Is it good to hate this life?

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The martyrs didn’t love their lives in this world and kept it for eternal life. They chose to die as opposed to clinging to this life in this world. I know they had joy when they died though, as their hearts were completely teeming with love for God and full of love for neighbor. We are called to live like these saints on fire for God and never clinging to life in this world.
 
17 This I command you, to love one another. 18* "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
–John 15:17-19
 
Hi, guys and dolls.
I just stumbled on this topic.
I mean to read all the posts in the next few days.

What I have always believed abiout that passage of Scripture, from rea:(ding religious books ,is this:

That to love your life means to live a life were your ego is in command: you go to college to get a good job as an engineer to make a career in such and such corporation, have a family and vacation at the Bahamas, etc., etc,…

That to hate your life means to lose it.
In other passages of the Gospel the word “lose” is used and not “hate”.
To lose the comforts of a good life that this world can offer you to embrace the way of the Cross and work for the Lord.

They are two completely different things.

If you work for your ego you have your reward in this life and you will deserve nothing in the Hereafter.
If you lose your ego-istic life in order to follow Jesus you will get a prize from God.

Am I right ?
 
benedict_XVIII said:
Hi, guys and dolls.
I just stumbled on this topic.
I mean to read all the posts in the next few days.

What I have always believed abiout that passage of Scripture, from rea:(ding religious books ,is this:

That to love your life means to live a life were your ego is in command: you go to college to get a good job as an engineer to make a career in such and such corporation, have a family and vacation at the Bahamas, etc., etc,…

That to hate your life means to lose it.
In other passages of the Gospel the word “lose” is used and not “hate”.
To lose the comforts of a good life that this world can offer you to embrace the way of the Cross and work for the Lord.

They are two completely different things.

If you work for your ego you have your reward in this life and you will deserve nothing in the Hereafter.
If you lose your ego-istic life in order to follow Jesus you will get a prize from God.

Am I right ?
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That’s one plausible way of looking at it!

God Bless!
 
If Jesus didn’t hate his life and fell in love with it and the tempting idea of keeping himself happily on earth he wouldn’t have been able to die for our sins for us. Unless a grain of wheat dies, it bringeth forth much fruit. By choosing to hate this life and die to it, much fruit and our salvation was won. The same goes for us, if we choose to preserve our life unto life eternal rather than preserve this life on earth, much fruit is the result, a life eternal in heaven and a good example left on earth for others.
 
John 12:25*Itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.
Douay-Rheims
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In my last post I said “unless a grain of wheat dies it bringeth much fruit.” - This is an error in conveying the message I wanted to say. What I mean to say is the grain of wheat must die in order to to bring forth much fruit. Thank you to the last person who posted and gave a quote that helps.
 
After doing some reading by Peter Kreeft on heaven and joining it to what I’ve heard in homilies about hating mother and father by loving Jesus first as Christ mentions we should do, I find that hating this life and finding it is all about dying to one’s self will and living the passage: “Your will be done” and accepting death with resignation to God’s will, whether it be death of self or on death on one’s death bed.
 
ready said:
After doing some reading by Peter Kreeft on heaven and joining it to what I’ve heard in homilies about hating mother and father by loving Jesus first as Christ mentions we should do, I find that hating this life and finding it is all about dying to one’s self will and living the passage: “Your will be done” and accepting death with resignation to God’s will, whether it be death of self or on death on one’s death bed.
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Sounds like your into self mortification and self-surrender, both good.

Hating mother and father in Luke 14:26 needs to be treated with care. That’s a tough passage of scripture. But its clear that we are to leave our parents and family behind if we are to follow Christ. For me, this is the toughest passage of scripture in the Holy Bible. I interpret Luke 14:26 as leaving everyone and everything behind, including one’s own life, to follow Christ.
*
Luke 14:26
If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.*

God Bless.
 
Robert_Sock said:
Sounds like your into self mortification and self-surrender, both good.

Hating mother and father in Luke 14:26 needs to be treated with care. That’s a tough passage of scripture. But its clear that we are to leave our parents behind if we are to follow Christ. For me, this is the toughest passage of scripture in the Holy Bible.
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Yes, I try to practice interior mortification and the practice of total surrender/abandonment to God. Definitely. I learned from St.Therese how valuable interior mortification and complete surrender to God is, like a child completely surrendered to the will of his loving parent.

I’ve heard it said in homilies that what Jesus means by “hating your mother and father” doesn’t mean we shouldn’t love them and honor them like we are commanded by the fourth commandament and the second commandment of Christ to love our neighbor as ourselves. I know you know this too. The priests I’ve heard discuss the passage say it just means we should always put God before everybody including our parents, who are formost in our lives…something we already do. To follow Christ, yes, we must put everything under him, even our love for our parents, without losing this love for them.
 
This weekend’s reading at Mass is on this passage in the Bible we are discussing. The priest at my Church gave a great homily in which he told a story about an Indian saint walking up a mountain with an Indian monk. It was very cold and snowing hard. They come across a man whose down on the ground suffering. The monk tells the saint they should just proceed up the mountain and let the man work through his own situation. The saint told the monk he could go on ahead but he insisted on his mission to help his brother in his need. So the monk continued up the mountain and the saint helped the man with the broken leg. Afterwards, on the saint’s ascent up the snowy mountain in blizzard conditions he sees a dead man. It is the monk frozen to death. The priest goes on to say that dying to yourself to follow God will enable you to save your life, while the man who lives his life alone loses it. I thought it was an interesting analogy. The priest also refered to Christ as dying and bringing forth much fruit so that we by following in his footsteps can do the same, and bear much fruit.
 
Good story!

But if the saint really ‘hated’ life, he’d have let the other guy lie there as well. After all, if you hate life, why try to save anyone’s?
 
Sailor_Kenshin said:
Good story!

But if the saint really ‘hated’ life, he’d have let the other guy lie there as well. After all, if you hate life, why try to save anyone’s?
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He hated his life simply by living for God and neighbor, not to preserve his own.

To put it better for you, he put Christ and neighbor first before thinking of preserving his own self or life…which actually preserved him and his life spiritually and physically.
 
Sailor_Kenshin said:
Good story!

But if the saint really ‘hated’ life, he’d have let the other guy lie there as well. After all, if you hate life, why try to save anyone’s?
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You misunderstand what it means to hate life. Hating life does not mean having contempt for the living. The life we seek is the life we will have with God. Not this temporary life filled with constant strife and sin. However, to love another person, and to love God has nothing to do with loving this life.
 
BRZ said:
You misunderstand what it means to hate life. Hating life does not mean having contempt for the living. The life we seek is the life we will have with God. Not this temporary life filled with constant strife and sin. However, to love another person, and to love God has nothing to do with loving this life.
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Exactly!
 
Sailor_Kenshin said:
Good story!

But if the saint really ‘hated’ life, he’d have let the other guy lie there as well. After all, if you hate life, why try to save anyone’s?
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There’s a big difference between hating this life and hating life. We;re talking about hating this life to walk with Christ into the World to Come where life will be everlasting.

God Bless!
 
Robert_Sock said:
There’s a big difference between hating this life and hating life. We;re talking about hating this life to walk with Christ into the World to Come where life will be everlasting.

God Bless!
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Yes, that’s right!
 
Hate might be a little strong, but I definitely dislike life. I’m not suicidal or anything, but if I had the choice to not be born, I’d take that option.
 
How sad, rejecting the gift God granted you! (BTDT, printed several t-shirts). This world is beautiful! I am not worthy to behold even a weed, yet God graces us with flowers!

:signofcross:

There is a distinction in the way the words ‘hate’ AND ‘life’ are used in this context. I heard one of the EWTN priests explain that it should mean (in a modern sense) hating sin and all that belongs to Satan.

It doesn’t mean to hate your life to the point of suicide, to hate your parents, children, and spouses to the point that you neglect to love them AS WE ARE CHARGED TO DO.
 
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