The Religious State

St. Alphonsus Ligouri does a wonderful job at expanding on the line from Holy Scripture, "For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his own soul?" (Matthew 16:26) He writes that we ought to conform to the will of God and he quotes St. Gregory stating our life will be a complete error if we neglect to follow the will of God. "For this is the will of God, your sanctification." (I Thessalonians 4:3) The religious life is a source of complete happiness while the world suffers in its false pleasures. The religious life is also a source of peace and joy that the world cannot give. And who in the world has true peace of soul? "In his dying moments Phillip II King of Spain, sent for his son, and throwing off his royal robes, showed him his breast eaten away by worms, and said to him, 'Prince behold how we die, and how the grandeurs of this world end. Oh that I had been a lay brother in some religious community, and had not been king!'"