The Christian today hears two calls: that of God, and that of the world. And truly, this is as it has always been, since Christ first spoke into the world the Gospel that sets "father... against son,... mother against daughter," (Luke 12:53) and the Kingdom against the saeculum. The constant temptation is to answer both, as if both were of equal value, or of a value that could be held hand-in-hand with the other; but this is to ignore the word of the Lord. "Let the dead bury their own dead" (Matt. 8:22, Luke 9:60) was a statement uttered by Christ not as a cold, uncaring dismissal of the world, but in order to teach His disciples that the call of a world that leads to death must be left to respond to itself. The call of the Kingdom must be the sole focus of the Christian heart. Only be responding to this call, and this call alone, can a man truly be merciful to "the dead" - to those who are lost in sin, who succumb to the call of the world - for the only antidote to death is resurrection, and resurrection comes only through the power of the risen Lord.
+Bishop Irinei (Steenberg), from The Beginnings of a Life of Prayer
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