Quotes about Renunciation

Holiness, on the contrary, is the total denial of the separative self, in its creditable no less than its discreditable aspects, and the abandonment of the will to God.

Mortification has to be carried to the pitch of non-attachment or (in the phrase of St. Fran$ois de Sales) 'holy indifference'; otherwise it merely transfers self-will from one channel to another, not merely without decrease in the total volume of that self-will, but sometimes with an actual increase.

You must be ready to give up everything, not only material attachments but also human attachments - father, mother, wife, children - everything that you have. But the one thing which you have to abandon unconditionally is your self.

In the New Testament Christ calls the Apostles and the disciples witnesses, requires them to witness to Him. Let us see now what is to be understood by this. These are men who by the renunciation of all things, in poverty, in lowliness, and thus ready for every suffering, were to go out into the world which expresses mortal hostility to the Christian way of life. This is what Christ calls witnesses and witnessing.

The spiritual life is always about letting go. It is never about holding on.

The attitude of saints toward their possessions most assuredly signifies whether they continue to preserve their self life or whether they have consigned it to death.

If I bear the name of another, I have given up my own name and my own independent life.

It is only through death to the world that we can be freed from its spirit.

We want to wait on Him and put away our experiences, however blessed they have been; our concept of truth, however sound and scriptural we think it is; our plans, however needful and suitable they appear.

Isaac had to die. For Abraham, as well as for Isaac, only by death could freedom from the self-life be obtained. Abraham had to offer Isaac on the altar. That was not an arbitrary command of God. It was the revelation of a divine truth — it is only through death that a life truly consecrated to God is possible.

God instituted sacrifice not for His own sake but for our sake. The sacrificial law is a means to God's glorious end: it disciplines His people, focusing their attention on worship, gratitude, sorrow for sin, the need for purity, and the necessity of renouncing everything in order to cling to God.

Therefore by the example of Abram, entire self-renunciation is enjoined, that we may live and die to God alone.