Saturday, January 23, 2010
1:05 AM
...and suffer the loss of his own soul?
While to shirk the call of Love may not doom a life, the act does greatly inhibit a soul's capacity for happiness, which is simultaneously, her capacity to fulfill herself. To be unhappy is to have a grudge against something, against some part of reality. Non-being cannot make a soul unhappy. Though deprivation may trouble her a moment, it cannot make her miserable as deprivation in of itself proves that what she needs does exist somewhere.
No morbidly depressed soul can enter the Kingdom of God, because to do so, she must love its Lord. To love its Lord, would be to love reality, for He is Being Itself, Essens, not a particular essentia. Knowing myself as well as I do, and knowing how wretchedly guilty I have been of wretchedness, I can only beat my breast and beg God to give me the Love which will move my gaze outside of my little self to the one who justifies my existence. It is so difficult to participate in His life to the full at this time, though. I have not heard my calling; my earthly vocation is still a mystery.
I do expect my vocation to fulfill my happiness, but not necessarily in the pleasant sense. Happiness is not a reaction to pleasurable, interesting, or charming things. Otherwise we would never see smiles on the face of children fighting cancer, religious working amongst the poor, or married Catholics forced into celibacy by their spouses' abandoning them. Happiness is an exercise in finding traces of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. If we never move beyond the infant, passive happiness, that which is aroused in us by nice things, then we shall be forever stunted in our capacity for joy, and our contment will be the most vulnerable possession we have in this world.
Riches, fame, beauty...all these passing things are inferior to the interior peace and joy that arises from falling God's calling unto Himself. It is not only because these possessions may be snatched by the Fates' fickle hands at a moment's notice, but because they are like tasteless paste spoonfed to a babe, rather than the succulent, nourishing food that require effort on the part of the eater. True happiness--following one's vocation--requires such active, spiritual effort.
We don't often see many examples of this. Some people sneer at the religious and marital vocations as the 'routine' or normal thing to do for someone who cannot excel in a rigorous profession or much admired career (not to say that married and religious people have not excelled in such spheres, but even so, these spheres were/should have been secondary to their vocations). The world admires the talented and ambitious that do not allow themselves to be pinned down by other committments, and it is usually horrified when such persons choose the 'same' route that any obscure villager might have taken.
Already, headlines reading: 'so weird you can't make it up' (http://www.faniq.com/article/Oakland-As-prospect-Grant-Desme-leaving-team-to-become-a-priest-1962246) are popping up. Some accompanied with grotesque comments and petty jibes, these articles concern the decison of Grant Desme to leave a budding career in baseball (the game and pastime honoured very highly in his country) for priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church:
I'm doing well in baseball. But I had to get down to the bottom of things, to what was good in my life, what I wanted to do with my life. Baseball is a good thing, but that felt selfish of me when I felt that God was calling me more. It took awhile to trust that and open up to it and aim full steam toward him ... I love the game, but I'm going to aspire to higher things. (http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/A-s-prospect-leaving-baseball-for-call-of-the-pr?urn=mlb,215238)
It's so beautiful, so good, and it is so true! So much so that, yes, one could not have made this up.
No morbidly depressed soul can enter the Kingdom of God, because to do so, she must love its Lord. To love its Lord, would be to love reality, for He is Being Itself, Essens, not a particular essentia. Knowing myself as well as I do, and knowing how wretchedly guilty I have been of wretchedness, I can only beat my breast and beg God to give me the Love which will move my gaze outside of my little self to the one who justifies my existence. It is so difficult to participate in His life to the full at this time, though. I have not heard my calling; my earthly vocation is still a mystery.
I do expect my vocation to fulfill my happiness, but not necessarily in the pleasant sense. Happiness is not a reaction to pleasurable, interesting, or charming things. Otherwise we would never see smiles on the face of children fighting cancer, religious working amongst the poor, or married Catholics forced into celibacy by their spouses' abandoning them. Happiness is an exercise in finding traces of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. If we never move beyond the infant, passive happiness, that which is aroused in us by nice things, then we shall be forever stunted in our capacity for joy, and our contment will be the most vulnerable possession we have in this world.
Riches, fame, beauty...all these passing things are inferior to the interior peace and joy that arises from falling God's calling unto Himself. It is not only because these possessions may be snatched by the Fates' fickle hands at a moment's notice, but because they are like tasteless paste spoonfed to a babe, rather than the succulent, nourishing food that require effort on the part of the eater. True happiness--following one's vocation--requires such active, spiritual effort.
We don't often see many examples of this. Some people sneer at the religious and marital vocations as the 'routine' or normal thing to do for someone who cannot excel in a rigorous profession or much admired career (not to say that married and religious people have not excelled in such spheres, but even so, these spheres were/should have been secondary to their vocations). The world admires the talented and ambitious that do not allow themselves to be pinned down by other committments, and it is usually horrified when such persons choose the 'same' route that any obscure villager might have taken.
Already, headlines reading: 'so weird you can't make it up' (http://www.faniq.com/article/Oakland-As-prospect-Grant-Desme-leaving-team-to-become-a-priest-1962246) are popping up. Some accompanied with grotesque comments and petty jibes, these articles concern the decison of Grant Desme to leave a budding career in baseball (the game and pastime honoured very highly in his country) for priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church:
I'm doing well in baseball. But I had to get down to the bottom of things, to what was good in my life, what I wanted to do with my life. Baseball is a good thing, but that felt selfish of me when I felt that God was calling me more. It took awhile to trust that and open up to it and aim full steam toward him ... I love the game, but I'm going to aspire to higher things. (http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/A-s-prospect-leaving-baseball-for-call-of-the-pr?urn=mlb,215238)
It's so beautiful, so good, and it is so true! So much so that, yes, one could not have made this up.
Labels:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
- Jacobitess
- Warsaw, Poland
- Domine, spero quia mundum vicisti. Lord, I trust that Thou hast overcome the world. Panie, ufam, żeś pokonał świat.
0 comments:
Post a Comment