Last week, my colleague (and spiritual Backer sherpa 1) Dan Masterton wrote about the challenge of teaching teenagers about the Catholic moral life. In his piece, he described the inherent tension between holding onto concrete moral ideals, and being honest about living in a context that entices us to abandon those ideals. It was quite good; you should go read it.
Today, I’d like to pick up where he left off, but take things in a slightly different direction: what should we realistically expect of ourselves in the spiritual life?
Let’s start by defining our terms. Amazingly, there seem to be many practicing Catholics for whom spirituality is a dirty word; it carries the connotation of “faith without rules,” entrenched in false opposition with religion, which is seemingly more difficult and therefore better. This is not how I wish to use this word.
Instead, I want to talk about spirituality the way James Martin does in his book, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, which includes perhaps the best simple definition I’ve come across: “spirituality is a way of living in relationship with God.”
If spirituality is a way of living in relationship with God, then our ideal for the spiritual life is perfect union with God. If this sounds impossible, that’s because it is. Jesus even tells the disciples as much after the Rich Young Man goes away sad. Where things get interesting is in the rest of what Jesus tells them: “for God, all things are possible.”2
Elsewhere in the same gospel, the evangelist records one of Christ’s most confounding demands: “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”3 It is tempting to explain this command away as a metaphor, or a naive thought that would be really nice but isn’t possible because the world is sad and sinful, as Dan described last week.
But Jesus’ command to be perfect is not, to steal a line from C.S. Lewis, “idealistic gas.”4 It’s as relevant now as it ever has been. He really did mean what He said, and we shall indeed one day be capable of obeying that command. The hope which is integral to Christianity is not wishy-washy optimism or a head-in-the-sand mantra of “everything will be all right.” The theological virtue of hope is a specific and steadfast vision of someday becoming a perfect creature who is perfectly in union with the perfect Creator.
The problem is, we tend to want to achieve this perfection on our own – especially during Lent. It is very tempting to strive for perfection in the spiritual life in the same way I would in the classroom or the gym5: by busting my ass, working as hard as I can to be better than the person next to me. If I do this, however, Lent becomes about me – my sacrifice, my piety, my relationship with my God.
The conventional way of the western world – working harder than everyone else – doesn’t work when it comes to perfection in the spiritual life. To be sure, the process of sanctification is one of tedious repetition. But rather than pulling myself up by my own bootstraps, growth in the spiritual life is about creating space within myself. To wit: the Son of God chooses to enter the world when a woman makes room for Him. Mary can’t make herself the Mother of God, any more than I can make myself a saint.
The process of sanctification requires my permission, and my cooperation, but it is ultimately something that is done to me. This passivity shouldn’t be confused for apathy – it is indeed hard work. But this hard work is antithetical to the work I do in pursuit of perfection in other parts of my life.
It is hard to know what perfection in the spiritual life looks like. Familiarity with the Communion of Saints begins to give us some idea, but the central message of the saints on sainthood is that no two saints are alike. Each has his or her own way. There is, in the words of Michael Himes, “no absolute route to perfect holiness.” Himes writes, “no one should simply follow another person’s pattern for holiness. What one can and should do is take encouragement from others to find one’s own pattern… God has already given the world a Francis of Assisi; it does not need a second, inadequate version.”6
Last week, Dan described realism as an invitation to grace. I think another word for that invitation is humility. True humility isn’t smarmy self-deprecation, nor does it mean ignoring my own needs, or trying to make myself seem less than I really am. True humility is marked by an awareness of what is real: I am neither God, nor my neighbor; I am me, and this is good.
And this is why realism is actually an integral part of becoming holy. I have to be real about who and what I am--a sinner, but not an evil being. I must discover myself in order to discover my route to holiness. We are made holy by grace, which in the words of Anne Lamott, “meets us where we are and doesn’t leave us where it finds us.” 7 If I am to cooperate with this grace, which meets me where I am, I have to know where I am. I cannot cooperate with the grace that meets me in the midst of the mundane struggle of humanity if I do not first become aware of that mundane struggle.
Humility is being honest about where grace is most needed in my life. If I cease to be consumed by my desire to be holy on my own terms, then I can begin to welcome the love of God into my inner life, transforming me from within into someone who is capable of loving as Christ loves.
In case this is all too abstract for you, here are two (very different) concrete prayer practices that I’ve found to be ruthlessly helpful 8 in my own attempt to discard ambition and create space in my life for God.
The first is the Litany of Humility. You should definitely click on that link to read the whole thing, but the part that drills me to the core is this: “that others may become holier than I, provided I become as holy as I should: Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.” There is enough to unpack in that sentence that you could fill an entire book, but essentially it reminds me that holiness is not competitive because God is not competitive. It ought to please me to be exactly who God wants me to be, even if that isn’t what I want or winds up seeming unimportant in the eyes of the world compared to my neighbor. As one Notre Dame priest famously says in his classic southern drawl, “the eleventh commandment is thou shalt not compare.”
The other is this excerpt of an essay by Blessed John Henry Newman. Newman offers what he describes as a “short road to holiness” by observing that “if we wish to be perfect, we have nothing more to do than to perform the ordinary duties of the day well.” As a favor to his practically-minded friends, he then identifies ten simple practices that any man or woman of any age or ability is capable of doing. They include things like getting out of bed “at the time of rising,” eating and drinking to God’s glory, and examining yourself daily. These tasks are so simple that it is almost frustrating, because I have no excuse not to do them.
Realism is important in the spiritual life, not just so that we can be honest about where we most need grace, but also so we can be honest about how simple it is to begin inviting God into our inner lives, and stop making excuses about how dark and twisty the world seems. So let’s be real about it: God isn’t interested in spiritual superheroes. God wants saints.
1 Dan was two years ahead of me at Notre Dame, which means he graduated before I turned 21. His favorite bar, the Linebacker Lounge, quickly became my favorite bar after I came of age, but we didn’t get the chance to share in the glorious experience of the Backer until long after that, when his wife and I graduated.↩
4 This is from Mere Christianity, which you should definitely check out if you haven’t come across it yet. You can read the passage I’m referring to here.↩
5 Lolz @ “striving for perfection in the gym.” Not exactly a thing I’m known for.↩
6 This is from Doing the Truth In Love, which is excellent.↩
7 I don’t actually know where Lamott wrote this, but it’s one of those quotes I heard in a talk once and immediately latched onto.↩
8 When describing these to students, I often use the phrase, “it kicks my butt, in a spiritual way.” Hence, the help they provide is ruthless.↩
No comments:
Post a Comment