C.S. Lewis said that we will be transformed in eternity, wherever we eventually go. “The Weight of Glory” discusses the transformation processes and was presented in 1941 when Lewis delivered a sermon at the pulpit of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford.
“It’s a serious thing,” Lewis says, “to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw them now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.” We’re all immortal and all continue in eternity. Being with God will make us Godlike. Understanding the “weight of glory” will direct us to be different in how we serve others, but even with that change, getting over the feeling of our selfishness is an important challenge.
Lewis tells us that men today tend to think the highest virtue is unselfishness but explains that the Christians of old would have said it was Love. Replacing Love with the term “unselfish” carries with it the suggestion that the goal is not primarily securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point.”
Obtaining this view of glory means that we except that there are no ordinary people, which means we have neve talked to a mere mortal, and that directs us to conduct all our dealings with each other with love. This means that your neighbor is the holiest object you will encounter and an important part of why you’re here.
Lewis says that “almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth, but our real goal is elsewhere.”
Finding the path to glory in how we serve, and love others is much of Lewis’s core message. By following that we take on the weight of a more compassionate vision of Christianity and a different understanding of what true faith and forgiveness is.
Memorable Quotes
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, because by it I see everything else.”