Monday, April 8, 2019

TUESDAY IN PASSION TIME: Henri de Lubac

Some said: "He is a good man"; others said: "No, he is leading the people astray." John 7:12

When we meet a saint we are not discovering at long last an ideal, lived and realized, which had already been formed within us. A saint is not the perfection of humanity—or of the superman—incarnate in a particular man. The marvel is of a different order. What we find is a new life, a new sphere of existence, with unsuspected depths—but also with a resonance hitherto unknown to us and now at last revealed. We are shown a new country, a home we had originally ignored, and as soon as we perceive it we recognize it as older and truer than anything we had known and with claims upon our heart.

No feeling of self-satisfaction invades us; we do not see our noblest image reflected in a mirror. This is not the fulfilment of our loveliest dream—or rather there is something further, which is not only more beautiful: we are simultaneously attracted and repelled, and the more we are repelled the more we are attracted. We experience an ambiguous sensation as of something at the same time very near and very far; something disturbing, troubling and at the same time obscurely desired. The feeling is a mixed one, compounded of a sense of strangeness and of supreme fulfilment beyond all desire. We are both disconcerted and ravished, and the delight we experience is never without a sense of dread. Our worldliness reacts to the threat. Our secret connivance with evil is aroused. We are on our guard. If we had begun to regard ourselves as perfect in some respect, we shall be doubly tempted to reject the provoking vista which is going to oblige us to recognize our misery and, more than that, the wretchedness of what we call perfection.

But in all this we are not left to ourselves, as spectators. It acts upon us as a provocation. It is a summons to choose and to act, unveiling our most hidden tendencies. . . . All of a sudden the universe seems different; it is the stage of a vast drama, and we, at its heart, are compelled to play our part.

If there were more saints in the world, the spiritual struggle would only be more intense. As the Kingdom of God becomes more manifest, it calls forth more fervent adherents—and, correspondingly, more violent opposition. The heightened urgency of the situation provokes tension and becomes the occasion of resounding conflicts.

For if we are more or less at peace in the world, it is simply that we are tepid.

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