Aiming for the Summit in the Spiritual Life
by Father Paul K. Raftery, O.P.
The Universal Call to Holiness
Despite this deep desire of Our Lord so evident in the Blessed
Sacrament, some people are mistakenly
under the impression that Our Lord's
invitation to true holiness and deep prayerful union are intended only
for a select few in this world. They believe the path He intends for most people is that they make modest
progress in the spiritual life, never
completely rising to a true holiness of life,
then after death find their way into  purgatory
where God will make them fit for heaven. What of Christ's
statements in the Gospels
about the holiness of
His followers?
"You must be perfect as your heavenly Father is
perfect." "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your
soul, and with all your mind." These
(the mistaken view holds) were intended for
rare, specially privileged individuals. For the rest, they
are goals to set, but never to expect in this life.
But let us stop at this point and consider a couple of things this mistaken view implies about our journey
to God. One
implication is that purgatory is the standard
means of purification for the Church. One can certainly say it is a common means
for the Church. But Our
Lord has established a whole array of
grace-filled practices, as well as trials
and difficulties in life, in order that painful purgation after death
might be avoided or lessened. The teaching of
Christ, the sacraments, prayer, embracing
the cross, good works, along
with mortification and self-discipline
are sufficient in themselves. They have the capacity
to free us from sin
and its consequences,
enabling us to pass quickly on to heavenly union with
God. The necessity of purgatory
arises when we do not take full advantage of these ordinary means.
But a far worse implication is that there are two
different sets of expectations for the faithful.
This faulty approach might be expressed as
offering two versions of
the Gospel, one
for the few called to perfection
and another for the great majority
called to something less. For these latter there is a mitigated version of the Gospel in which minor
vices and sinful attachments
are tolerated. In this mistaken view instruction such as "You
must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, and all your
strength," and "Pray for your enemies, bless
those who persecute you," are not strictly binding. The
expectation is that one keep oneself from serious mortal sin
and take some token steps to reform
one's life. The concern is certainly not to reach the greatness
of a saint.
The document of the Second Vatican Council on the mystery of Christ's Church, Lumen Gentium, leads us in
the right direction. The Gospel call for sanctity
is meant for all members of
the Church, no matter in what state of life they may find themselves.
The working man or woman, no less than the cleric or consecrated religious is bound to aim
for true holiness of life:
Therefore all the faithful are invited and obliged to holiness
and the perfection of their own state of life. Accordingly let all of them see that they
direct their affections rightly, lest they be hindered in their pursuit of perfect love by
the use of worldly things and by an adherence to riches which is contrary to the spirit of
evangelical poverty, following the apostle’s advice: Let those who use this world not
fix their abode in it, for the form of this world is passing away. (42;
emphasis added)
The Deepening of Divine Friendship
Advancement in holiness is advancement in
friendship with God. The two go hand in hand.
Like any friendship, there is a bond established by common
goals, interests, and values. Holiness is in part the result of having common
goals, interests, and values with
God. We take on His
way of thinking and acting. "You are My
friends if you do what I command you," Jesus
says in the Gospel (John
15:14). The deeper the friendship, the more we have in
common. In its fullest form, the sharing becomes so complete that there is actually a profound
transforming of our nature
to be more like God's. As Our Lord also says in the Gospel, "If a man loves Me,
he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our
home with him" (John 14:23).
All the invitations to holiness we find
in the Scriptures and in the Church's teaching have this kind of union in mind.
Jesus says in the Gospel
that we are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. And how can this be possible with all our weaknesses? For us it is clearly impossible. But
Our Lord is implying the true indwelling of God within us,
providing us with that level of perfection we could never hope to achieve on our
own. Thus, what the Gospel call to be perfect
amounts to is a summons to be in complete union with
God, to be filled with the Divine Presence.
Saint John of the Cross, the great
sixteenth century Spanish mystic and theologian, teaches that when the soul is brought to a state
of complete union with God, it
is so moved by the "breath" of the Holy Spirit that in all the soul's
activity, "everything that occurs and is caused is perfect,
for He is the cause of it all" (Living Flame, 4.16).
But with regards to this perfection Saint
Thomas brings us some helpful clarity. To begin with, he points
out that it is charity that makes us perfect; the soul
in its highest state is filled with divine love. But a person will be perfect in this life in a different way than the saints in heaven. The perfection
of those who see God face-to-face
is unique in that their minds and hearts are continually fixed on God, and filled with a love
that reaches out for Him with all the strength they possess. They have an unwavering intensity of love resulting
from the direct vision of God that
we will never be able to have on earth (Secunda Secundę Partis184,2).
The perfection we are capable of, on the
other hand, consists in being free from everything that
prevents us from giving ourselves completely to God.
This includes mortal sin, deliberate venial sin, and whatever hinders us from fulfilling the Divine Will, such as needless
fears and subtle forms of
selfishness. But as Saint Thomas also points out, less
serious, venial sins will still creep in. Even the greatest
saints had inadvertent offenses
that resulted from the weakness of human nature. Thus, although humbling,
such sins should never be a source of discouragement,
as long as we are doing our best to fight against them.
So this is the perfection we are required
to seek. It is summarized by Our Lord in His
command to love God with our whole
heart, soul, mind, and strength;
and to love our neighbor as
ourselves. All traces of self-seeking
and self-indulgence have given way to a love that seeks nothing more than the honor of God and the well-being of our neighbor. The question now
arises: what are the steps we can take that will bring us to this glorious
destination?
To Be Pure as God is Pure
There are changes that need to be made to bring us out from a condition that is simply incompatible with God.
Behind the intimate union with
God had by all the saints
were years of achieving, through grace, a state
of soul that
allowed deep communion to take place. Saint
Thomas states the incompatibility problem
as one of purity:
For purity is necessary in order that the mind be applied to
God, since the human mind is soiled by contact with inferior things, even as all things
depreciate by admixture with baser things, for instance, silver by being mixed with lead.
Now in order for the mind to be united to the Supreme Being it must be withdrawn from
inferior things: and hence it is that without purity the mind cannot be applied to God.
(Secunda Secundę Partis81,8)
A mind focused on the things of earth has acclimatized itself to the inferior
reality of the material world. This is the level where it desires to remain, a level that is crude
compared with God Who is
pure spirit. Without a turning of the mind from the lesser
reality of matter to the ultimate
reality of pure spirit, there will be an impossibility
of union. For union to happen there needs to be some likeness,
some sharing of characteristics. A materially
saturated mind,
consumed with love for
food, entertainment,
and sensual pleasure, has departed so
radically from the divine likeness that it has made itself utterly incapable of union with God. Friendship
with Him has no chance to get started.
But even a mind only somewhat tainted by love
for material things,
the state of many of us who seek to serve God,
lacks the truly
perfect degree of compatibility that is necessary. For deep union with God
we must be willing, as Saint
John the Apostle tells us, to become pure "as He is pure" (1John 3:3).
Once again, the frailty of human nature in our present condition will prevent
us from reaching the level of purity
we will have in heaven. We will still have inadvertent sins. But the purity
we strive for here is nothing to take lightly. It
is no less than complete freedom from willful sins and attachments
to the things of this world which hinder the union of God
with the soul.
Detachment
A great mistake at this point would be to
imagine that material things lie at the root of the problem. Many people desiring
spiritual growth unfortunately tend to think
along these lines and end up getting nowhere spiritually
and making themselves thoroughly miserable
in the process. They mistakenly identify anything
pleasurable as the enemy and
set about denying themselves of
many things they should, with due moderation, be enjoying.
Saint Thomas and all the great saints of
the Church, simply proclaiming what is found in Sacred
Scripture, deny outright that there can be anything wrong
with the material world in itself. It was created by God,
and from Him can come nothing but goodness. And what is more, God
has made us such that we depend upon material things
for our well-being. We are part material ourselves
by God's wonderful design! We need to be
sustained by food and drink,
to have a home in which to live, to possess things useful for work, to refresh ourselves with
a hike in the mountains, and so on. We are not at all on the
right track if we think that the real
obstacles to approaching God
in intimate union
are the very things He has provided for us
to enjoy, and even made us depend upon for
our very existence.
So where is the problem? It's in our will. When Saint Thomas, in the
citation above, speaks of withdrawing from the inferior
things of this material world, he is obviously not
referring to our withdrawing from every earthly reality in a
physical sense. He is rather speaking of a withdrawal of the will from any material
thing desired for its own sake. Only God
can be desired for His own sake. Nothing
should be desired that leads away from Him.
Once we long for something in itself,
seeking it as our ultimate
goal, we turn that thing
into our god.
The principle then that the great mystics of the
Church use as a pathway for full union with
God is called detachment. Briefly put, it involves
breaking every longing that turns things into
gods. And what are the signs of such
longings? Fr Thomas Dubay, in The Fire Within, offers three helpful guides for identifying desires that have gone
astray:
 An "activity or thing is diverted from the purpose God intends for
it." This is what happens when, for example, one tells a lie. God's gift of
speech, which He intended
for such things as helpful exchange of information
or forming friendships, is twisted to one's own selfish purposes, to manipulate
another, to hide one's own failings, etc.
One carries a good thing too far. Excessive
eating, drinking,
use of entertainment, speaking, or working
are all signs that we are seeking fulfillment
in a created thing that it was not meant to provide, that can be found in God alone.
Means
are turned into ends. The goal of our lives is to be united
to God and lifted up to
heights of joy beyond our imagining. Everything else we come
across in life is a means to this end,
whether it be going out to dinner, watching a program on television, or buying some items
for the home. Not being able to directly or indirectly relate some thing or activity to
reaching our final, glorious destination is
a sign that we have given ourselves over to other gods than the one,
true God (p. 135).
A Completely Transformed Will
Saint John of the Cross is very clear that all such desires must be put away. And in this he includes
not only longings that involve mortal and venial
sin, which are obvious enough, but even those that are the least
serious of all our desires, that
constitute imperfections: selfishness that causes undue
worry, slips in
thoughtfulness, generosity,
etc. For total union with God to take place
we must be brought to a state where our will
"is so completely transformed in God’s will that it
excludes anything contrary to God’s will, and in all and through all is motivated by
the will of God." (Ascent
of Mount Carmel I, 11, 2)
The change required is indeed total, which can seem so daunting a challenge
that many are left wondering how realistic this can be for the ordinary person living in
the world. It even seems daunting for the person in religious life. But those who have
seen this way of detachment through to its glorious
end, like Saint John of the Cross and Saint
Teresa of Avila, will tell us not to be dismayed.
We are not alone in this quest for holiness.
Once we unite ourselves to
God in an active
prayer life, and seek the summit of
holiness with determination, our Good
Lord is not slow to respond. He
comes to the rescue to do for us astounding things that we could never hope to do
for ourselves (as Fr Dubay relates very clearly and extensively in the
book mentioned above.)
By way of conclusion, it should be remembered how complete detachment
from material things taught by the saints is no more that what Our
Lord is demanding of us in the Gospel when He
says, "Whoever of you does not renounce all that he has
cannot be My disciple" (Luke 14:33). This is not to say
that Our Lord necessarily expects all of us
to take on the radical poverty of
the Church's strictest
religious orders. But there will be no way we can truly speak of
ourselves as His disciples
as long as our love for
Him is compromised
with love for anything
else in this world - even love
for our lives here on earth (Luke
14:26). This is the true basis for the complete detachment that the great mystics of the Church tell us is so
necessary, without which no one will see God face to
face.
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