An excerpt from the book You Are Gods! by Father John J. Hugo. Copyright © 2020 Castle of Grace
A brief introduction to the chapter:
We are publishing Conference 16 of You Are Gods! as an introduction to Father John Hugo’s retreat. As we explain in the description of each book included on this website, the retreat constitutes the content of the four books by Fr. Hugo that Castle of Grace is publishing. The retreat was a seven-day silent Ignatian retreat first given in the 1930s by Fr. Onesimus Lacouture, S.J. Father Hugo made the retreat under Father Lacouture in 1938 and then went on to teach it regularly, mostly to the laity. The most famous promoter of the retreat was Dorothy Day, co-founder with Peter Maurin of the Catholic Worker. Miss Day first made the retreat in the early 1940s and made it several times thereafter. Father Hugo gave Fr. Lacouture full credit for the retreat and always honored him as his teacher. But because Fr. Lacouture wrote no books, Fr. Hugo took up that task.
The conference “Imitators of God” presents the case that all Catholics—and, by extension, all Christians—are called to seek holiness and be saints, something not commonly taught in the 1940s to the Catholic laity. Because of its broad perspective, this conference is an especially useful introduction for those who are not familiar with Father Hugo and the retreat.
In 1944 an imprimatur from Archbishop Francis J. Spellman was granted to Applied Christianity, which is the companion volume to You Are Gods! Applied Christianity contains summaries of the thirty conferences of the retreat; You Are Gods! contains the first sixteen conferences in their completion, exactly as Father Hugo would have given them at that time. The doctrine is the same in both books, but Father Hugo goes into greater detail in You Are Gods! and includes examples and stories to illustrate the teaching. Conference 16,“Imitators of God,” is an expansion of Chapter 9 of Applied Christianity, “The Fullness of Christian Life.”
CONFERENCE SIXTEEN
IMITATORS OF GOD: BE PERFECT
My dear Friends in Christ—
Imagine that a neighbor were to come running breathlessly to your home and tell you that a man in working clothes is out in the public street preaching a new doctrine—a doctrine strange, beautiful, elevated. Imagine further that, led by curiosity, you go out yourself and find that the report is true: you hear this man, dressed in rough garb but of noble mien, utter a teaching of unearthly beauty, in language itself of matchless loveliness. The speaker is no agitator, no malcontent, no revolutionary in the ordinary sense of the term; he is seeking nothing for himself. His doctrine is wholly unrealistic as worldly men judge, but it touches the deepest needs of the heart, stirs up an indescribable hope, and indeed arouses in his hearers old aspirations, old idealisms, that have long been slumbering or forgotten, buried probably under the thick crust of the cynicism or near-cynicism that living in the world is so prone to produce. As you listen, your heart melts and is carried away. He is speaking of love and peace among men; and tears start to your eyes as you think of what this life of ours on earth might be were such teaching followed. And then, as the thoughts of this strange speaker gather to a climax, your ears are amazed, your mind is stunned, as he says, quietly enough, without a trace of fanatical heat but nevertheless with burning sincerity and ardor, “You therefore are to be perfect even as your heavenly Father Is perfect.”
What would you think of such a man and of such a doctrine? What would you think of him back in your home when the enchantment of his eloquence is no longer heard? What would you think of him days later, when you are back in the hurly-burly of daily toil and trouble, when the charm of that unearthly eloquence seems unreal, a dream, and that sublime doctrine, too, amid these dull, prosaic daily tasks, also unreal? Surely you would think that the speaker was demented—or divine: there would seem no other possibility; these are the only alternatives. And what would your friends think when you reported the experience to them? Without doubt that the speaker you describe is demented—and yourself perhaps as well!
Now this is not imagination. It happened. You yourself were not there, but some of your fellow-men were. Jesus, of course, was the speaker. A full report of the whole occurrence has come down to us. We can at least read the report and thus relive the experience. And it is scarcely any wonder that the contemporaries of Jesus asked, “What strange doctrine is this?” And others said that He was beside Himself; and the Pharisees, that He had a devil. For all recognized that His was no ordinary speech, no human doctrine; and they could not grasp, or would not, that this was the Son of God.
The Meaning of the Doctrine
In several previous conferences there was occasion to quote these incredible words of Jesus, “You therefore are to be perfect even as your heavenly Father is perfect.” How did your mind react upon hearing them? Did they startle you? Did they make you squirm uneasily, if not in your seat, at least in your conscience? They should have! Or did they fail to pierce the armor of religious apathy which too frequently wards off the shafts of even the most important religious truths? Alas, we become accustomed to hearing and quoting the words of our Savior in a merely routine way, lazily and carelessly refusing to advert to their meaning.
But their meaning, if we would allow it to penetrate our minds, would shake up all our philosophies, would revolutionize our lives, would turn us and the world we have created for ourselves all topsy-turvy. Certainly this is true of the injunction to be perfect. Jesus is here telling us to do what, every day, we say cannot be done by men, or even expected of us: He is telling us to be perfect. He prescribes this without limitation or mitigation of any kind, and imperatively. And if His words were spoken earnestly, they were also spoken, as it appears, almost casually, with no special vehemence or any indication that He expected His hearers to be surprised at this extraordinary demand. And since we at any rate know and accept the fact that the speaker was not demented, but divine, we must conclude that His words are to be taken seriously—as seriously as when He said, “This is my body; this is the chalice of my blood.”
Jesus here reaffirms, brings into sharper relief, and states in the most challenging manner a truth which He had already stated in the fourth Beatitude when He said that we should hunger and thirst for justice, that is, make holiness the final goal of our lives. Henceforth, the end of all human life and effort can be no other thing than holiness. For the perfect man is the complete man, the whole man, the holy man. When Jesus tells us to be perfect, He is telling us to be saints. From this moment, made unforgettable by the amazing challenge of the God-Man, those who claim to be His followers, that is, Christians, will be distinguished from other men by this, that laying aside, or at least rigorously subordinating, all other ends whatsoever, they will give themselves up to a single-hearted quest for sanctity.
Jesus not only tells us that we are to strive for holiness but also describes the kind of holiness He wants us to have. Every day we hear men say things like this, “You cannot be a saint and live in the world.” Or, “God does not expect us to be saints.” Or, “People in the world cannot live as priests, or monks, or nuns.” Or, “Men cannot be like angels.” If you study the teaching of Our Lord, you will see that He does not, in truth, tell us to be as holy as Carmelites, or as saints, or even as angels. He tells us to be holy as God is holy. “Impossible!” you say. Yes, impossible to attain to the infinite degree of God’s holiness, but not impossible to possess the same kind of holiness; or better, not impossible to share in the divine holiness. And this is what we are commanded, namely, to be holy in the manner that God is holy. The ideal placed before us is not the holiness of saints and angels; it is the holiness of God. Having been raised to a share in the divine life, we are to live as divine beings, as sons of God.
There are certain attributes of God that we cannot imitate; for example, His omnipotence. There are other divine attributes, which, as we have observed in studying the Sermon on the Mount, we can imitate—His mercy, His purity, His holiness. The holiness that we are to have is nothing of our own, but a sharing in God’s; we are to be filled with this as a crystal taken from the darkness of the earth is filled and transformed by the light of the sun.
It is further manifest, from these words of Jesus, that there is only one kind of holiness in Christianity, and it is intended for all, that is, for laymen and religious alike; for housewives as well as for nuns, for men in the world as well as those in monasteries, for the members of active religious communities as well as for Carmelites, for diocesan priests as well as for Trappists, for truck drivers and carpenters, doctors and lawyers, as well as for priests. Consider the multitude to whom Jesus spoke and of whom He demanded perfection: farmers, shepherds, fishermen, publicans, housewives, children, hangers-on; the only group noticeable for their absence was the learned and professional religious class, the Scribes and Pharisees and Doctors.
Over the ages the words of Jesus are still addressed to “the multitudes.” He makes no distinction of persons. He does not even make the broad distinction between religious and laymen. This distinction came later and was made by men, namely by the great religious founders, Basil and Benedict, Augustine, Dominic, Francis, Ignatius. St. John Chrysostom remarks that Jesus knew nothing of this distinction and would have all men live as monks. Of course, religious now make three vows, thereby assuming some special obligations; but for all other things, as St. Chrysostom says, laymen and religious shall render an identical account. In other words, the basic obligations of all Christians are the same; and other than the three special obligations assumed by religious themselves, there is no instance of Jesus, when He states His doctrine saying, “But I mean this only for religious.”
If to some this doctrine sounds strange, this can only be because we have so far forgotten Christian fundamentals. After all, there is only one Christianity; “One Lord, one faith, one Baptism; one God and Father of all....” (Eph. 4, 6) Why should we then make distinctions among ourselves, as though some Christians might exempt themselves from the Gospel law without suffering spiritual harm? Or as though the sublime ideal of the Christian life was meant for a certain spiritual elite, while all the rest of mankind are doomed to wallow forever in sensuality and spiritual mediocrity!
Why do laymen fancy that theirs is an inferior Christianity, and even boast of it? Would they boast of having an inferior make of clothing? Is their religion less important than their clothing? Those who believe in Jesus, the Scriptures say, “are sons of God”; and there is no better way of describing the privilege of the Christian vocation than by this phrase. Now who is more “son of God”—a Christian layman or a priest? Who deserves this high title most—a diocesan priest, a Benedictine, a Jesuit, a Dominican, a Franciscan? Even the question is silly. We are all sons of God; we are all “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people.” (I Pet. 2, 9) No doubt there are different degrees of grace, “according to the measure of Christ's bestowal” (Eph. 4, 7); but the essential element—divine sonship and participation in the divine nature—is possessed by all; even the differences in grace depend on the mystery of God’s love rather than on our position in the world. Thomas More, a layman, was a greater saint than many Carthusians who were contemporary with him.
It is important to realize, then, that it is because we are Christians that we are “called to be saints.” (I Cor. 1, 2) It is baptism, not ordination or religious profession, which in the first instance, implants in the soul the seed of holiness and imposes the obligation of cultivating this new life. True indeed that a Carmelite must strive after sanctity; not, in the first place, however, because she is a Carmelite, but rather because she is a Christian; and her sister in the world, who is perhaps raising a family in a large city, has a similar duty. It is true that a priest should be, or seek to be, a saint; again, however, not in the first place because he is a priest, but rather because he is a Christian; and his relatives in the world, as also his parishioners, are also bound to seek for perfection.
These truths are of such fundamental importance that neglect or ignorance of them cannot but have the most mischievous results. Errors in this matter—and they are only too common—work such havoc in the Church that they must be put down as diabolically inspired. One of the most common errors comes from thinking that the duty of pursuing sanctity derives primarily from ordination or religious profession. It is entertained by both religious and laymen, causing the gravest spiritual injury to both groups and of course to the whole Church. For the layman at once concludes that he need not become holy, thinking that he does enough in fulfilling the minimum requirements of the natural law, he is prone to neglect the counsels and commands of the Gospel.
Religious, on the other hand, seeing that laymen live careless and worldly lives, although still retaining the hope of everlasting life and happiness, are led to relax their own spiritual efforts, defending their conduct by the sophism that the pursuit of perfection, however commendable, is not absolutely necessary. Thus both religious and laymen fall into tepidity and, what is worse, expose themselves to very grave danger of damnation.
We have said that the great religious founders were but men. Accordingly, they had not the authority (nor the intention) of founding new religions or of imposing on others the obligations to become holy. Hence it is wrong for religious to trace their duty in this matter to their rule. Religious founders established their orders to enable groups of men to live in the manner ordained by Jesus and thus attain the goal fixed by Him, but they did not dream of setting up a new goal or of inventing a new manner of life.
Of course, there is a difference between the lay and religious states. We are not concerned to deny or belittle that difference, but only to point out that it does not touch the essence or the characteristic end of the Christian life. What this difference is exactly will be seen from the following example. Suppose that for a long time I fail to pay a debt that I have contracted; then, upon my creditor’s making an insistent demand for what is due him, I take an oath to pay off the debt. Since I owe the money already, why take the oath? To reinforce my obligation; also to add a second obligation, from religion, to the one which I already have in justice. Still, even were I not to take an oath, justice would demand that I pay my debt.
Similarly, all Christians are bound, by the very fact that they are Christians, to seek after perfection. When one takes religious vows, therefore, he does not then contract the obligation; of becoming holy; he does but acknowledge an obligation that exists already, reinforces it, and adds a second obligation. Now he is doubly bound to seek perfection: in the first place, because he is a Christian; and in the second place, because he has entered a particular state of life which holds him permanently to the use of special means for obtaining this end. What is not to be forgotten, however, is that the primary and essential obligation comes from baptism. Because of the particular means that the religious also adopts, he binds himself to strive for the goal of Christian life in a more perfect way, the way of the counsels. He is like a daredevil who, accepting a challenge to perform some difficult feat, says: “Not only will I do, it, but I will do it in the most dangerous and difficult manner.”
What is true of religious is true also of priests. They, too, have a double obligation to seek perfection: first because they are Christians, secondly because they are priests. This holds for secular or diocesan priests as well as for priests in religious communities (although, of course, in the case of the latter, religious profession adds a third obligation).
In saying this, we come upon what is certainly the worst of all the harmful errors that are current in this important matter. For secular priests are commonly exempted by erroneous popular opinion, in which they themselves sometimes share, from the obligation of perfection. It is said that a secular priest is to live in the world and therefore cannot be governed by the same standards that rule the life of a monk. This is, of course, true within certain limits, since all are bound to strive after holiness in accordance with the duties of their particular state in life. But half-truths are dangerous when the other half is neglected; and the allowance that must be made for different duties of state does not free diocesan priests from what we have seen is the common duty of all Christians; nor from the urgent, additional need for sanctity that comes from ordination.
In the great encyclicals written by Pope Pius X and Pope Pius XI on the Catholic priesthood there is no difference made between secular and religious priests in the matter of holiness. All are urged to make the highest sanctity the primary object of their lives; and this is a duty which is represented as coming from the priesthood itself. Moreover, if the duty to seek holiness which comes from ordination is secondary and supplementary to the one which comes from baptism, it is not for that reason unimportant. If secular priests are not holy, then the whole Church suffers. For the particular function of the secular priesthood in the mystical body is to extend the kingdom of God; its work is in the front line of the apostolate. So that if secular priests do not teach men to become holy, and also show them the way, then Catholics everywhere fall into tepidity and indifference.
Thus, from whatever side we view the matter, it is clear that all children of God have the same fundamental obligation of seeking to be perfect as God is perfect. We must, as St. Paul puts it, become “imitators of God.” (Eph. 5, 1)
The Meaning of Perfection
Such is the broad teaching of the Scriptures and of Christian Tradition. To know it even thus is to possess an important truth and gain an important principle of action. Yet we may not leave it here. For one thing, our purpose is action; and effective action requires complete definiteness in the matter of objectives; you cannot make a trip until you know exactly where you are going; so that this general view of the purpose of the Christian life must be even more clearly described that we may outline for ourselves a definite procedure of action. Moreover, there are a number of difficulties which, if not resolved, tend to prevent our holding this great truth in perfect tranquility of mind.
The Nature of Perfection
There is, for example, that disturbing and persistent doubt as to whether perfection is possible; and clearing up this doubt, besides confirming our principle, will give us a clear notion of our destination.
What causes the doubt is the fact that we are prone to think of a mere human perfection, which is in truth impossible. Thus an adage says that “Even Homer nods,” to remind us that there are flaws in the character and work of the greatest geniuses in human history. If, then, we think of perfection as a human thing, if we think of it as refinement or culture, as skill in some art or knowledge of some science, then we are right in believing that in such matters neither we nor anyone else will ever achieve perfection. The limits of our powers make such perfection an impossibility.
But you must remember that Jesus is teaching a supernatural life; the perfection He desires belongs to the supernatural world. And strange as it may sound, while mere natural perfection is impossible, supernatural perfection is not. And yet, if you reflect but a moment, you will see that this is not really strange: in the supernatural world we have grace, which gives us a share in divine powers.
We have noticed in general that perfection means holiness. St. Paul helps us to understand it further when he says that charity is "”he bond of perfection.” Charity is a bond because it unites us to God; and a bond of perfection because in uniting us to Him, it brings us to our last and our final purpose in life; thus it completes us, or, in a word, perfects us. A thing is perfect, St. Thomas explains, when it fulfills the end for which it was made; a knife is perfect when it cuts readily, a pen is perfect when it writes well. Men will be perfected therefore by that which unites them to God, their last end. This can be no other thing than charity, than love. “He who abides in love, abides in God, and God in Him.” (I John 4, 16) Perfection is no other thing than love.
How easy and how joyous should this realization make our pursuit of perfection! How clearly it marks out for us what we must do to be perfect! How near and how attractive it renders the ideal of holiness or sanctity, otherwise so remote! For all these things—holiness and sanctity, as well as perfection—are identical with love. To advance in holiness means above all else to advance in love; all the other virtues will come in the wake of this advance. Day after day, if we go forward in the love of God, we near thegoal of perfection.
On the day that we shall be able to say truly what we now say unthinkingly, that we love Cod with our whole hearts, on that day we will have arrived at the summit of perfection.
St. Thomas describes further the perfection of love that is proper to us as wayfarers on earth. We cannot love with the boundless intensity with which God loves; for God is infinite and we are finite. Nor can we as yet love as the angels and saints in heaven, whose affections are engaged wholly and uninterruptedly in loving God; the necessities of bodily existence—sleeping, for example—prevent this in our case. But what we can do, says the Angelic Doctor, is to remove from our hearts whatever is opposed to the love of God or even hinders the flight of our affections to God. In a word, we grow in love, and therefore advance in perfection, by detaching ourselves from creatures. The more we do this, the more will God fill our hearts with love and unite us to Himself.
Our understanding of perfection thus not only makes our goal perfectly clear, but also gives us a definite practical procedure. The lowest degree of perfection requires that we remove from our souls whatever is incompatible with charity, namely, mortal sin; to do this we must love nothing more than God, nothing as much as God, nothing contrary to God. The highest degree is to love God with our whole hearts. Between these two terms there are an infinite number of degrees or steps of love. Every time that we remove some attachment for the creatures of this world, we advance a step in love; every time we mortify some desire or affection, even for a good thing that hinders our affections from going wholly to God, we make progress in perfection. On the contrary, to hold on to some attachment is to come to a standstill. Now we can see why St. John of the Cross teaches that to advance in perfection we must be detached from even the least things, and if we are not, we will make no progress. A soul with voluntary attachments trying to make spiritual progress is like a man who attempts to make a long and wearisome journey through sticky mud. He will make little progress and soon he will be too tired to try at all.
The Rich Young Man
An objection to the doctrine that all men are called to perfection is sometimes taken from the Gospel story of the rich young man. Jesus, asked by this young man what is necessary to enter into eternal life, replied, “Keep the commandments.” “Which?” inquired the young man. And Jesus said: “Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, honor thy father and mother, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” To this the young man answered, “All this I have kept from my youth; what is yet wanting to me?” The reply of Jesus is the occasion for the difficulty: “If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor...and come follow me.” (Matt. 19, 16-21) “If thou wilt be perfect”—From these words it is concluded that the pursuit of perfection is optional, not a strict obligation.
But the word “if” does not denote an option here; it is not a condition. It rather designates a consequence and should be understood as meaning “since.” The young man had asked how to enter into eternal life, also what was still wanting to him. Jesus’ answer therefore meant, “Since this is what you want—if you really wish to know what is wanting and how to enter life—here is the answer.”
Suppose that you are ill and send for a doctor. After examining you, he says, “If you wish to get well, here is what you must do” Why does he say “if” when he knows that you do wish to get well? Obviously he does not use it to indicate a condition or an option, but rather as a consequence: “Since you want to get well, here is what you must do.” The words of Jesus are to be understood in the same way. This is clear, not only from the context but from the other Scriptural passages where holiness and perfection are enjoined as obligatory; the other passages help to interpret this one, and this one cannot be interpreted in a manner opposed to the others. Finally, the word “if” does not occur in the answer of Jesus as reported by St. Mark and St. Luke. In these Gospels, Jesus is quoted as saying to the young man, after the latter boasted that he had kept the whole Mosaic law, “One thing is lacking to thee. . . . Sell all thou hast, and come, follow me.” Thus in pointing out the conditions necessary for eternal life He is adding a new and higher requirement to the young man’s obedience to the natural law.
Perfection a Precept
This Gospel incident brings us to another matter. When Jesus tells the young man to abandon his riches, He is giving what Catholic theology has come to call a counsel, that is a virtuous course of action recommended by the Gospels but not strictly enjoined by them as an obligation. Poverty, chastity, and obedience, which religious undertake by vow, are the three great counsels. A counsel is distinguished from a precept, which is a commandment setting forth an obligatory course of action and not merely a recommended and optional virtue. According to St. Thomas, the words of Jesus to the young man contain both a precept and a counsel: the precept is contained in the words “Follow Me,” which are an invitation to friendship and thus contain the commandment of love; the counsel is an exhortation to give up riches.
Now two questions arise. First, is the duty of tending to perfection a precept or a counsel? Secondly, what is the relation of these counsels to perfection?
To answer the first question—Is perfection a precept or a counsel?—we have only to remember that perfection means love. We ask then: Is love a precept or a counsel? And Jesus Himself answers in His reply to the lawyer who asked Him what to do to enter eternal life: “Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and first commandment.”
Perfection is a precept, not a counsel. Let this be carefully observed and pondered. The too common notion that it is a counsel, a notion that leads to spiritual relaxation, is without foundation in the Scriptures or in tradition. St. Thomas Aquinas, who poses for himself the very question that we have asked, answers that, since perfection is love, it is of precept. Furthermore, it is a basic precept, fixing an indispensable condition for salvation. For charity is necessary for salvation, and so in the same way is perfection, which is identical with charity.
There is, however, this difference between the precept of perfection and the other precepts. The others oblige us at once. For example, I am obliged at once, now, to attend Mass on Sundays, and to refrain from taking meat on Fridays. Each time I violate these precepts, deliberately and without reason, I am guilty of grave sin. On the contrary, the precept of perfection does not bind me now, as a thing to be immediately realized. This would be an impossibility. For perfection is a growth; it results from contiguous and prolonged effort. Thus perfection binds us a a goal, as an end towards which we should strive. I am not obliged to be perfect today; but I am obliged to strive today for perfection, and every day should see me a little farther along on the road to this goal, just as every step carries us a little closer to the end of a journey. Perfection obliges me as a destination I am obliged to reach; and just as a destination, while it is the last place we see, is the very reason for making the trip at all, so it is with perfection. And further, as we will never arrive at any destination unless we make whatever effort is necessary for progress along the way, so the duty of tending to perfection requires that we make daily progress in the love of God.
Perfection is not only a precept, it is the precept. Since it is love, it is the primary and essential law—“the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matt. 22, 40) Pope Pius XI, stated this law as follows:
Christ has constituted the Church holy and the source of sanctity, and all those who take her for guide and teacher must, by the divine will, tend to holiness of life—“This, is the will of God your sanctification,” says St. Paul. What kind of sanctity? The Lord Himself declared it when He said, “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Let no one think this is addressed to a select few and that others are permitted to remain in an inferior degree of virtue. The law obliges, as is clear, absolutely everyone in the world without exception.
Precepts and Counsels
Clearly, then, we cannot maintain that Christianity is divided into two parts, the one obliged only by the commandments of the natural law and of the Church, the other by a duty of perfection voluntarily assumed. No; while it is true that the letter of the counsels obliges only those who bind themselves to observe them, perfection is a fundamental obligation for all Christians. Poverty, chastity, and obedience are the counsels; perfection is a precept. The question then remains of the relationship of the counsels to the precept.
Suppose that a man dies in New York, leaving a will by which he divides his fortune between two nephews in Chicago; the only condition being that they must come and reside in New York to gain their inheritance. They go at once, but adopt different modes of travel, the one taking a train, the other going by air. This, of course, they may do, for the will fixes only their destination, leaving it to them to choose their mode of travel. So it is with us Christians on our pilgrimage through this world. The Father decrees that, to receive our inheritance as children of God, we must all arrive at one destination—the perfection of love. But He does not set any uniform rule or requirement as to how we are to reach this goal: indeed, He establishes several possible ways, one more perfect than the others, and while inviting some to take the more perfect way, He requires of all only that they take some way that is suitable.
Here then is the difference between the precept and the counsels: the precept fixes the end common to all; the counsels point out the best means of obtaining that end. No one, however, is obliged to choose the best means, but only an apt means.
In general, there are two ways of Christian life, two modes by which men may travel to perfection; the one is the way of the Christian religious, to whom we may compare the man who travels by air to gain his inheritance; the other is the way of the Christian laity, to whom we may liken the man who goes by train. The religious,by vowing to observe the three counsels, put aside at once those earthly goods which tend to attract and absorb the affections of the heart and thus hinder men from traveling to eternal life directly and swiftly. But the layman, although moving more slowly, since he remains among the things of the world, and is thereby prevented from concentrating all his energies at once on the service of God, is nevertheless led, by the precepts and the spirit of the counsels to the same goal, holiness of life, without which no one can see God.
The Degrees of Holiness
A common evasion of the duty to pursue holiness results from the fact that there are various degrees of holiness among the blessed in heaven. Jesus said that there are many mansions in His Father’s house. Careless and lukewarm Christians cite this text as an excuse for their negligence. They are not ambitious for the highest degree of glory, they say, but will be content with a lower degree.
Now while it is, of course, true that there are degrees of holiness this fact affords no ground for spiritual indolence. The degree of our holiness and glory depends not on our own choice but on the endowment of grace received from God. In a contest, say in a school, it is the teacher’s responsibility, not the pupils', to determine and award the prizes; the pupil’s part is to work as hard as possible to obtain the prize, while any relaxation on his part may end in failure. Similarly, fixing our place in heaven is God’s business, not ours; our task is to correspond with God’s grace and, no matter how hard we work, we are all sure to lag far behind His generosity. Our task is assigned to us by the first commandment, “Love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, whole mind, whole soul.” We are to love without limit; and therefore we are to pursue perfection without relaxation. Only by exerting ourselves to the utmost can we reach the degree of glory determined upon for us by God.
Moreover, if all the blessed are not equally happy and holy, all are completely holy; all are perfect. If you take a number of tumblers of various sizes and fill them with water, not all will contain equal amounts of water, but all alike will be full. So in our case also, although we receive unequal quantities of grace, which will result in different degrees of glory, we will all be filled, that is, brought to the limits of our capacities, both natural and supernatural, and in this sense we must all strive for the highest perfection, we are all bound to love God with our whole hearts. To put it differently, we are all called to be saints and all must strive unremittingly to fulfill that vocation. God will determine our place in heaven and our degree of glory.
If we fail to fulfill this duty of striving for the highest sanctity, St. Augustine tells us what the result will be: “He who says he has done enough,” this great Doctor states, “has already perished.”
This is an observation—rather, we may call it a principle—worth pondering. It is no idle threat; no exaggeration; it is solid and sober truth. And now at the end of this series of conferences, you should be able to appreciate the profound theology that is behind that brief statement. “He who says he has done enough has already perished.”
What St. Augustine means is that as soon as a soul ceases to exert itself spiritually, it sets in motion, or permits to start into motion, the forces of spiritual deterioration; and the process of deterioration, if not interrupted, will carry the soul into spiritual death. There is no standing still; one either goes forward orbackward. When a man rows upstream against a strong current, it requires much labor to make even a little progress. If he stops rowing, his boat does not stand still, but begins to drift downstream, more and more rapidly, with no effort on his part. For us to obtain salvation requires a continual struggle against our passions and human desires, which tend to carry us towards the goods of earth rather than towards those of heaven; so that as soon as we cease from exertion, we do not stand still, but our affections are carried towards earthly goods and then, gathering momentum, into sin, for sin is caused by the unrestrained love of earthly things.
To put it differently: when we stop striving for perfection, we fall into imperfection; and imperfections, we know, first stop all progress and then involve us in the law of the members, disposing us towards venial sins, while venial sins in turn dispose us towards those which are mortal. There is, quite literally, no standing still. As long as we are making progress in perfection, our small in-deliberate imperfections will cause us no lasting harm; we are then like a man who, though weak, is convalescing. But if we fall into habits of deliberate imperfection we are like one whose health, although apparently sound, is in fact being secretly undermined by an unsuspected disease. Thus it is simply true that he who says he has done enough has already perished.
Therefore, although strictly speaking, to gain salvation, it is enough to avoid mortal sin and remain in the state of grace, these considerations show us that we dare not aim deliberately at a lower degree of perfection, and least of all at the lowest degree. To be sure of reaching even the lowest degree, we must strive for the highest. To do otherwise is to release the dark forces that may cause us to miss even the lowest.
A gunner does not aim his cannon directly at his target but points it up in the air, for he knows that if he pointed it horizontally, the weight of the projectile and the force of gravity attracting it to earth would cause his aim to fall short. So we also know that it would be ruinous for us if in calculating our spiritual effort, we failed to take into account the earthward pull of our passions and desires and by aiming at the lowest degree of perfection allowed them to gather force and momentum. To be sure of attaining to the lowest degree we must aim at the highest degree.
The Rule of Moderation Not Relevant to Theological Virtues
In conclusion, it may be usefully observed that these principles give us the answer to an objection that has perhaps been teasing your minds during many of these conferences. The objection is the idea that we should be moderate, that virtue lies in the happy mean, that even in matters of religion we should be careful against going to excess.
There is indeed a sense in which we should be moderate. But we should not be mediocre. To be mediocre under pretext of being moderate is to fall into tepidity and risk damnation.
I say there is a sense in which we should be moderate. The axiom, virtue is found in the happy mean, or in moderation, applies to the moral virtues: prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and the others. In these we should be moderate. Thus we should not spend such long hours in prayer that we neglect our duty; nor should we fast so much as to injure our health. Yet it must be added that these dangers are not very common even for Christians: even among them, prayer is not the most frequent cause for neglect of duty, nor is fasting a common cause of illness or death. Most of us are in more urgent need of being warned against defects in these matters than against excess.
But we are concerned here with the theological virtues. And to these, the axiom, virtue lies in moderation, has no relevance at all. This rule simply does not apply to faith, hope and charity. We are not to believe in God or hope in Him or love Him moderately or to a certain extent only. We are to believe in Him and hope in Him and love Him without limit. In the matter of charity, therefore, to plead moderation is to fall into mediocrity. The only limit that charity must observe is our capacity to love; since we are creatures, and finite, we can love God only to the limit of our powers; and our wildest excesses of love will fall infinitely short of the love which God deserves. The measure of love comes from God, not from the rule of moderation; and since God is infinite, then St. Bernard tells us, “the measure for loving God is to love Him without measure.”
What is true of love itself is true also of its reverse or underside, the virtue of detachment. As love should be total, so detachment should, be universal. “To love,” says St. John of the Cross, “is to labor to divest oneself from affections for all that is not God.”
Where love is concerned, therefore, no excess is possible; extremism is of strict obligation; moderation is a dereliction of duty; we are to love God with our whole hearts. And since love is identical with perfection, what is true of the former, is true of the latter. We are not to be satisfied with moral correctness in our conduct, but seek after perfection; nor are we to seek half-heartedly for a lower degree of perfection but rather exert ourselves to the limit, striving for the highest degree of perfection, the totality of love. We are to be perfect, even as our heavenly Father is perfect.
Let us think upon these things. And may God bless you.
“O God, Who dost illumine this most holy night by the glory of Our Lord's resurrection: preserve in the new children of Thy family the spirit of adoption which Thou hast given; that, renewed in body and mind, they may show forth in Thy sight a pure service. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in union with the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.”
( Collect, Easter Sunday)
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