Mar 2, 2015
One of the most unfortunate results of this-worldliness is that even in the Church real hope is more and more replaced by optimism. One passes over in silence the metaphysical tragedy of man, his weakness in observing the laws of God, which is magnificently presented to us in the Dies Irae. One thinks that this world is a "vale of tears" only because it contains poverty, social injustice disease - in other words for purely earthly reasons and not because of the metaphysical situation of man. The spirit of this-worldliness even pushes into the background the deepest suffering which we can experience of earth, the death of a beloved person.
Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Devastated Vineyard, pg. 223