Loving A Hidden God
FORTITUDE
After we discover ourselves entrapped by love of this world and far distant from developing the love of God and neighbor commanded in the scriptures, we begin to lament our condition. Because such knowledge leads us to grieve over ourselves rather than exalt ourselves but yet gives some reason for hope, we begin to turn to prayer for divine help lest we be crushed by despair. In this frame of mind we enter the fourth stage of our journey, the stage of fortitude. We begin to hunger and thirst for justice. We begin to disentangle ourselves from the death-dealing delight of ephemeral things and begin to turn to those things which are eternal, namely the unchanging unity of the triune God.
On Christian Doctrine, 2.7.10
In the previous stage of our journey towards God, our growing knowledge gave us some awareness of the true nature of the world and ourselves. Putting all this data together, we began to see the course that we had to take in life and we began to try to act on our growing awareness. But we quickly discovered that changing our way of life was not an easy task. We needed to develop the fortitude to bravely do the things we now recognized needed to be done. We began to realize that we had to
(1) give up the mundane,
(2) reach out for the eternal and
(3) begin to hunger and thirst for justice.
Our knowledge of what the world was really like gave us the realization that our continual search for life, meaning, and love could not be satisfied by the passing goods of this life. We began to recognize that we had to move beyond them, in a sense to give up the mundane. But we quickly discovered that discarding the earthy pleasures and ambitions that had previously so dominated our lives, would be a difficult task.
It was a difficult task even for Augustine. He described the turmoil of his conversion from the temporal to the eternal as follows:
My earthly desires tugged at me and whispered, "Will you then dismiss us after so many years?" I was held back by my old carnal hungers because I recoiled from freeing myself, pushing them behind me so that I could leap across the abyss to the heavenly country where you dwell, O God.
Confessions, 8.11.26
Augustine's hesitation is understandable. He had become accustomed to a life of physical pleasure and earthly success. He now felt the call to a life he had never experienced. It took great bravery for him to make such a leap into the darkness, to choose a new unknown way of living, to give up the comfort and safety of accustomed pleasures. Remembering those difficult days, he would later say:
There is great anguish when one realizes that there is the danger of losing the supreme good because of a continuing death-dealing addiction to lower goods.
Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, 1.3.10
As our knowledge of the world grows, we can come to comprehend how fragile the goods of this earth are, those goods which over the years, were the only source of our delight. Now we begin to see that they must be left behind, not necessarily rejected, but put in their place so that they are no longer the end-all and be-all of our existence. But (as Augustine observed) it is terribly hard
... to deliver oneself from the deadly delight of the transient.
On Christian Doctrine, 2.7.10
These passing things of earth have been the source of joy for a long time and great effort is needed to put them aside ...
... because whatever one has possessed for a long time with delight is not abandoned easily without great pain.
Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, 1.3.10
But the pain must be borne because for those seeking a better world ...
This world must be crucified to them and they to the world (Galatians 6.14), in order that their beginning love for other-worldly goods may not grow cold and become suffocated in a life still filled with perversity and evil.
Sermon 347, 3.
It is hard to describe what the next step in our journey entails, the "turning in love to the eternal". We seem to be challenged to give our love to a person whom we have never seen, to dedicate ourselves to an ideal we have yet to experience. After we have gone through the stage of knowledge we may through faith come to believe that there is indeed a supreme being somewhere "out there". We may even possess some information about "what this God is like".
But it is hard to get passionate about someone who has not yet been experienced. It is like trying to love a human love that you have never known. You may be convinced that the "great love of your life" is out there somewhere but it is unlikely that you will change your life radically to embrace a dream. It takes great faith and hope to love the unknown. And that is what we are asked to do because at this fourth stage in our ascent to God, a converting vision of God is still far, far away.
This "turning to love of the eternal" certainly does not consist in a mystical vision or a complete dedication to contemplation and a life for virtue. These great goods are goals which are not present at the beginning of our turn towards the eternal. Perhaps the "turning" begins only with a "thirst for a better world" in which justice is more common. In the previous stage of knowledge we have come to realize that there is an ideal world, a world dominated not simply by justice but even by love. We see that the world is not like that. It is not a world where justice triumphs. Rather it is a world in which (as Augustine sadly observes):
In our court system generally the acquitted are no better than the condemned.
Commentary on Psalm 9, 9
Seeing the temptation towards injustice around us and in us, we begin to desire something better.
We now know (through the life and teachings of Jesus) what a "better world" should look like, and we begin to try to act to bring about such a world. It is a modest and tentative movement into a world of "eternal things", "eternal values" but at least it is a beginning. Since the vision of God seems so far away, we content ourselves with leading a better life, whatever that might mean.
In our search for the "better life" for ourselves, that vocation which will lead us to the wisdom and the vision of God, we find that bravery is needed even in trying to come to a decision.
First, we need the bravery to look honestly at oneself to identify our true strengths and true weaknesses. To some extent the abilities we have can point to the way of life we should choose. We can overcome some of our deficiencies, but others are just there almost as part of our nature. Thus, some are drawn to an academic life; others are born mechanics. Some seem to be very qualified to live in an intimate marital union; others would make miserable spouses.
Second, we need the bravery to admit that we are in the wrong sort of life and then we need the bravery not persevere in it. It is difficult to make such a radical step on our own. Thus, the young Augustine knew for many years that he had to be converted from his old life to something new, but his familiar pleasures held him back. It was only because God finally gave him the grace of conversion that he was able to turn his back on his desire for earthly success and carnal pleasure. (Confessions 8.12.30)
Third, we need the bravery to persevere in a life which is probably the right one but which is beginning to be a burden. We may be suddenly overcome by a feeling that our life up to this point has been useless. We have been spinning wheels on a car mired in mud. We say to ourselves:
There must be something better in life than this! There must be another way of life that is easier, more fruitful, more meaningful, more important in the eyes of God and man.
Such dejection is not unusual when we want everything to be perfect but are forced to live in an imperfect world. However, it neglects two important truths about every human life. First, there are no greener pastures. Every sort of life will have its own problems. Second, if we have lived a particular vocation for a long time without disaster, it is most likely the place where we are meant to be. The tasks we now find so boring or frustrating are probably the best "fit" for our abilities.
Certainly our pilgrimage towards heaven will never always be easy. As long as our earthly life lasts, the wisdom that we seek, the vision and love of the hidden God, will continue to be mostly hidden in the mist of our daily interests and, even when glimpsed, the intense spiritual life required for progress will be difficult to maintain. Thus, it is important that in the midst of our struggle we begin to pray. Such prayer is a brave deed in the continuing darkness of our life, but in the very act there is a growing belief that there is indeed an infinite someone out there, and a growing hope that this hidden God will hear the prayer and reveal himself at least a little bit more. In that prayer the continuing struggle to find our way and purify our life becomes a bit less burdensome, and indeed carries with it its own sort of delight. (Letter 171)
With the help of our prayers, we may then come to truly thirst for "higher things", things that extend beyond time. We may begin to understand that the way to such things is through observance of the two rules Jesus Christ gave to the human race:
Love God above all,
and love your neighbor as yourself.
We begin to understand that these rules are not simply commands of charity. They are also demands of justice, proclaiming the correct order in the universe which must be observed if we are to give "everyone their due". To treat God as superior and other humans as equal is not simply an act of love (whereby we sometimes give to other human beings things they do not really deserve). To love God and neighbor is first and foremost a command of justice: giving to others what is in fact owed them. Our love is not an undeserved gift; it is a payment of a debt demanded by the order of the universe.
Seeing the actual injustice in the world, we we begin to hunger and thirst to bring about such just love in ourselves and in the world around us. But to continue working with unfulfilled hunger and thirst (with the likelihood that they will never be fulfilled in this life) demands additional bravery. It obvious upon reflection that things are not always as they should be. Thus, the next step of our journey must be to deal with the mystery of evil in a world created by a good God.