Only the saints can.

Indeed, I must be holy or separated from the world – and especially from the world in myself, from pride and the desire for something of my own, different from God and not of God. This world within me then desires a world outside of me, where it seeks its own – possessions, recognition, power, or at least entertainment and pleasure of the flesh.
As long as I am even partially a part of the world in this way, I am also a part of its struggle and the struggle of men for these worldly things. And while I am a part of all this, I cannot at the same time desire these things and compete with other men for them, and at the same time be merciful and forgiving like God and therefore love like God.
One contradicts the other. As long as we live in lust for worldly and
earthly things and are concerned about them, we cannot live God’s Life of love manifested in the perfect, unconditional, unconditional and never-ending receiving and sharing of forgiveness and mercy.
Only when we have indeed left the world behind in our hearts are we free from everything – from things, from the judgments and opinions of the world, from the demands and expectations of people, from their approval; we are even free from our earthly health, life, comfort, everything. Not in some Stoic indifference but in the freedom of God’s children, which Christ has won for us by the Father in Him “delivering us from the power of darkness and into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:13-14). In this freedom, standing firm on the rock of Christ and nothing else but Him, we can finally accept and live the Life of God.
For this is the mystery of God: he has nothing in common with us, the people of the world overlapping interests that He has to fight over with us. He does not desire anything that we have, nor anything that the world offers, as he says at one point flatly: “Do I eat beef or drink the blood of goats” (Ps. 50, 13)? And we humans, in turn, do not have the power to take away nor harm nor diminish nor in any way affect anything of what He is, that He should have to worry about it and to fight with us about it, as the Scriptures also say: “Exalted is the Lord above all nations, and his glory above the heavens” (PS 113:4). This is the holiness of God, the first, perfect separation from the world. In it, then, He can be – and He chose to be indeed He will be – merciful and forsaking, unchangeable, permanently, to everyone equally and indiscriminately, for to Him there is no in-between in this respect. “For God despises no one” (Rom 2:11).
Therefore, the words to which I return again and again are valid: “Do not drag the yoke with unbelievers! For what part has righteousness in iniquity? Or what has light to do with darkness? … Wherefore come out from among them, separate yourselves, saith and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you and will be your Father, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty” (2Cor 6:14, 17- 18), “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, he is not in its Father’s love. For nothing in the world, neither the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, nor the boasting of riches, is not of the Father, but the world.” (1Jn 2:15-16). How deeply and all this is true! What does it need to hear? Do we need help understanding? Do we need to see?

The Christian is a man with his whole heart removed from the world and moved into Heaven, to the Kingdom, to God. That’s what baptism is all about. “By baptism, then, we are buried with him in death, that we, as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, shall live a new life. If we have been made new with him and become like him in death, so shall we be like him in the resurrection. For we know that our old man was crucified with him, that sinful flesh was destroyed so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. He who has died is justified from sin” (Rom 6:4-7).
This is the starting point and presupposition of the entire Christian life. Without it, it is impossible to be a Christian and live the Life of God. This is the first thing: to move and leave the world behind. Jesus also says: “Fear not, little flock, for it has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom. Sell what you have and give it away as alms! Make for yourselves purses that shall not be worn out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven, where the thief cannot enter, and the moth does not destroy. For where your treasure is, there where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Lk 12:32-34)! Therefore, it is infallibly true: “Whoever loves his [present worldly] life will lose it, and whoever hates his life in this world will save it for eternal life” (Jn 12:25).
At the moment when our heart is entirely in God, when we do not desire anything of this world, and thus our desires and interests are no longer in any way anything with the people of the world overlap, there is no longer anything for which we have to compete with them, nor anything for which that we have to fear them for and that we have to fight for in the world to worry about; therefore, if by this first holiness, we are holy like Him, we are after the pattern of God, we are also prepared to be merciful like Him and to forgive like Him, and thus proving that we have genuinely become His sons and daughters – and this is the second holiness, perfection in love, “without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12, 14). “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:7) – because that is precisely how the Life of God
is lived: not in inner tension and agitation.

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