Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to
save his soul.
And the other things on the face of the earth are created for man
and that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which he is created.
From
this it follows that man is to use them as much as they help him on to his end,
and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it.
For this it
is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things in all that is
allowed to the choice of our free will and is not prohibited to it; so that, on
our part, we want not health rather than sickness, riches rather tha poverty, honor
rather than dishonor, long rather than short life, and so in all the rest; desiring
and choosing only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are created.
(From the first week of St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises)
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