If we resist the advances of God’s love in this life, there is no solid reason to expect that things will be different in the next. The fear that this possibility evokes is due less to some fearsome quality in God than to the dread eventuality that our power of free choice will be seduced to turn away from what is good and life-giving. It is easy, by concentrating on the immediate and not looking at the ultimate consequences of our choices, to choose to follow a path that will eventually carry us to a place at which we do not want to arrive. The story of the rich man called by Christ who chose to retain his goods and not to follow can also be ours. What happened to him eventually we do not know, except that, having declined the invitation, he went away a sadder man.
Michael Casey, OSCO
The Road to Eternal Life, p. 28
