Levers
“Our interests and affections naturally govern our life and its activities. To succeed in the spiritual life, it is necessary for us to labor to place our affections at the service of our faith. Attachments are our great obstacle. The readiest means to overcome them is, not to turn in on ourselves to combat them directly, for sooner or later we would lose in the struggle, but to turn outward and upward and combat them indirectly by creating counter attachments, in the spiritual order. Progress will necessarily be slow for us as long as our emotions are at variance with the dictates of our faith. To make our course easier, it will be necessary to effect a union between the two. The purely spiritual, because it is such, makes little or no appeal to our sensibility. Something must be sought out between God and our soul, which may serve as a lever to lift us above the earth and bring us as it were into God’s reach. This lever must contain elements that, whilst giving free exercise to our senses, our feelings, and our imagination, still tend to carry us on to God and to bring us into relations with Him.”
The writer then shows how Church Liturgy is one such lever. Here is an excerpt: “The soul that is in sympathy with, and which enters into this liturgical life, gradually assimilates that enthusiastic love of Jesus Christ, with which the Church palpitates. In this pure and spiritual love the soul goes outside of itself, relinquishes itself, and espouses the interests of its Beloved. It makes its own the interests of Jesus Christ and those of His Church, which are identical. These interests are simply one absorbing interest, the salvation of [souls]. . . . The soul that is possessed by it finds therein the great lever by which it is lifted up above that preoccupation about self which is the chief obstacle to progress. In this selflessness it will find that quality of simplicity which Jesus so admired in children, and which He postulated as the condition of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is realized for us here on earth, in close and intimate union with God.” . . . “Lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven . . . for where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.”
~Edward Leen
The writer then shows how Church Liturgy is one such lever. Here is an excerpt: “The soul that is in sympathy with, and which enters into this liturgical life, gradually assimilates that enthusiastic love of Jesus Christ, with which the Church palpitates. In this pure and spiritual love the soul goes outside of itself, relinquishes itself, and espouses the interests of its Beloved. It makes its own the interests of Jesus Christ and those of His Church, which are identical. These interests are simply one absorbing interest, the salvation of [souls]. . . . The soul that is possessed by it finds therein the great lever by which it is lifted up above that preoccupation about self which is the chief obstacle to progress. In this selflessness it will find that quality of simplicity which Jesus so admired in children, and which He postulated as the condition of entrance into the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of heaven is realized for us here on earth, in close and intimate union with God.” . . . “Lay up to yourselves treasures in heaven . . . for where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.”
~Edward Leen
Comments