Today we take up a hard and necessary word from the Lord—to live in the world, yet to be not of the world. Our Saviour prayed for us in His great high-priestly prayer, “I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from evil. They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world” (John 17:15–16). He did not ask the Father to lift us out of ordinary life; He asked that we be guarded within it. He did not call us to fear the world, but to resist its fallen spirit. He sends us as light, as salt, as a city on a hill; yet He commands a distinctiveness that safeguards the Gospel and the soul.
Let us sit with this call patiently and humbly, for it is a word for every Christian—monastic and married, priest and lay faithful, young and old. It is a word for homes and parishes, for the marketplace and the school, for the hidden room of prayer and the very public witness of charity.
Saint Paul gives the first line of our rule when he wrote, “And be not conformed to this world; but be reformed in the newness of your mind; that you may prove what is the good, and the acceptable, and the perfect will of God” (Romans 12:2). To be “conformed” is to let the age set our mould—our desires, our speech, our spending, our loves. To be “reformed” is to allow the Holy Spirit to renovate the mind and steady the heart, so that God’s will becomes clear and dear to us.
Saint John is likewise direct about the matter. “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world … For all that is in the world is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:15–16). Here “the world” does not mean God’s creation, which is good; it means the prideful atmosphere that urges us to live as if God were absent, as if the self were supreme and pleasure the final good. We are warned not because God wishes to narrow our lives, but because He would enlarge them—to set us free from appetites that never satisfy and from honours that quickly fade.
Saint James is even more stern on the matter. “The friendship of this world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4). This is marital language, the Church is Christ’s Bride; to bend the knee before the world’s idols is spiritual adultery. The Lord’s jealousy here is the jealousy of love. He would have our whole heart, not because He is a tyrant, but because divided love makes us miserable.
The Prophet Isaiah, whose words Saint Paul echoes, summons the Lord’s people to a clean distinctiveness. “Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, and touch not the unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; separate yourselves, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord” (Isaiah 52:11, LXX; cf. 2 Corinthians 6:17). This is not a call to contempt for our neighbours; it is a call to holiness, so that our neighbours may find in us not a mirror of their despair, but a sign of a different kingdom.
When Scripture calls us a “chosen generation, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people” (1 Peter 2:9), it gives us a new identity and therefore a new manner of life. Separation is not arrogance; it is belonging—to Christ, to His Body, to His way. Let us be concrete.
Separation means worship that is truly sacred. We do not trivialise holy things. We come to the Divine Liturgy or the Holy Mass with preparation and reverence, fast when the Church bids, confess when conscience is burdened, and receive the Holy Mysteries not as a right but as mercy. We keep the Sabbath and the Lord’s Day as a time of worship and rest. The world teaches that time is money; the Church teaches that time is offering.
Separation means habits of the heart. We examine our appetites and train them. On Wednesdays and Fridays we fast, as the Church teaches, not to punish the body, but to quiet the passions and make room for charity. We put a curb upon the tongue—no slander, no gossip, no flattery, no lie. We keep watch over the eyes; we refuse to make sport of another’s fall; we turn from images that inflame lust and fuel envy. We set apart moments each day—the Psalms, a chapter of the Gospel, a simple rule of prayer—to let God speak and to let our hearts be retuned to His cadence.
Separation means charity that costs. “Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father, is this: To visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation: and to keep himself unspotted from this world” (James 1:27). We cannot claim to be “not of the world” if we keep its money for ourselves and ignore its wounded. The poor are not a project; they are our kin. Alms-giving is not philanthropy; it is Eucharistic. We set aside part of our income for those in need, and we set aside part of our time for those who cannot repay us.
Separation means prudence in our yokes. Saint Paul’s counsel is quite sober. “Bear not the yoke with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14). This does not forbid friendship or generous co-operation; it warns against partnerships—marital, business, political—that bind the conscience and bend us away from the Gospel. Love everyone; do not tie your soul to anything that requires you to deny Christ in deed, even if not in word.
Separation means simplicity in possessions. Saint Paul said, “they that use this world, as if they used it not: for the fashion of this world passeth away” (1 Corinthians 7:31). We live gratefully and simply, repairing rather than replacing, sharing rather than hoarding, buying what serves our state of life rather than what flatters our vanity. We budget for mercy. We refuse the debt and the display that keep so many weary and anxious.
Separation means hopeful citizenship. “Our conversation is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). We are not cynics; we are not naïve. We honour rightful authority, seek the common good, pray for leaders, and labour for justice; but our first loyalty is to the Kingdom that cannot be shaken. That loyalty steadies us when the times are turbulent and prevents us from baptising the slogans of any age.
I want to be very clear about this, lest zeal sour into something unworthy of Christ. Separation is not hatred of the world. “For God so loved the world” (John 3:16). We love the people for whom Christ died; we reject the sin that wounds them. Neither is separation legalism. Fasts, prayers, disciplines—these are remedies and roadmaps, not measuring sticks for pride. They exist to open the heart to grace and to knead the Gospel into ordinary life.
Separation is not retreat. The saints who fled to the desert did so to learn the art of charity and then to feed the Church with that wisdom. Your home can be a little desert—quiet enough for the Lord to be heard—and a little Bethany—warm enough for guests to be welcomed. We do not run from our neighbours; we run from the vices that keep us from loving them well. Neither is separation severity toward others. Be strict with yourself and gentle with everyone else. Carry one another’s burdens. Correct with tears, not with triumph.
I realise that some will say, “This is too much for my life.” Brethren, grace is given for precisely your life. The Lord asks for your next faithful step, not your performance. Begin simply and steadily. Think about these six points.
1) Prayer. Fix two moments each day, morning and evening, and anchor them in the Psalms and a few verses of the Gospel. Keep them short enough to do without fail and deep enough to nourish the heart.
2) The Lord’s Day. Come to the Eucharist prepared. Turn off what distracts. Make the day look different from the other six—more worship, more rest, more family, more mercy.
3) Fasting and Alms-giving. Take up the Church’s fasts (as health and obedience permit). Join fasting to generosity—what you forgo, give. The body learns to say “no” so the soul can say “yes”.
4) Confession. Be honest. Bring the Lord your sins without excuse and receive His mercy without delay. Confession is a school of joy.
5) Speech. Each evening, ask yourself, Did I bless or curse with my tongue today? Did I add peace to my household? Tomorrow, let the first word on your lips be the Name of Jesus.
6) Neighbour. Choose one concrete work of mercy. Adopt a widow or widower to visit or write. Find a family under strain and quietly support them. Volunteer where the poor are not a theory but a face and a name.
These small obediences do not make headlines, but they make saints. The world is changed most faithfully by the holiness of ordinary lives.
We should regular make an examination of conscience against worldliness. In doing so, we need to be practical and plain. We should ask ourselves the following questions.
1) Do I reach first for my electronic device or for prayer?
2) Do my purchases reflect gratitude and simplicity, or envy and display?
3) Do I laugh at what is unclean to feel that I belong?
4) Have I yoked my future to a promise or partnership that bends my conscience?
5) Do I confess quickly, or do I make truce with the very sins that crucified my Lord?
6) Do I honour the poor, or step over them?
7) Is the Lord’s Day truly the Lord’s?
If the answer to any of these stings, do not despair. Today is the day of salvation. Christ does not scold us back to life; He raises us. He says, “Follow Me,” and then He walks with us.
Remember, brethren, that the Cross is between us and the world. Saint Paul said, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14). The Cross stands between us and the world’s dominion. It does not make us harsh; it makes us free. It does not make us aloof; it makes us available for love without fear. To stand beneath the Cross is to learn the mind of Christ which is meek, obedient, steadfast, merciful, and to carry that mind into kitchens and offices, classrooms and streets.
The world is loud and hurried. Its fashions are many and its promises thin. But Christ is gentle and lowly of heart, and His promise is sure. His yoke is easy and His burden light, not because discipleship is soft, but because grace is real. Take His yoke upon you. Learn of Him. Walk with Him. And let the difference be seen.
Brethren, you are not alone. The Church on earth and the Church in glory are praying for you. The holy Apostles and martyrs, the ascetics and confessors, the great teachers and the quiet grandparents who kept the faith—they surround us like a cloud. We do not invent this path; we inherit it. We do not keep it by resolve alone; we keep it by grace.
“Keep thine heart with all watchfulness; for out of these are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23, LXX). Keep your heart in Christ. Keep your home as a little church. Keep your parish as a lamp on its stand. Keep your hands open to the poor. Keep your tongue for blessing. Keep your eyes upon the Kingdom.
And then, little by little, the world will see not our superiority, but our difference—a difference made of reverence, truth, mercy, and joy—and through that difference they will glimpse Another—the Lord who loved them and gave Himself for them.
Lord Jesus Christ, King of all ages, keep us in Thy Name. Guard us from the evil one. Make us a people not conformed to the fads and fashions of this passing age, but transformed in the renewing of our minds according to the Will of the Father. Give us clean hands and pure hearts. Make our homes little churches, our parishes bright lamps, our speech a fountain of blessing, and our works a mercy to the poor. By Thy Cross let the world be crucified unto us and we unto the world, that we may walk in charity and in truth, until the day when all things are made new. Amen.
May God bless you +
Fr. Charles
1 November 2025