Real Transformation

Her [Edith Stein's] contemplative practice led to her firm belief in the traditional Christian doctrine of deification. If we are not being transformed along the way, she was convinced, then all our preaching and service is in vain. She was careful to point out the difference between "leading the self-satisfied existence of the 'good Catholic' who 'does his duty,' ' reads the right newspaper,' and 'votes correctly' -- and then does just as he pleases" and becoming a new man in Christ. The beginning of real transformation precipitates a difficult but lifesaving crisis: "If, up to now, a person has been more or less contented with himself, the time for that is over. He will do what he can to change the unpleasant things he finds in himself, but he will discover quite a bit that can't be called beautiful and yet will be nearly impossible to change. As a result he will slowly become small and humble, increasingly patient and tolerant toward the specks in his brothers' eyes."

By Way of Grace: Moving from Faithfulness to Holiness
by Paula Huston

This really hits the mark for me in terms of forcing our dependence of God and also being able to see ourselves for who we really are.

Undeserved Love

Undeserved love also brings with it the possibility of being shamed. From the great chasm that lies between what we are and what those who love us think we are rises up a fruitful and challenging embarrassment, especially when it is they who glimpse our true calling long before we ourselves can see it. The German philosopher Nicolai Hartmann says that someone who is loved this way is "pushed beyond himself." In this sense, love becomes a clarion call to transformation -- the transformation of human nature made possible through the sacrifice of Christ.

This aspect of love -- that it urges us to be better than we are, to grow into what God intended us to be -- explains how the person who loves us most can also be our best critic. It is because he or she wants our life to be truly good. Thus, the true lover forgives rather than excuses our human failings. The distinction is an important one. In excusing, he pretends that something bad did not happen after all. In forgiving, he affirms that it did indeed happen and that he hopes and prays we will come to recognize this fact and repent.

By Way of Grace: Moving from Faithfulness to Holiness
by Paula Huston

I never thought of that concept before ... that someone who is undeservedly loved is pushed beyond himself. But that is exactly what God does with us. Fascinating ... and humbling.

Faith is Hard

Only then did I discover the truth: religious faith is not comforting, as atheists so often accuse, but hard. Hence, its status as a virtue. In order to keep it, we must nourish it and protect it; otherwise it will be blown away by the changing winds of fashion. More, we must never forget that this virtue is a theological one, which means that it comes through grace. Sometimes keeping faith means nothing more than clinging with the desperate need of a trusting child.

By Way of Grace: Moving from Faithfulness to Holiness
by Paula Huston

Amen to that! I never had characterized it to myself in that way until reading this passage. I was raised with the understanding that religious believers were clinging to false hope because they couldn't take real life, they needed the easy answers. On the other side of the equation, as it were, I know that living one's faith is a challenge that never ends ... luckily it is an interesting, exciting ride ... even when one is not having the best of times it is never boring.

Resting in God

"In meditating," he [St. Francis de Sales] says, "we as it were count the divine perfections which we find in a mystery, but in contemplating, we sum up their total." The contemplative gaze is a holistic one, and one steeped in love. We are in the presence of God, and like human lovers who "are content, sometimes, with being near or within sight of the person they love without speaking to her, and without even distinctly thinking of her," we simply rest in God's nearness.

This contemplative repose is easily disrupted if we become overly aware of ourselves, a special temptation in modern times. People who "voluntarily forsake [the state of contemplative repose] to note their own behaviour within, and to examine whether they are really in content, disquieting themselves to discern whether their tranquility is really tranquil, and their quietude quiet," soon become distracted.

Rather than maintaining their focus on God, they "employ their understanding in reasoning upon the feelings they have; as a bride who should keep her attention on her wedding ring without looking upon the bridegroom who gave it to her. There is a great difference ... between being occupied with God who gives us the contentment, and being busied with the contentment which God gives us." We must stop studying our emotional reactions as though we were involved in a scientific experiment if we are ever to meet God as he is. Though honest self-awareness is critically important to the spiritual life, contemplation only happens when we learn to set aside self-study in order to lose ourselves in God.

By Way of Grace: Moving from Faithfulness to Holiness
by Paula Huston

I agree that this is quite a challenge in modern times where, as a people, we tend to analyze everything up to and including ourselves. However, it is a part of "letting go" in general to just push those inclinations aside when it comes to prayer.

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall ...

Funk says, "The practice of humility is to be neither too high nor too low" in this self-estimation. If we see ourselves as more important than we really are, we are guilty of vainglory; if we see ourselves, who have been created in the image of God, as utterly worthless, we are guilty of dejection. The trick is to gaze in the mirror and name with is truly there. In a sense, we are to look at ourselves contemplatively, for as Aquinas reminds us, "Contemplation refers to the actual, simple, looking at the truth." Humility allows us to see ourselves clearly and realistically so that we are not tricked into either self-inflation or self-hatred.

Only when we are humble can we safely follow out our natural urge toward excellence. The two--humility and excellence--are in a sense joined. "Nothing lights the way to a proper understanding of humility more tellingly than this: humility and high-mindedness not only are not mutually exclusive, but actually are neighbors and akin." High-mindedness or excellence is "the striving of the mind toward great things." (Pieper, Four Cardinal Virtues) My urge to be the best I could be was not inherently wrong or sinful--quite the contrary. God made us for himself, and buried deep within this natural longing of ours for higher, better things is thelonging for God. Our striving for great things can be easily derailed by vainglory or even pride, however, if humility--our estimation of ourselves according to truth--is not there to safeguard us.

By Way of Grace: Moving from Faithfulness to Holiness
by Paula Huston

I like that definition of humility: our estimation of ourselves according to truth. I have seen similar comments before but what opened this one up a little further for me was adding "striving for excellence" into the equation. It is only natural to want to be the best we can be ... as long as we have it balanced by a healthy sense of humility and remember that we are doing all in order to glorify God and not ourselves.

Not Seeing God

... these experiences of darkness had opened me up to a new way of seeing -- or, more accurately, not seeing God. Benedictine prioress Mary Margaret Funk writes about the three traditional renunciations required of monks: "First, we must renounce our former way of life and move closer to our heart's desire, toward the interior life. Second, we must do the inner work (of asceticism) by renouncing our mindless thoughts ... Third, and finally, we must renounce our own images of God so that we can enter into contemplation of God as God." In other words, we must give up our natural human longing to understand what is beyond our capacity to do so. If we do not, we risk worshiping an idol.

By Way of Grace: Moving from Faithfulness to Holiness
by Paula Huston

This idea of renouncing our own ideas of God is one that stays with me. We try to understand things, to puzzle out where they fit, how they work, what they look like (even if only in our mental landscape). That is how we are made, of course, part of our essence to think like that.

But God is beyond our comprehension. After reading St. Theresa of Avila's thoughts about the soul's beauty in The Interior Castle, our book club discussion centered a lot on how we don't know our soul's intrinsic beauty and so we ignore it in ignorance. That is why we must work so hard to clear the way to see things and especially our souls clearly.

Thinking of the above quote, which is also similar to something that St. Theresa says in the book, we basically came to the same conclusion as Paula Huston. We will let God show us what of Himself that He will. Our job lies elsewhere.

Tags: Catholicism, Christianity