Recently
a number of people have been following a Foundation Course bearing
the name: “Ensuring Steady Growth” in spiritual life. The
following thoughts summarise the reason for the need of such
teaching. These thoughts will lead to a better understanding of a
very important passage written by St Teresa of Avila, to be found at
the end of this article.
The
First Formation in Spiritual Life
Those
who received the First Formation in Spiritual Life, received tools
for growth and will have started implementing them:
Taking
on board
Jesus
and Mary,
Practising
on
a daily basis Lectio Divina, Prayer of the Heart, the Theological
Acts,
Learning
how to respond to
ups
and downs, temptation
And
most of all learning how
to remain faithful to
the
Holy Spirit and to respond constantly to to His Action.
Two
aspects of this process, however, remain imperfectly understood:
First
a necessary stage has to be reached: the Union of Will. It is a
victory, a liberation, a stability, a short moment of rest, a break,
an enjoyment. This first stage is within hand's reach but it is
necessary to focus in order to take this big step. It is a veritable
Crossing of the Red Sea.
Secondly
that there are conditions to fulfil in order to reach “Union of
Will”. Hence the word “ensuring” in the title. It is necessary
to ensure that this will happen in their lives.
Because
of this two-fold “ignorance” people can go round in circles, with
ups and downs, but never cross over. We may compare it to a situation
of the People of God in Egypt: they began gathering at a distance
from the Egyptians, outside of the main cities, but they continued to
do some work for them - they were not allowed to have total freedom.
They remained physically in Egypt, under the rule of Pharaoh, even if
they chose a piece of land beyond the cities.
Explanation
When
the human being starts his journey, implementing the tools mentioned
above, he can be compared to a pregnant woman with twins: the old man
and the new man. Of course the twins constitute a different life, and
are not equal in size and influence: the Old Man is almost full-sized
with strength and influence, while the New Man in us is very tiny,
vulnerable. The Lord compares this to the smallest seed in a field.
The person is not aware that there are two challenges in Christian
life, not one: opting for Jesus Christ as our Saviour and
Guide/Master, and allowing the new man in us to grow in order to lead
us on our path as followers of Jesus Christ. It is true, then, that
the goal of life has changed and has become “Jesus” - this as a
result of its conversion. But it is nonetheless equally true that the
means to follow Jesus should change as well. We have in us a real
battle for real supremacy between the Old Man way of functioning and
the New Man way of functioning. For the time being, even if Jesus is
the Master and Guide, de facto, one is rather led - unconsciously -
by the Old Man’s way of doing things. Our love of neighbour is full
of imperfections, led by our sensitivity/emotions/taste/personal
choices, our lack of real humility.Not having that virile capacity to
put Jesus’ Truth in us above everything in us, we are still
attached to various ties, especially blood-related ties, and we are
concerned about our health, thinking that a too committed ascetic
Spiritual Life (fasting, making sacrifices, training our body,
praying,...) could damage our health. As yet the spirit of the world,
our flesh and the devil have a share in our way of functioning.
Under
these conditions, having a divided heart, not working to perfection
on the essential evangelical virtues, real progress is jeopardised!
The result is that too much effort is required, and there are too
many leakages, ups and downs, of going round in circles.... We can
safely say that the heart of the human being is divided, and that he
epitomises the third soil of the Parable of the Sower: the good seed
has been sown, it has really started to grow, striving to reach the
maturity that will allow it to bear fruits, but sadly the soil bears
another seed - attention to the world, with heart and emotions
divided.
St
Teresa of Avila
There
is a well-known Saint who went through this very difficult situation
of not being able to commit totally to Jesus: St Teresa of Avila. She
remained in this troubled sea for almost twenty years with its ups
and downs, receiving graces from the Lord, but not being able to keep
them safe, and especially prone to a divided heart through which
these graces seeped. It was, in her own words, a very hard situation,
because on the one hand we have a person attracted to others, seeking
their affection and support, while on the other hand she meets the
Lord who wants from her all her heart, not a mere part of it. Facing
the Lord in prayer with this attitude, certainly becomes an ordeal.
Jesus wants all our attention, all our emotions: he wants us to love
him with all our heart and not just a part of it (the upper one) the
other part being given to human beings.
It
becomes then a necessity to study the conversion of St Teresa of
Avila, at the age of thirty-nine, and to deepen our understanding of
a-
how rich in humanity her heart was
b-
how it was divided
c-
what constituted the elements that contributed to her conversion
(studying her conversion),
d-
how in fact all these elements structured her whole life.
The
following is a very important passage of St Teresa of Avila where she
speaks about the Union of Will with the Lord. Very few things have
had to be adapted to the modern reader by putting them between
squared parenthesis:
“But
note very carefully [dear friends] that the silkworm [the Old
Man]
has of necessity to die; and it is this which will cost you most; for
death comes more easily when one can see oneself living a new life,
whereas our duty now is to continue living this present life, and yet
to kill it ourselves ["it" alludes to "the life of the
silkworm", the Pauline old
man].
I confess to you that we shall find this much harder, but it is of
the greatest value and the reward will be greater too if you gain
the victory.
But you must not
doubt
the
possibility of this true
union with the will of God
[Union
of Will].
This
is the union which I have desired all my life; it is for this that I
continually beseech Our Lord; it is this which is the most genuine
and the safest.
But
alas that so few of us are destined to attain it!
A
person who takes care not to offend the Lord and has [decided to
start the Journey of Spiritual Life] may think he has done
everything. But oh, there are always a few little worms which do not
reveal themselves until, like the worm which gnawed through Jonas's
ivy [Jonas 4:6-7] they have gnawed through our virtues. Such are
self-love, self-esteem, censoriousness (even if only in small things)
concerning our neighbours, lack of charity towards them, and failure
to love them as we love ourselves. For, although late in the day we
may fulfil our obligations and so commit no sin, we are far from
attaining
a point necessary to complete union with the will of God.”
[St Teresa of Avila, The
Interior Castle,
5th
Mansions,
Chapter 3]
As
we see, in this quote from St Teresa of Avila, she lays considerable
stress on the fact that committing to spiritual life (in her case it
is included in Religious Life) is not enough. One has to be aware of
the worms that undermine steady growth. Indeed, she emphatically
declares that the old man has to die, and even more so she underlines
the necessity of a first important victory: reaching Union of Will.
This passage is a hymn to the Union of Will and its importance in
Christian Life.
These
words of St Teresa of Avila are also a warning given to all the
Church, and this warning should be taken seriously, because it comes
from a Saint who is also a Doctor of the Church. A Saint who was sent
to us at a time in the life of the Church where Reform was needed and
showed us the way to true Reformation. It is simply not enough to
commit to Spiritual Life, it has to bear the conditions of real
steady growth in order to reach Union of Will with the Lord. Deep
analysis of St Teresa helps us to avoid pitfalls as we proceed along
the way.
Many
are called, many engage in Spiritual Life, but how many succeed in
reaching this first stage of Spiritual Life? And we are not talking
about Spiritual Marriage....
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