Christian State of Life PDF
Preview Christian State of Life
The Christian State of Life ADRIENNE VON SPEYR The Christian State Of Life Edited by Hans Urs von Balthasar TRANSLATED BY SISTER MARY PRANCES MCCARTHY IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO Title of the German original: Christlicher Stand © 1956 Johannes Verlag Einsiedeln, Switzerland Cover by Victoria Hoke Lane With ecclesiastical approval © 1986 Ignatius Press, San Francisco All rights reserved ISBN 0-89870-044-2 Library of Congress catalogue number 85-081512 Printed in the United States of America Contents I Preparation The Lord’s Choice The Choice of One Called by God The Choice Made by Others II The Choice The Channels of Choice The Characteristics of the Choice The Effects of the Call The Safeguards of the Choice After the Choice III Implementing the Choice In Act In Being In Further Development IV Life in One’s Chosen State In One’s New Life In the Chosen State In One’s Surroundings In the Church V Difficulties Difficulties with Regard to Understanding and Being Understood Difficulties with Regard to Vitality and Fidelity Difficulties with Regard to Faith, Hope and Love VI Consequences For One Making a Choice For One’s Surroundings For the Church The Choice Not Made VII Vocation in the Gospel VIII The Vocation of the Lord IX The Vocation of the Apostles X The Vocation of the Successors of the Apostles XI The Vocation of the Saints Notes I Preparation The Lord’s Choice Children who live in Christian surroundings usually adapt themselves imperceptibly and without much ado to the forms of Christian life. Not until later in life do they discover the inner content of these forms. While the child is still young, while the words are still strange and the sentences meaningless to him, his mother begins to pray simple prayers with him. At some point, the child begins to ask questions about what he is doing. He begins to understand. Prayer is no longer just something he does with his mother; slowly but surely it comes to be a conversation with God. The form reveals the meaning that lies beneath it. Or it can happen, at Sunday school or elsewhere, that the child encounters expressions he does not understand, and his mother explains their meaning to him. When this happens, the child proceeds from the content of a prayer to its form. If the child’s religious instruction is a good one, the face of the Lord shines forth more and more clearly from the form and content of every prayer. The child understands that he has been enrolled in a service that is required of all Christians and that was first offered to the Father by Jesus Christ. All the child’s previous experiences direct his attention to the Lord: prayer, visits to church, the attitude of those praying around him, conversations with adults, everything that takes place in a religious atmosphere. Perhaps the angels played an important role in his childhood experience: he has been told that he has a guardian angel and that the other children have one, too. But angels are servants of the Lord. Or he has become aware of evil and has been told that evil caused the Lord’s death. The things he learns—to join his hands in prayer, to genuflect, to be quiet in church—are things he must do to please the Lord. Eventually he forms a mental picture of the Lord and understands that the Lord did everything to please his Father. The Lord’s words and deeds, his attitude of obedience, his death on the Cross—all these were acts of service to the Father. The Son’s whole life can be summarized in one word: choice. He chose to serve the Father. At such a moment, the child may perhaps comprehend that everything in his life thus far that has had to do with God is meaningful only in relation to the Son’s choice. What he has hitherto regarded merely as custom, ceremony or inclination will henceforth determine the course his life will take, just as the Lord’s choice determined the course of his life. The Son fulfills a mission; he lives for the sake of the task assigned to him. But he does nothing for himself. On the contrary, he does everything with and for the Father. Everything leads back to the divine unity from which the Son proceeds and from which he was never separated during his life on earth. It may be that the child will begin now to ponder in his soul the possibility of entering the Lord’s service. The Son did not make his choice so that he could travel a way reserved for him alone. By the very act of traveling it, he opened to persons of faith the possibility of making the same choice. Is it possible that my life, too, is being directed along this way? School, recreation, conversations at home and with friends, plans for the future, present inclinations and disinclinations: could all these things be brought into a unity that is related to the Lord’s choice? It is not necessary to call the individual elements into question but only to bring them into order. None of them need be lost, but each of them must be given an ultimate meaning. The Choice of One Called by God Does such a possibility exist? How does it make itself known? Perhaps the child is still too young to envision a practicable path. Or perhaps he has a vague intimation of the way he is to go, but the concept is clouded by the weaknesses and uncertainties of youth. Perhaps he does not himself quite believe that it can be realized; or, if he does believe it, if he seriously regards himself as one with a choice to make, he does not see how he can make it. He is still too immature to make a choice that will affect his whole future. Perhaps the most he can do is leave the matter open, steadfastly refrain from making any choice at this time, decide nothing in haste. In this way, his life becomes a kind of study—not of himself but of what is being offered him. He tries to deepen the experiences he has already had, to study the interrelationships of things around him, until he truly understands them and can assimilate and order them. In doing so he becomes more and more aware that there is no such thing as chance, that what seems to have been offered him by chance is actually full of meaning and that this meaning is not an isolated one, not a passing phenomenon, but a part of that interrelationship of phenomena whose total meaning is not yet apparent to man, although it exists in God. The proper choice for one who has not yet reached maturity is to hold himself in readiness for the choice that is still hidden in God. That is not to say that he may not have a distinct preference for certain subjects or kinds of work. But he will never regard the things he pursues and loves and desires for himself as final choices. He will know that they are parts of a whole that rests in God. Yet this fact will not prevent him from devoting himself wholeheartedly to the tasks that He before him. On the contrary, he will surrender himself wholly to the work that is clearly presented to him in the here- and-now. He may take pleasure in it, but he must not regard it as an ultimate choice. His devotion must have the potential of reaching beyond its present horizon, and it must somehow suggest the existence of this greater potentiality in the background of the limited object to which it is presently referred. It is not important that he cannot picture to himself this wider horizon. It need not—and does not—matter that everything is provisional. He knows that he is still growing toward maturity and must undergo a constant and rapid succession of new experiences, in the process relinquishing the narrower concepts of childhood. What he is doing now will not receive its final, conclusive meaning until later in any case. While he is growing, his principal concern must be to remain free—that is, to be always at God’s disposal. For this reason, he will avoid whatever can limit him spiritually, whatever seems to be without purpose, whatever does not in some way open him and lead him to the Lord. The Choice Made by Others When a young person experiences again and again, particularly in prayer, that the Lord has a plan for him, and when he perceives this experience as an admonition to hold himself in readiness for whatever the Lord may ask him to do, he becomes more and more aware of the distance that separates him from the Lord. The choice lies with the Lord; it does not yet lie in the young person’s soul. At some point, there arises in him a certainty that he will someday have the strength to make a definitive choice. But such an action requires time and reflection. He begins to approach the matter by observing the people around him.
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