And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Belah, (the same is Zoar:) and they joined battle with them in the vale of the woods, with Chedorlaomer, the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five. And the vale of the woods was full of slime-pits. And the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there: and they that remained fled to the mountain. And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way; and they took Lot, Abram's brother’s son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods. And behold, there came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew, for he dwelt in the vale of Mamre the Amorite, brother of Eshcol, and brother of Aner; for these were confederate with Abram. And when Abram heard that his brother Lot was taken captive, he armed his trained servants, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them to Dan. And he divided his comrades, and warred against them by night, and smote them, and pursued them to Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus. And he brought back all the goods, and his brother Lot, and his goods; and the women also and the people. And the king of Sodom went out to meet him (after his return from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer, and of the kings that were with him) in the valley of Shaveh, which is the King’s Dale. And Melchizedek King of Salem brought forth bread and wine (for he was the Priest of the Most High God) and blessed him, and said: “Blessed be Abram of the Most High God, Maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be the Most High God which has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And he gave him tithes of all.Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The fundamental rule of Christian life is, as almost every page of the Gospel tells us, that we should live out of the world — separate ourselves from the world — hate the world. The world is that ungodly land which Abraham, our sublime model, is commanded by God to quit. It is that Babylon of our exile and captivity where we are beset with dangers. The beloved Disciple cries out to us: “Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (1 John ii. 15). Our most merciful Jesus, at the very time that He was about to offer Himself as a sacrifice for all men, spoke these awful words: “I pray not for the world” (John xvii. 9). When we were baptised and were signed with the glorious and indelible character of Christians, the condition required of us and accepted was that we should renounce the works and pomps of the world (which we expressed under the name of Satan) and this solemn baptismal vow we have often renewed.
But what is the meaning of our promise to renounce the world? Is it that we cannot be Christians unless we flee into the desert and separate ourselves from our fellow-creatures? Such cannot be God’s will for all since in that same Scripture in which He commands us to flee from the world, He also tells us what are our duties to each other and sanctions and blesses those ties which He Himself has willed should exist among us. His Apostle, also, tells us to use this World as though we did not use it (1 Corinthians vii. 31). It is not, therefore, forbidden us to live in, and use, the world. Then, what means this renouncing the world? Can there be contradiction in God’s commandments? Is it possible that we are condemned to wander blindly on the brink of a precipice into which we must at last inevitably fall? There is neither contradiction nor snare. If by the world we mean these visible things around us which God created in His power and goodness, if we mean this outward world which He made for His own glory and our benefit, it is worthy of its Divine Author and to us if we but use it aright, is a ladder by which our souls may ascend to their God. Let us gratefully use this world, go through it without making it the object of our hope, not waste upon it that love which God alone deserves, and ever be mindful that we are not made for this, but for another and a happier world.
But the majority of men are not thus prudent in their use of the world. Their hearts are fixed upon it, and not upon Heaven. Hence it was that when the Creator deigned to come into this world in order that He might save it, the world knew Him not (John i. 10). Men were called after the name of the object of their love. They shut their eyes to the light. They became darkness. God calls them “the world.” In this sense, then, the world is everything that is opposed to our Lord Jesus Christ, that refuses to recognise Him and that resists His divine guidance. Those false maxims which tend to weaken the love of God in our souls, which recommend the vanities that fasten our hearts to this present life, which cry down everything that can raise us above our weaknesses or vices, which decoy and gratify our corrupt nature by dangerous pleasures, which far from helping us to the attainment of our last end only mislead us — all these are “the world.”
And this world is everywhere, and holds a secret league within our very hearts. Sin has brought it, and given it prominence, into this exterior world which God Himself created. Now we must conquer it, and trample upon it, or we will perish with it. There is no- being neutral. We must be its enemies or its slaves. During these three days its triumphs are fearful, and thousands of those who at their Baptism swore eternal enmity to it are enrolling themselves its votaries. Let us pray for them. But let us also tremble for ourselves. And that our courage may not fail us, let us ponder those consoling words which our Saviour at His Last Supper addressed to His Eternal Father. He is speaking of His Disciples and He says: “Father, I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, as I also am not of the world. I pray not that you would take them out of the world, but that you would keep them from evil” (John xvii. 14, 15).
