Happiness and Self-Denial

Last Christmas I found an awesome book, Advent and Christmas with Fulton J. Sheen This book has an eloquence and depth that has helped myself and my family focus more on Jesus during the holiday season.

The following in an excerpt from this book:

Happiness does not come to those who want to know all, or to posses all, or to enjoy all; rather it comes to those who set limitations upon the satisfaction of self. A man, for example, cannot get the whole world into his hands, but he can wash himself of the world. Our powers of dispossession are greater than our powers of possession; there is a limit to what we can gain, but there is not limit to what we can renounce. In the end, the man who wants nothing is the man who has everything, for there is nothing that he desires…

To deny self is to refuse indulgence to lower desires, to put a restraint upon ourselves, to act differently from the way the sensual in our nature would lead us. Self-denial is the test of love, whether it be human or divine….There may be pain in self-denial for a moment, but pain in the pursuit of the highest is certainly more joyful than ease in the neglect of duty. The agony is self-denial is momentary, but the joy that flows from it is lasting.

“Blessed Lord, give me the spirit of nonpossession and self-denial. Make the doing of your Word paramount over the pursuit of ease. Keep me from throwing myself at every fancy paraded before me, and help me to forego the desire to taste and touch the wonders of this world”

Excerpt from Advent and Christmas with Fulton J. Sheen compiled by Judy Bauer