy is to fast first and feast later.

The other philosophy is to feast first, and then a hangover.

I thought about these two philosophies throughout the day. It (hopefully) is obvious that the first philosophy is the call of the christian lifestyle. We (ideally) deny self, deny feeding and filling ourself, with the hope of the banquet in heaven on which we fix our eyes.

The other philosophy has a much more immediate satisfaction, but it is deceiving and temporary in its pleasure, and has painful consequences.

How do we instill the desire for the first philosophy into our children? How does the call to a life of delayed fulfillment compete with the glitz and glam of what the world has to offer? How do we teach them that the reward in heaven which they cannot see or touch is worth so much more than the instant pleasures in this life? How do they learn the value of suffering?

Lord, do not cease to pursue the hearts of my children.