John Arintero - The Mystical Evolution In the Development and Vitality of the Church: Volume 2

THE MYSTICAL EVOLUTION
IN THE
DEVELOPMENT AND VITALITY
OF THE CHURCH

BY

THE VERY REVEREND JOHN G. ARINTERO, O.P., S.T.M.

Translated by

FR. JORDAN AUMANN, O.P.

Dominican House of Studies

River Forest, Illinois

VOLUME TWO

NIHIL OBSTAT

Fr. Leonardus Callahan, O.P.

Fr. Guillelmus Curran, O.P.

IMPRIMI POTEST

Fr. Edwardus Leo Hughes, O.P.

Prior Provicialis

Chicago, Ill., Dec. 29, 1949

NIHIL OBSTAT

Wm. Fischer, S.T.D.

Censor Librorum

IMPRIMATUR

Joseph E. Ritter

Archiepiscopus

Sti. Ludovici, die 28 Maii, 1951

Copyright 1951 by B. Herder Book Co.

Copyright 1978 by Tan Books and Publishers, Inc.

Originally published in English by B. Herder Book Co.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 78-62254

ISBN: The Set 0-89555-071-7. Volume I 0-89555-072-5

Volume II 0-89555-073-3

TAN Books

Charlotte, North Carolina

www.TANBooks.com

1978

Contents

PART TWO

THE MYSTICAL EVOLUTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL

CHAPTER I

General Process of Renewal and Deification

W E have seen what constitutes the divine life of grace which our Lord Jesus Christ brought us from heaven. We have seen the loftiest operations of this life and the various means of increasing it in each member of the Savior and in the whole mystical body of His Church.

We now come to study, as far as is possible, the marvelous history of the deification of the individual, or rather, the process of the growth of the divine germ of grace in each Christian soul. If we know the amplitude of grace, we shall be able to augment it as we ought, endeavoring with all our strength ultimately to remove the obstacles which impede it or render its working difficult and taking care that in critical periods we do not fail through carelessness or weakness. Continually growing in charity, we shall be able to contribute efficaciously to the formation of the mystical body as a whole.

Now that we know the gift of God, we are obliged to desire Him wholeheartedly and to beg incessantly that it be given to us to drink of the mysterious living water

We must, then, study the process of development of the precious seed of divine grace and see what careful attention it requires in each particular instance. We must learn how to prepare and cultivate the field of our heart wherein this seed is sown. We must root out every kind of evil weed so that it will not suffocate the good plant of grace and we must cultivate it carefully so that it will grow prosperously.

SPIRITUAL RENEWAL AND MORTIFICATION

The entire process of the supernatural life consists in ridding ourselves of the old man with all his acts and clothing ourselves with the new. The old man in us is nature vitiated by the sin of Adam and the countless defects which it has accumulated, leaving it so misshapen, so prone to evil, so assailed by wicked propensities, that it feels itself incapable of fulfilling even the natural law. The new man in us is nature regenerated, rectified, enriched, and reanimated by the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Our spiritual progress consists in acquiring the most perfect purity of heart and the most complete submission and docility to the motions and influxes of the Holy Ghost which prompt and inspire us with the sentiments of our Savior and impress His divine image on us. If we do not resist Him by our indocility, nor choke and impede His action by the impurity of our worldly desires, He will renew the face of our earth and will transform us from glory to glory.

The ideal of the Christian, then, is to dispossess himself of self in order to reproduce the living image of the new man; to act in all things as a true son of God, living and working according to His Spirit and following His motion and direction without the least

But to arrive at this true and glorious liberty of the sons of God, it is necessary to break the heavy chains of the evil inclinations which enslave us, to root out all vices and sinful habits, and to tame and restrain completely our rebellious and disordered passions. We must watch over the most hidden movements and sentiments of our hearts, rectify all that is crooked, resist all suggestions of evil, and smother the concupiscence of self-love, so that we shall have no other desires or interests than those of Jesus Christ.

From this we can understand how great and laborious must be our preparation for the way of the Lord which leads to a most loving union with God and the perfect manifestation of His life within us.

He is purity itself and sanctity by His essence; He is absolute honesty and simplicity. But as for us, "from the sole of the foot unto the top of the head, there is no soundness therein."

However light many of those acts may seem, when considered as having accumulated their effects for thousands of years, we can understand how true it is that there is nothing healthy in us. Disorderly tendencies have been rooted in the very depths of our being and there is not in our whole organism the smallest sensitive or motor element which is not in some way contaminated. Moreover, the vices of the body extend beyond the body itself and are felt in the very potencies of the soul, if, indeed, they are not already rooted in those potencies, as happens in the case of voluntary faults.

It is necessary to exercise extreme violence in order to purify, simplify, and sanctify our entire being and to renew and direct that complicated maze according to the simple divine norms by which the senses and appetites are subject to reason and this, in turn, to the divine Spirit so that our union with God is perfect. Only in this way can our being be rectified, corrected, and brought back to its normal status, to a position where it can be enriched and transformed.

This mortification is not a killing, but a healing; a rectification and a renewal. If our nature were completely healthy and well balanced, it would spontaneously submit to the superior norm which ennobles it, just as all the physical energies in a perfect organism are subjected to the plan of life: organic life to sensitive life, and this latter to rational life. But when there is an imperfection of any kind, the inferior powers readily become insubordinate and instead of the relative autonomy which they enjoy, they tend to absolute sovereignty and even tyranny. Therefore it is necessary to keep these lower powers in subjection so that they will observe right order.

The rationalists, although they call themselves reformed Christians, do not understand the privation and violence done to nature, for they live in a dream world of pure naturalism. As a result, they seek always to justify human nature as if it possessed the same integrity now as it did when it first came forth from the hand of God. But if they would even slightly examine human nature as we now possess it, they would find in it innumerable disorderly and uncontrolled tendencies which are more animal than human. They would then learn the necessity of self-violence if a man is to live not only as a Christian but even as a true man.

If these unlawful tendencies were subjected to reason, then reason itself, which is made to feel its weakness, deficiency, and irregularity in many things, would, for its own good, cease to aspire to a chimerical and destructive independence and would joyfully accept the infallible norms of the supreme Reason. As it approached to God and became more and more enlightened, it would discover in itself thousands of other imperfections and impurities of which it was not aware formerly. It would realize that, short of absolute sanctity, no creature is sufficiently pure. It would see the necessity for God to purify reason with the fire of His power and to fortify it with the strength of His Spirit of renewal. Therefore nature as it is in itself, cannot be canonized.