'Dying To Self:' What's it really mean?

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Does it mean I can’t has cheezburger? 😛

Seriously, I hear it over and over again. If we have to die to the self, then why were we born with selves to die to in the first place?

We’re born with the drive to be fruitful and multiply, all well and good within the bounds of the sacraments, etc.

But ‘dying to self’ is just one of those many puzzlements my RCIA class never addressed.
 
Sailor_Kenshin said:
Does it mean I can’t has cheezburger? 😛

Seriously, I hear it over and over again. If we have to die to the self, then why were we born with selves to die to in the first place?

We’re born with the drive to be fruitful and multiply, all well and good within the bounds of the sacraments, etc.

But ‘dying to self’ is just one of those many puzzlements my RCIA class never addressed.
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In short, we tend to protect our own ego’s with the emotional programs we’ve developed over our years, which prevent us from loving, as Christ loves.

It is dying to the self-centered ego, and inordinate desires that are not part of Christ commandment to love our neighbors as He has love us.

It is also, laying down your life to follow the will of God, in all things.

Jim
 
A self is useful in becoming an individual.

But becoming an individual is not the purpose of life.

The purpose of life is surrendering the self to God, or ‘dying to self’.

Dying to self is not an “all-or-nothing” thing. As a first step, you can eat a cheeseburger, but eat only half of the fries and give the rest to charity.😃
 
How do you give half the fries to charity? :eek:

Uhh… yeah… thanks for the slimy old fries…
 
What is dying to self?
The best answer I can come up with is “working toward holiness”.
Because of our fallen nature, to become holy, to imitate Christ, is not an easy thing.
In order to reach holiness, to be Christ like, we need to die to our fallen nature, the self.
It is a life time process that includes from humility, obedience, detachment, forgiveness,
to kindness, goodness, compassion, sacrifice, and unconditional love.

Our life is a journey. Our destination is to be in heaven and having union with God. In order to reach our final goal, we are here to learn, to discipline ourselves, to take off the fallen nature and become Christ like.

The true “dying to self” leads to “living in Christ”.
 
St. Paul wrote, “I am crucified with Christ” and “I present my body a living and holy sacrifice.” I believe dying to “self” means a cutting away of all that is not Christlike, so that Christ may live in us. Self denial and mortification play an important role in this, as do works of mercy.

I don’t believe dying to self involves scrubbing out one’s identity; in fact, just the opposite seems to be true. Look at the lives of the great saints. Each was a fascinating and different individual. They kept their natural personality traits but worked constantly to shed the sinful (name removed by moderator)erfections. God has a design for each of us to live up to. Some hit the mark, others miss. We only become truly ourselves when we find ourselves in Him.
 
SK… “Dying to Self”… I think this basically means, when you put the welfare of your brothers and sisters BEFORE your own needs and desires. And especially, if you do this out of love for God.

Hope this helps. God bless. 🙂
 
Thanks… for someone raised by heathen wolverines, some of these concepts are a bit difficult to wrap my head around, and many people use the terms as if you already KNOW all about it.

It still sounds vaguely like crushing one’s own spirit and taking on responsibilities that should belong to others, but that can’t be true, can it?
 
Sailor_Kenshin said:
Thanks… for someone raised by heathen wolverines, some of these concepts are a bit difficult to wrap my head around, and many people use the terms as if you already KNOW all about it.

It still sounds vaguely like crushing one’s own spirit and taking on responsibilities that should belong to others, but that can’t be true, can it?
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Not crushing our spirit at all - just getting rid of the worst, least productive, least Christlike parts of ourselves, so that we can be what God intended us to be - our best, MOST productive, MOST Christlike selves. Same spirit, different and better expression of it. Which is also what will really make us happiest in the long run. See God isn’t silly, His plans for us and His ideas of what we should be are always better than anythng we can come up with on our own.

It’s a bit like a woman who makes an effort with her appearance, does the primping and preening, shaving and perfuming, making up and buying nice clothes. She’s not becoming a different person, nor crushing anything (at least nothing that she won’t be better off without), she’s becoming her best self (in the physical sense anyway)
 
dying to self means dying to one’s own ego-driven will, through conformity of the will to that of Christ. It is “dying” because it is a process, aided by physical and spiritual suffering. The best expression of this in prayer that I know of is that of St. Ignatius. the Suscipe

Take Lord, and receive, all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own.
You have given all to me, to you Lord I return it.
Everything is yours, do with it what you will.
Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.

Dying to self does not mean obliterating one’s identity, it means allowing Christ to perfect one’s self so that all the earthly imperfections that separate us from him are gone, and so that which distorts our true identity–in his image–is erased. It is raising our earthly distorted, damaged ego-driven identy to our true heavenly identity in union with God.
 
Sometimes I find it difficult to know what God’s will might be in some things.

Take Mass. I’ve missed a few, since even before swimming the Tiber (I started attending Mass about a year before I found an RCIA), but those times were due to illness or travel.

I’m not the type to say, “It’s a nice day, think I’ll go to the beach instead.” If I’m not well enough to walk out the door I’ll miss Mass and mention that during next Confession.

But suppose my time is my own for an afternoon, and being chronically overworked, I need the down time. I can’t has cheezburger? There is no ‘strong voice’ telling me what I may or may not do. I have a wide range of (what I think are) moral choices. I can go for a drive, read a book, sit on my patio, has cheezburger.

What about those times? How does someone determine whether you need some ‘dying to the self’ then?
 
Sailor_Kenshin said:
Sometimes I find it difficult to know what God’s will might be in some things.

Take Mass. I’ve missed a few, since even before swimming the Tiber (I started attending Mass about a year before I found an RCIA), but those times were due to illness or travel.

I’m not the type to say, “It’s a nice day, think I’ll go to the beach instead.” If I’m not well enough to walk out the door I’ll miss Mass and mention that during next Confession.

But suppose my time is my own for an afternoon, and being chronically overworked, I need the down time. I can’t has cheezburger? There is no ‘strong voice’ telling me what I may or may not do. I have a wide range of (what I think are) moral choices. I can go for a drive, read a book, sit on my patio, has cheezburger.

What about those times? How does someone determine whether you need some ‘dying to the self’ then?
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In these instances it is important to recognize the difference between a willful self-denial (giving something up as an act of purification, which is a free choice and not under pain of sin) and scrupulosity (fear that non-sinful actions will be sins somehow). It is true that the saints practiced acts of fasting and self-denial, and that these are good things for us to do for the right reasons. But they are options, not moral requirements, and if you do them because you are afraid not to do them is sinning, you may be suffering from scrupulosity.
 
Sailor_Kenshin said:
Does it mean I can’t has cheezburger? 😛

Seriously, I hear it over and over again. If we have to die to the self, then why were we born with selves to die to in the first place?

We’re born with the drive to be fruitful and multiply, all well and good within the bounds of the sacraments, etc.

But ‘dying to self’ is just one of those many puzzlements my RCIA class never addressed.
Click to expand...
To me it means imitating Christ, even unto death, if necessary, and therefore, giving less importance to all things human. Think about it – all flesh is destined to rot; all human achievement is fleeting; if one looks to Man for his sense of self-worth, he’ll inevitably despair, either because of the attacks of his enemies, or because of death, which forces him to leave it all behind. ‘Dying to self’ means living in the universal of Jesus Christ, transcending the world of Man, overcoming its futility, rising above its vice and folly. In this life, there will be grave consequences as a result of ‘holding alone’ with Christ. We must face them bravely, with calm resignation, remembering that Jesus warned us that by following Him, we would be hated and punished by many.
 
Here’s my simple take on it…

I think that “dying to self” means giving up the ego centered part of you. Realizing that you are NOT the most important thing in the world. No longer being a slave to physical desires, and putting God front and center in your life.

Of course, I could be wrong.
 
Denae said:
Here’s my simple take on it…

I think that “dying to self” means giving up the ego centered part of you. Realizing that you are NOT the most important thing in the world. No longer being a slave to physical desires, and putting God front and center in your life.

Of course, I could be wrong.
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I say you’re right on target.👍
 
“Dying to self” to me means when God’s Will is primary and sole focus and when a person is prepared to sacrifice and come what may in order to unite himself/herself to God’s Will. I think that this is a journey of active and also passive purifications or detaching from self and ego. It is active when the person acts in order to unite himself/herself to God’s Will and it is passive when God undertakes the process Himself … when one is purified or detached from the very deepest attachments to self and self will and ego or self satisfactions/‘rewards’. It is a process of detaching at the core from all that is not God. To choose what is not God is a choice of self and self satisfactions/‘rewards’ rather than God and His Will. This process attaches one to virtue in many ways which is an attachment to God and His Will no matter what it may be and in this process the person becomes more sensitive to the movements of God’s Will. A work of The Holy Spirit.
Blessings…Barb:)
 
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