True Development (Part 1 of 2)

(Found here)

“Now, this is the underlying principle of our Lord’s teaching. He begins His teaching with the Beatitudes. In these He lays down the great laws of the life of holiness. They are given, not like the old law, in the form of prohibitions — ‘Thou shalt not’ — but in the form of blessings. It is not ‘Cursed are the fornicators and adulterers’ but ‘Blessed are the pure in heart.’

This may seem but another way of stating the same truth but we shall see that it is not; it is the expression of a great principle. The new law does not merely forbid men to do what is positively wrong; it begins a step higher than that; it takes us into that loftier region in which we are to be set free from the mere curb of prohibitions by living under the blessings of active obedience.

The old law forbade positive impurity: ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery.’ The new law turns away from the sin and directs the soul to God: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.’ In that vision of God to which this beatitude points the soul, there is no need to warn against such sin; the soul is freed from it; it is striving after that which makes it impossible.

Again, the old law said, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness,’ and those who live in its spirit may strive very hard not to slander others. The new law begins on a higher level: it bids men aim at that which makes slander impossible: ‘Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.’ It says: Do not be content with being in the world negatively, doing no harm to others; try positively to do good, to make peace, and this as a child of God.

The old law forbade covetousness and stealing; the new turns the whole bent of the soul in another direction; away from the things of earth to the things of heaven: ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’

One might keep the letter of the eighth and tenth commandments all one’s life and never attain to the spirit of the first beatitude. No one could strive after the spirit of this beatitude without being set free, more than free, from all that these commandments prohibit.

Living under the principle of the law of prohibitions, one might obey the letter and never develop a character enlarged and enriched by positive and active goodness. One might, as it were, stand on the borderland between right and wrong, not doing positive wrong, and that is all, keeping his nature under bit and bridle from breaking away into a life of sin, ever conscious of a power of evil within that is ready to assert itself if the rein is loosened.

Under the principle of the new law, such a state of things is impossible: the soul is not content with restraints; it has passed into the region of its true development; it has been shown, not what it is not to do, but what it is to do; and the line of its development is in direct opposition to that in which its danger lies.”

~Basil Maturin (from Spiritual Guidelines for Souls Seeking God)