“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Colossians 3:1-2 

“Everything that exists is a gift from God. Yet oftentimes we look to the things and creatures created by God for a satisfaction and fulfillment that only God Himself can provide. When the soul wraps itself around the things and the people of this world, looking for satisfaction or fulfillment that only God can give, it produces a distortion in itself, and in others as well. Many spiritual writers call the process of unwinding this possessive, self-centered, clinging, and disordered seeking of things and persons ‘detachment’. The goal of the process of detachment is not to stop loving the things and people of this world, but, quite to the contrary, to love them even more truly in God, under the reign of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Things and people become even more beautiful and delightful when we see them in this light. There are almost always painful dimensions to this process of ‘letting go’ in order to love more, but it’s the pain of true healing and liberation. Christian detachment is an important part of the process by which we enter into a realm of great freedom and joy.” —Ralph Martin, p.205, The Fulfillment of all Desire 

Bishop Barron provides this insight into proper attachment… “Wear the world lightly. Cultivate the virtue of detachment.” The world is not bad, of course. It’s a matter of proper spiritual attachment. “If I keep my eyes fixed on things above then I will know how to handle the goods of the world as they come to me.” 

3 Steps that help us detach from worldly things: 

1. Identifying our attachments 

2. Renouncing our attachments 

3. Following through by mortifying our desires 

Mortification means dying to oneself. Mortification means living only in Christ, relying totally on Him, and Him alone. Is this easy? Absolutely not. But we never do this alone. Christ is with us, and He makes total mortification, total death to oneself, possible because He has already done it! Our role is to follow Him in the way of the cross. 

Lord, help us to offer daily mortifications, dying to self f in small and big ways. Help us to keep our eyes fixed on things above and property order our attachments. Amen.