A Test Of Love

St. Augustine once preached a sermon in which he proposed a kind of self-test to see if we truly loved God:

Suppose God proposed to you a deal and said "I will give you anything you want. You can posses the whole world. Nothing will be impossible for you . . . . Nothing will be a sin, nothing forbidden. You will never die, never have pain, never have anything you do not want and always have anything you do not want -except for just one thing: you will never see my face."

Augustine closed with a question:

Did a chill rise in your hearts, when you heard the words, "you will never see my face"? That chill is the most precious thing in you; that is the pure love of God.

What is good for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?
Mark 8:36

-Weaver, Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World, 172