Peter Kreeft - How to be holy : first steps in becoming a saint : a festooning of Abandonment to Divine Providence

HOW TO BE HOLY

Peter Kreeft

First Steps in Becoming a Saint

A Festooning of
Abandonment to Divine Providence

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations (except those within citations) have been taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, Second Catholic Edition, 2006. The Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible: the Old Testament, 1952, 2006; the Apocrypha, 1957, 2006; the New Testament, 1946, 2006; the Catholic Edition of the Old Testament, incorporating the Apocrypha, 1966, 2006; the Catholic Edition of the New Testament, 1965, 2006 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Excerpts from Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre De Caussade, translation 1975 by John Beevers. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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2016 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco
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ISBN 978-1-62164-102-5 (PB)
ISBN 978-1-68149-692-4 (EB)
Library of Congress Control Number 2015953761
Printed in the United States of America

The cover of this book is a joke. Youre going to read How to Be Holy by whom? Mother Teresa? Saint John Paul II? Saint Francis of Assisi? No, by Peter Kreeft. Thats like reading How to Be Honest by Pinocchio.

If you want to know how to be a sailor, do you read a book by a sailor or by a landlubber? If you want to know how to be an astronaut, do you read a book by a successful astronaut or by a wannabe astronaut? So if you want to read a book about how to be a saint, do you read a book by a saint or by an absent-minded philosophy professor?

If you choose the second, I have a time share in Florida that Id like to sell you.

So why read this book?

I have ten answers.

Reason No. 1

One is that my very failure to practice what I preach is what you need if you, like me, are a beginner. In my own field, philosophy, I know that experts are often the last people to trust. Brilliant philosophers are often quite insane. Genius and insanity are often closely connected. But the saints are not insane; in fact, they are the only truly sane people in the world because they are living in reality, in real reality, in ultimate reality, in Gods reality. Despite what the Supreme Court says, it is the Supreme Being, not the Supreme Court, who invents and defines reality.

Even when the experts are not insane, they are sometimes not the best people for beginners to learn from at first. This is true in almost any field. Beginners in chess are usually better taught at first by other beginners than by grandmasters. For when the teachers are beginners, the teachers and students are together; they experience the same failures. This book is not a great chef serving up a gourmet dinner; it is one desperately poor bum telling another where theres free food.

Reason No. 2

My second answer is that this is all I have to give you. But even a little answer to a great question is more precious than a great answer to a little question. For instance, a small change of diet or exercise that gives you a little more health and alertness and longevity is more important than a complete and perfect repair of your bathroom. The merit of this book is in the topic more than in my treatment of it. How to be holy, how to be a saint, is the most important topic I have ever written about. Its the whole meaning of life, the one thing necessary. So even if I can help only one person become a little holier, thats more important than helping a million people become a lot more successful at anything else. Because nothing else is eternal. You cant take it with you applies to everything except yourself.

Reason No. 3

Third, and most important of all, the wisdom in this book is not from me. Its from God and His saints. I just pass it on.

In this field, I am only a translator, not an original author. I am not any kind of expert. The only experts in this field are the saints. And Im about as close to being a saint as I am to being a salamander.

Reason No. 4

So you should read this book if you are a rank beginner because thats who I wrote it for. Thats why its so simple. I wrote this kind of book once beforean extended nonscholarly commentary on another very simple spiritual classic, Brother Lawrences The Practice of the Presence of God , which I called Prayer for Beginners . I chose these books to comment on because they were both simple. They are great little books for beginners.

I also wrote a much longer and more detailed book, Practical Theology: Spiritual Direction from Saint Thomas Aquinas (How Your Mind Can Make You Holy) , because Aquinas helped me a lot, not just intellectually, in my thinking, because he was a great philosopher and theologian, but also practically, in my walk with God, because he was a great saint; and I wanted to share with you the help I got from him. This book is about the same thing and written with the same motive, but its short and simple and makes only one point instead of 350 of them, as the book on Aquinas did.

Reason No. 5

That brings up another reason for reading it: because its a short book (both de Caussades and mine), and short books are the most powerful, as lean meat is the most nourishing.

Reason No. 6

One of the reasons its simple is because, like de Caussade and most of the saints, it sits light on methods.

For, after all, what is a method but a technology, that is, a repeatable, impersonal, and objective technique for causing some desired change through the least personal effort, like pressing a key or flipping a switch. Technology makes some part of life easier. But sanctity is not a part of life; its the meaning and end of life; and it does not make life easier , only more unified and more joyful.

For sanctity is love, and love never makes life easier, only more unified and joyful. There is no technique for sanctity because there is no technique for love and sanctity is love.

But thats the whole point of life. The whole meaning of life is love: to love and let yourself be loved by God and your neighbor. Deep down, everybody knows that. The more important the question, the more certain and universal our knowledge of the answer is. And since thats the most important of all questions, thats the answer we all know with the most certainty, deep down.

And because love is the whole meaning of life, thats why in the evening of our life we will be judged on our love (Saint John of the Cross).

Love of course (and we all know this deep down, too, even though we often suppress it and rationalize its denial) is essentially not a feeling but a willing. Thats why we are responsible for it: because it is in our power, as feelings are not. Feelings come to us, love comes from us. Feelings happen to us, we happen to love. Feelings do us, we do love.

Of course, feelings are good and natural allies of willing. Good feelings motivate good willings, and bad feelings motivate bad willings. Good feelings also follow good willings, and bad feelings (guilt, anger, resentment, impotence, fear, self-hatred) follow bad willings. Thats why God gave us feelings: as motivators and as rewards (and punishments).

Reason No. 7

The simplicity of this book makes it universal. Its for everyone, no matter what their religion, because its about the simple center and essence of all authentic religion.

Whenever I write the word God, Christians will think of Jesus Christ. They will interpret all references to God as references to the One Jesus called His (and our) Father.