Good spirituality teachers remind us that Christianity is the encounter with a Person, Christ. And that is what spiritual life is all about: communication and closeness with Christ to get to know the Father, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit. Becoming a Christian with the same feelings of Christ’s heart is a lifelong task. In this, we are continuous walkers and learners. In this search for guidance, I came across a book by the great Garrigou-Lagrange (Knowing the Love of God: Lessons from a Spiritual Master. Saint Joseph Communications. USA. Kindle Edition, 2018). I am familiar with reading his books on philosophy and spirituality. The latter has been a pleasant discovery. It is the experienced teacher – science and life – who offers advice to get to know the face of Christ a little better. While I was reading the book, I took notes: I composed this short article with them.
The Christian God is not the Aristotelian God, the first cause of the universe, the supreme intelligence that governs creation. We would have loved him as the author of nature, with the love that exists between the inferior and the superior. Good servants, but neither friends nor children. The Christian God is Logos and Love, therefore, there is not only admiration, respect, and gratitude, but also closeness with that friendly intimacy proper to the simple familiarity of those who know themselves to be children of God. This reality of divine filiation was recalled by Benedict XVI in his encyclical Deus caritas est, highlighting the dignity to which we have been elevated with the Redemption.
Charity is the bond of perfection (Col. 3:14) and makes all our forces and actions converge towards Christ. Natural love – our author reminds us – makes us love our neighbor for the benefits we receive from him or for his good qualities. Charity, on the other hand, moves us to love our neighbor for God’s sake, because he is a child of God or is called to be one. This is why we understand the anecdote that is often told about Saint Teresa of Calcutta when one of her interviewers, upon learning of the saint’s charisma of caring for the poor of the poor, exclaimed: “I wouldn’t do what you do for all the gold in the world.” To which the saint replied: “I wouldn’t either.” To be at the level of our neighbor, we require the supernatural charity that expands the heart of the Christian.
Suffering and crosses come into our lives. A Christian is not surprised. The Lord has already warned us: “If anyone wants to follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me” (Mt. 16:24). The path is easy to walk, but we know that there are burdens. What we call the cross (by analogy with the sufferings and death of the divine Master) are the physical and moral sufferings of daily life, which arise from our relationship with our environment and from our own personal surroundings. They are the crosses that appear and call us to be the Cyreneans of the Cross of the Lord.
Suffering, pain and purification. The whys fall short. The Christian is not exempt from these trials of life, they come, they settle. It is time for purification, a new way of continuing to grow in this adventure of life. They are stages loaded with mystery and, also, with meaning. Being a living image of Christ has Tabor and Calvary. Sometimes, it is Jesus in the manger; other times, he reveals himself to us on the Cross of our own experience.
We go to the Father through the Son. Without our Lord we could have an abstract, philosophical knowledge of him; but not an affective, supernatural, living knowledge, which is what is shown to us in mental prayer. Any help? Lots. One of them is devotion to the Mother of God and our mother. “We know the vision of St. Francis of Assisi,” says Garrigou-Lagrange. “One day he saw his children trying to climb up to Our Lord on a red ladder, placed on a very steep slope; after having climbed several steps, they fell. Then Our Lord showed St. Francis another ladder, white and with a much gentler slope, at the top of which was the Blessed Virgin. Then he said to him: Recommend to your children that they climb up the ladder of my mother.” Good advice for the path of spiritual life.
