" 'In the same way therefore not one of you can be my disciple if he does not renounce all of own possessions' (Luke 10:33). The application of the saying is this: Discipleship requires that God be in first place. The reference to renunciation of all his own possessions refers to all earthly attachments that have first place.” (NET Bible, Luke 10:33)
“We must understand that as long as we are still attached to anything earthly, as long as we lean on anything within or without that is not God, as long as we find our enjoyment in something created, we are unfit to be a burnt offering. We must come to the point of endeavoring to renounce all this, making all the lives inside us stop, with only one life remaining—life in God.” (Fr. Jack Sparks)
“We live in a time when people who are rich and famous are often cultural icons regardless of their character. In part, that is because advertising, entertainment, social media, and others with various agendas do their best to convince us daily that the good life is synonymous with all the comfort, convenience, and style that money can buy at any given time. Many still assume that wealth invariably reflects wisdom and that riches are a reward for righteousness. We do not have to be billionaires to fall into such delusions, as unhealthy attachments to possessions and status threaten to bring spiritual destruction to all who persist in embracing them. Those who fall prey to the temptation to worship “The Almighty Dollar” and what it can buy will find themselves overwhelmed with anxiety and fear, for money will never heal the soul. It, like the praise of others, easily becomes a false god and can be gone in an instant, leaving us as disillusioned as the man in our gospel reading [Luke 18:18-27].” (Fr. Philip LeMasters)
“When God tries to free man from his attachments, He sometimes appears harsh. He speaks about taking up the cross, about renouncing material goods, about forsaking even those people closest to you, and about self-hatred. However, He conveys these ‘hard words’ from His desire to give man all the good things that He has stored up for him in heaven, which are ‘exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think’ for all eternity. In essence, the commandment of renunciation and the commandment of the love for God go hand in hand, because renunciation is a prerequisite for the heart to turn wholly and undivided towards the Lord, and be rendered fit to accommodate His ‘infinite mercy’ and receive ‘so great a salvation’.” (Archimandrite Zacharias Zacharou)
“There are a few things that can make any attachment to the things of this world spiritually unhealthy. One can be the nature of the thing itself and another can be the priority it has in our life. A good thing can easily become a bad thing if we place it before our relationship with God. Christ knows our hearts and our unhealthy attachments and will reveal them to us if we choose to seek Him.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)
“ ‘If we are comfortable in the world then an economic reset or political upheaval will evoke fear and anger… But if this world is not our home. If we are but salt and light, sojourners in a strange land, then we will adjust. We will find a way. We will carry on, looking for a City whose foundations and builder is God.’…I think to a certain extent we are all comfortable in the world. Our daily life is full of worldly tasks and concerns: work, finances, extracurricular activities, etc. Not that there is anything wrong with these tasks, but they do redirect the mind to our current life and the world cannot help but feel like home. We find comfort in the familiar and in the hope that our children have a future ahead of them. So how do we find a balance? How do we plan and live a life in the world without getting attached to the comfort that comes with this?” (Fr. Michael Gillis, Ann Marie)
“We are taught not to get too attached to this world, and we should not. However, this detaching from the world and everything in it is a process. It is not a sin to grieve. Jesus Himself wept at the tomb of Lazarus, and we know Jesus to be perfect man and perfect God. Jesus sanctified grief, which is a result of love, outside of Lazarus’s tomb. We grieve disenfranchised losses with the intention of moving past them, not out of a desire to hold onto this world. We are allowed to grieve the fallen nature of this world. It hurts, it is sad, and it is tragic. Grieving is a process that allows us to truly let go of this fallen world and to reach the Kingdom of heaven without too much unnecessary baggage.” (Fr. Joshua Makoul)
“To become like Christ, then, does not require us to become something that we are not, some kind of superhuman existence, but requires instead that we use our death in the way that He has. For whether we like it or not, we are going to die! The only question then is: how are we going to die? Will it be with our hearts attached to this world, to our treasures in this world, to our career, our family, our good image of ourselves? In which case our death will be a painful separation from all that we love. Or will it be a death that we willingly embrace even now, as we follow Christ, by taking up the Cross, dying to ourselves, to our ego, to all our passions, to all that ties us to this world, to live, as He did, for others—in love, in service in compassion?” (Fr. John Behr)
“It is by coming to know Christ that we understand what our purpose is as human persons made in the image of God. It is by coming to know Christ that we come to understand how our life, even the sufferings and hardships of this life in this world, help to refine us and bring us closer to perfection as the person we were created to be. It is by coming to know Christ that we come to know who God is, and therefore who we are in relationship to Him. Our sinful passions are not part of who we are, or at least, not of who we were created to be. They are parasitic and destructive sins that have attached themselves to us in this life. For us to become who we truly are, we must be freed from them.” (Father Stephen De Young)
“There are a few things that can make any attachment to the things of this world spiritually unhealthy. One can be the nature of the thing itself and another can be the priority it has in our life. A good thing can easily become a bad thing if we place it before our relationship with God. Christ knows our hearts and our unhealthy attachments and will reveal them to us if we choose to seek Him.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)
“Beware of passionate attachments to the world. Although they deceive you with peace and comfort, they are so fleeting that you do not notice how you are deprived of them, and in their place come sorrow, longing, despondency, and no comfort whatsoever.” (St. Leonid of Optina)
“When God discloses our attachments, our inordinate loves, and the idolatrous bondages in our lives, He is urging us to sell all – to do whatever is necessary to rid ourselves of anything holding us back from life in Him.” (Dynamis 12/21/2014)
“Be true to God always and in everything. If you say the prayer "Our Father..." pronounce each word sincerely, with reverence, fixing your mind and heart upon God alone, not paying attention to anything or anybody around you. If you say any other prayer, say it also with all your soul, not with your heart divided, not paying undue attention to anything or anybody. The enemy of our salvation especially strives to draw our heart and mind away from God when we are about to serve Him, and endeavours to adulterously attach our heart to something irrelevant. Be always, every moment, with God, especially when you pray to Him.” (St. John of Kronstadt)
“Because we lack a divine Center, our need for security has led us into an insane attachment to things…“There must be no dallying with an attachment which is incompatible with the Love of God.” (Richard Foster, Francis de Sales)
“There are a few things that can make any attachment to the things of this world spiritually unhealthy. One can be the nature of the thing itself and another can be the priority it has in our life. A good thing can easily become a bad thing if we place it before our relationship with God. Christ knows our hearts and our unhealthy attachments and will reveal them to us if we choose to seek Him.” (Sacramental Living Ministries)