The Church And The Catholic
by Romano Guardini

3. THE WAY TO BECOME HUMAN

WE propose to consider the meaning of the Church. I have

already attempted to sketch it in general outline. For the

individual the Church is the living presupposition of his

personal perfection. She is the way to personality.[1] Before,

however, we go into details, allow me to make a preliminary

observation. When I tried to explain the Church's

significance for individual personality, objections,

perhaps, came into your minds. Your inner glance saw many

defects confronting it. Your thoughts traveled back to many

personal disillusionments, and therefore you possibly felt

that what I said was untrue. You thought that what I said

was indeed true of the ideal, of a spiritual church, but

that the actual Church is not, and does not accomplish, what

I was maintaining. I owe you an answer to this objection.

Those who could speak of the meaning of the Church must also

speak of her defects. Even the Church cannot escape the

tragedy inherent in all things human, which arises from the

fact that infinite values are bound up with what is human

and consequently imperfect. Truth is bound up with human

understanding and teaching; the ideal of perfection with its

human presentation; the law and form of the community with

their human realization; grace, and even God Himself--

remember the Sacrifice of the Mass--bound up with actions

performed by men. The Infinitely Perfect blends with the

finite and imperfect. This, if we dare say it, is the

tragedy of the Eternal Himself, for He must submit Himself

to all this if He is to enter the sphere of humanity. And it

is the tragedy of man, for he is obliged to accept these

human defects, if he would attain the Eternal. All this is

as applicable to the Church, as to every institution that

exists among human beings. But in her case it has an

additional poignancy.

For the highest values are here involved. There is a

hierarchy of values, and the higher the value in question,

the more painfully will this tragic factor be felt. Here,

however, we are concerned with Holiness, with God's Grace

and truth, with God Himself. And we are concerned with man's

destiny which depends on this Divine Reality--the salvation

of his soul. That the State should be well ordered is, of

course, of great importance, and so is a well-constructed

system of the natural sciences; but in the last resort we

can dispense with both. But the values bound up with the

Church are as indispensable on the spiritual plane as food

in the physical order. Life itself depends upon them. My

salvation depends upon God; and I cannot dispense with that.

If, however, these supreme values, and consequently the

salvation of my soul, are thus intimately bound up with

human defects, it will affect me very differently from, for

instance, the wrecking of a sound political constitution

through party selfishness.

But there is a further consideration. Religion stands in a

unique relation to life. When we look more closely, we see

that it is itself life; indeed, it is fundamentally nothing

but that abundant life bestowed by God. Its effect,

therefore, is to arouse all vital forces and manifestations.

As the sun makes plants spring up, so religion awakens life.

Within its sphere everything, whether good or bad, is at the

highest tension. Goodness is glorified, but evil

intensified, if the will does not overcome it. The love of

power is oppressive in every sphere, but in the religious

most of all. Avarice is always destructive, but when it is

found in conjunction with religious values or in a religious

context, its effect is peculiarly disastrous. And when

sensuality invades religion, it becomes more stifling than

anywhere else. If all this is true, the human tragedy is

intensified in religion, since any shortcoming is here a

heavier burden and more painfully felt.

Yet a further point. In other human institutions the

realization of spiritual values is less rigid. They leave

men free to accept or refuse a particular embodiment. The

value represented by a well-ordered political system, for

instance, is indeed bound up with particular concrete

states. But every man is free to abandon any given state and

to attach himself to another, whenever he has serious

grounds for taking the step. In the Church, however, we must

acknowledge not simply the religious value in the abstract,

nor the mere fact that it is closely knit with the human

element, but that it is bound up with this, and only this

particular historic community. The concrete Church, as the

embodiment of the religious value. demands our allegiance.

And even so, we have not said enough. The truth of

Christianity does not consist of abstract tenets and values,

which are "attached to the Church." The Truth on which my

salvation depends is a Fact, a concrete reality. Christ and

the Church are that truth. He said: "I am the truth." The

Church, however, is His Body But if the Church is herself

Christ, mystically living on; herself the concrete life of

truth and the fullness of salvation wrought by the God-man;

and if the values of salvation cannot be detached from her

and sought elsewhere, but are once and for all embodied in

her as an historical reality, the tragedy will be

correspondingly painful, that this dispenser of salvation is

so intimately conjoined with human shortcomings.

Therefore, just because the Church is concerned with the

supreme values, with the salvation of the soul, because

religion focuses the forces of life and thus fosters

everything human, both good and bad, because we are here

confronted with an historical reality which as such binds us

and claims our allegiance, the tragedy of the Church is so

intense. So intense is it that we can understand that

profound sadness which broods over great spirits. It is the

"tristezza cosi perenne," which is never dispelled on earth,

for its source is never dry. Indeed, the purer the soul, the

clearer its vision, and the greater its love for the Church,

the more profound will that sorrow be.

This tragedy is an integral part of the Church's nature,

rooted in her very essence, because "the Church" means that

God has entered human history; that Christ, in His nature,

power and truth, continues to live in her with a mystical

life. It will cease only in Heaven, when the Church militant

has become the Church glorified. And even there? What are we

to say of the fact that a particular man who should have

become a saint and who could have attained the full

possession of God, has not done so? And who will dare to say

that he has fully realized all he might have been? We are

confronted here by one of those ultimate enigmas before

which human thought is impotent. Nothing remains but to turn

to a Power which is bound by no limits, and whose creative

might "calleth those things that are not, as those that

are"--the Divine Love. Perhaps the tragedy of mankind will

prove the opportunity for that love to effect an

inconceivable victory in which all human shortcomings will

be swallowed up. It has already made it possible for us to

call Adam's fault "blessed." That the love of God exceeds

all bounds and surpasses all justice is the substance of our

Christian hope. But for this very reason what we have

already said remains true.

To be a Catholic, however, is to accept the Church as he is,

together with her tragedy. For the Catholic Christian this

acceptance follows from his fundamental assent to the whole

of reality. He cannot withdraw into the sphere of pure

ideas, feelings, and personal experience. Then, indeed, no

"compromises" would be any longer required. But the real

world would be left to itself, that is, far from God. He may

have to bear the reproach that he has fettered the pure

Christianity of the Gospel in human power and secular

organization, that he has turned it into a legal religion on

the Roman model, a religion of earthly ambitions, has

lowered its loftiest standards addressed to a spiritual

elite to the capacity of the average man, or however the

same charge may be expressed. In fact he has simply been

faithful to the stern duty imposed by the real world. He has

preferred to renounce a beautiful romanticism of ideals,

noble principles and beautiful experiences rather than

forget the purpose of Christ--to win reality, with all that

the word implies, for the Kingdom of God.

Paradoxical as it may seem, imperfection belongs to the very

essence of the Church on earth, the Church as an historical

fact. And we may not appeal from the visible Church to the

ideal of the Church. We may certainly measure her actual

state by what she should become, and may do our best to

remove her imperfections. The priest is indeed bound to this

task by his ordination, the layman by Confirmation. But we

must always accept the real Church as she actually is, place

ourselves within her, and make her our starting point.

This, of course, presupposes that we have the courage to

endure a state of permanent dissatisfaction. The more deeply

a man realizes what God is, the loftier his vision of Christ

and His Kingdom, the more keenly will he suffer from the

imperfection of the Church. That is the profound sorrow

which lives in the souls of all great Christians, beneath

all the joyousness of a child of God. But the Catholic must

not shirk it. There is no place for a Church of aesthetes,

an artificial construction of philosophers, or congregation

of the millennium. The Church man needs is a church of human

beings; divine, certainly, but including everything that

goes to make up humanity, Spirit and flesh, indeed earth.

For "the Word was made Flesh," and the Church is simply

Christ, living on, as the content and form of the society He

founded. We have, however, the promise that the wheat will

never be choked by the tares.

Christ lives on in the Church, but Christ Crucified. One

might almost venture to suggest that the defects of the

Church are His Cross. The entire Being of the mystical

Christ--His truth, His holiness, His grace, and His adorable

person--are nailed to them, as once His physical Body to the

wood of the Cross. And he who will have Christ, must take

His Cross as well. We cannot separate Him from it.

I have already pointed out that we shall only have the right

attitude towards the Church's imperfections when we grasp

their purpose. It is perhaps this--they are permitted to

crucify our faith, so that we may sincerely seek God and our

salvation, not ourselves. And that is the reason why they

are present in every age. There are those indeed who tell us

that the Early Church was ideal. Read the sixth chapter of

the Acts of the Apostles. Our Lord had scarcely ascended to

Heaven when dissension broke out in the primitive community.

And why? The converts from paganism thought that the Jewish

Christians received a larger share than they in the

distribution of food and money. This surely was a shocking

state of affairs? In the community through which the floods

of the Spirit still flowed from the Pentecostal outpouring?

But everything recorded in Holy Scripture is recorded for a

purpose. What should we become if human frailties actually

disappeared from the Church? We should probably become

proud, selfish and arrogant; aesthetes and reformers of the

world. Our belief would no longer spring from the only right

motives, to find God and secure eternal happiness for our

souls. Instead, we should be Catholics to build up a

culture, to enjoy a sublime spirituality, to lead a life

full of intellectual beauty. The defects of the Church make

any such thing impossible. They are the Cross. They purify

our faith.

Moreover, such an attitude is at bottom the only

constructive type of criticism, because it is based on

affirmation. The man who desires to improve a human being

must begin by appreciating him. This preliminary

acknowledgment will arouse all his capacities of good and

their operation will transform his faults from within.

Negative criticism, on the contrary, is content to point out

defects. It thus of necessity becomes unjust and puts the

person blamed on the defensive. His self-respect and

justifiable self-defense ally themselves with his faults and

throw their mantle over them. If, however, we begin by

accepting the man as a whole and emphasize the good in him,

all his capacities of goodness, called forth by love, will

be aroused and he will endeavor to become worthy of our

approval. The seed has been sown, and a living growth begun

which cannot be stayed.

We must, therefore, love the Church as she is. Only so do we

truly love her. He alone genuinely loves his friend who

loves him as he is, even when he condemns his faults and

tries to reform them. In the same way we must accept the

Church as she is, and maintain this attitude in everyday

life. To be sure we must not let our vision of her failings

become obscured, least of all by the artificial enthusiasm

aroused by public meetings or newspaper articles. But we

must always see through and beyond these defects her

essential nature. We must be convinced of her

indestructibility and at the same time resolved to do

everything that lies in our power, each in his own way and

to the extent of his responsibility, to bring her closer to

her ideal. This is the Catholic attitude towards the Church.

My introduction has been lengthy. But it was important; so

important indeed that I believe that what follows will seem

true to you, only in proportion to your agreement with what

has been said hitherto.

We saw in the last lecture that the problem we have to face

is not the alternative "the Church or the individual?" It

concerns rather the relation between these two realities. In

theory our aim must be a harmony between the two in which of

course the precedence of the Church is fully safeguarded.

But the intellectual and spiritual current of a period

always flows in a particular direction. Harmonious syntheses

are achieved only in brief periods of transition between two

different epochs, for example when an age whose outlook is

extremely objective and in which the social sense is

powerfully developed is yielding to an epoch of

individualism. Soon, however, one tendency predominates, and

moreover, that which is Opposite to the former. The Catholic

attitude does not preclude the emphasis being laid on one

aspect, otherwise it would be condemned to a monotonous

uniformity and would deprive man of history. It demands only

that the other aspect shall not be rejected, and coherence

with the whole be preserved. That is to say, a particular

aspect brought into prominence by the historical situation

is emphasized, but is at the same time brought into a vital

and organic relationship with the whole. A door is left open

to the particular disposition of the historical present, but

it is attached to the whole, which always in a sense

transcends history. This whole is less actual, but in return

it partakes of eternity. It is less progressive, but instead

wise, and in the depths is alone in accordance with reality.

Our age is in process of passing from the individualistic

and subjective to the social and objective. A stronger

emphasis will therefore be laid on the Church. And these

lectures will do the same. They will inquire how individual

personality, by surrender to the Church, becomes what it

should be. My lecture to-day will show how the Church is the

way to individual personality. And I shall proceed from the

fact that the Church is the spiritual locality where the

individual finds himself face to face with the Absolute; the

power that effects and maintains this confrontation.

Let us try to realize how deeply we are sunk in relativism,

that is, the attitude of mind which either denies an

Absolute altogether, or at any rate tries to restrict it

within the narrowest limits.

We have lived through the collapse of an edifice which we

expected to endure for an incalculable period of time, the

collapse of the political structure of our country and its

power, of the social and economic order existing hitherto,

and with it of much besides. We can watch the social sense

changing. And our mental attitude towards objects and life

in general is equally changing. These changes go too deep to

be dismissed with a few words. Artistic vision has changed;

the expressionism, which had gradually become familiar, is

already yielding, and the desire is springing up for a new

classicism. A scientific and philosophical view of the

universe is forming, which strives to attain a loftier and a

freer understanding of objects in accordance with their

essential nature.

Faced with these profound changes we become rather more

acutely conscious of what in truth is always happening--that

the attitude of the soul towards itself, its environment,

and the first principles of being, is continually shifting.

The forms of human life, economic, social, technical,

artistic and intellectual, are seen to be in a state of

steady, if slight, transformation.

We live in a perpetual flux. As long as this flux is not too

clearly perceived, as long as a naive conviction ensures a

strong underlying reserve of vitality, or deeply-rooted

religious beliefs balance the increase of knowledge, life

can endure it.

But in periods of transition, and when centuries of

criticism have worn away all fixed belief, the flux forces

itself on the mind with an evidence from which there is no

escape. The condition ensues which ten years ago was

universally predominant, and is still widespread to-day; a

sense of transitoriness and limitation takes possession of

the soul. It realizes with horror how all things are in

flux, are passing away. Nothing any longer stands firm.

Everything can be viewed from a thousand different angles.

What had seemed secure disintegrates, on closer inspection,

into a series of probabilities. To every thing produced

there are many possible alternatives. Every institution

might equally well have been ordered otherwise. Every

valuation is only provisional.

Man thus becomes uncertain and vacillating. His judgments

are no longer steady, his valuations unhesitating. He is no

longer capable of action based on firm conviction and

certain of its aim. He is at the mercy of the fashions

prevalent in his surroundings, the fluctuations of public

opinion, and his own moods. He no longer possesses any

dignity. His life drifts. He lacks everything which we mean

by character. Such a man is no longer capable of conquest.

He cannot overcome error by truth, evil and weakness by

moral strength, the stupidity and inconstancy of the masses

by great ideas and responsible leadership, or the flux of

time by works born of the determination to embody the

eternal values.

But this spiritual and intellectual poverty is accompanied

by a colossal pride. Man is morbidly uncertain and morbidly

arrogant. The nations are confused by pride, parties are

blinded by self-seeking, and rich and poor alike are the

prey of an ignoble greed. Every social class deifies itself.

Art, science, technology--every separate department of life

considers itself the sum and substance of reality. There is

despairing weakness, hopeless instability, a melancholy

consciousness of being at the mercy of a blind irrational

force--and side by side with these a pride, as horrible as

it is absurd, of money, knowledge, power, and ability.

Impotence and pride, helplessness and arrogance, weakness

and violence--do you realize how by the continued action of

these vices true humanity has been lost? We are witnessing a

caricature of humanity. In what then does humanity in the

deepest sense of the term consist? To be truly human is to

be conscious of human weakness, but confident that it can be

overcome. It is to be humble, but assured. It is to realize

man's transience, but aspire to the eternal. It is to be a

prisoner of time, but a freeman of eternity. It is to be

aware of one's powers, of one's limitations, but to be

resolved to accomplish deeds of everlasting worth.

What is a complete humanity? When neither of these two

essential aspects is obscured, but each is asserted and

developed; when they neither destroy each other nor drive

each other to extremes, but blend in an evident unity

replete with inner tension yet firm, imperiled, yet assured,

limited, yet bound on an infinite voyage, this is a complete

humanity, And a man is human in so far as he lives,

consciously, willingly, and with a cheerful promptitude as a

finite being in the midst of time, change, and the countless

shapes of life--but at the same time strives to overcome all

this flux and limitation in the eternity, and infinity,

which transfigure them. A man is human in so far as he truly

and humbly combines these two essential aspects. Herein lies

the inexpressible charm of all things human--a mystery

pregnant with pain and strength, desire and confident hope.

Well then--the Church is always confronting man with the

Reality which creates in him the right attitude of mind:

namely, the Absolute.

She confronts him with the Unconditioned. In that encounter

he realizes that he himself is dependent at every point, but

there awakens in him the yearning for a life free from the

countless dependencies of life on earth, an existence

inwardly full. She confronts him with the Eternal, he

realizes that he is transitory, but destined to life without

end. She confronts him with Infinity, and he realizes that

he is limited to the very depths of his being, but that the

Infinite alone can satisfy him.

The Church continually arouses in him that tension which

constitutes the very foundation of his nature: the tension

between being and the desire to be, between actuality and a

task to be accomplished. And she resolves it for him by the

mystery of his likeness to God and of God's love, which

bestows of its fullness that which totally surpasses the

nature. He is not God, but a creature, yet he is God's image

and therefore capable of apprehending and possessing God.

"Capax Dei," as St. Augustine says, able to grasp and hold

the Absolute. And God Himself is love. He has made the

creature in His own image. It is His will that this

resemblance should be perfected by obedience, discipline,

and union with Himself. He has redeemed man, and by grace

has given him a new birth and made him god-like. But all

this means that God has made man for His living kingdom.

But observe this encounter with the Absolute, in which man

faces the Infinite and sees clearly what he is, and what It

is; but which at the same time awakens the longing for this

Absolute Godhead and the confident expectation of its

fulfillment by His love--this fundamental experience of

Christianity, truth, humility, yearning love, and confident

hope in one, is the moment in which for the first time in

the spiritual sense man becomes truly human.

This transformation of a creature into man in the presence

of the Absolute is the work of the Church.

She accomplishes it in various ways. In the first place,

through her very existence, through that character which

Jesus compared to a rock, the living self-revelation of the

eternal God in her.

But in particular there are three essential expressions of

the Absolute in the Church--her dogma, her moral and social

system, and her liturgy.

The thought of modern man is relativist. He sees that

historical fact is at every point conditioned by something

other than itself, and everything, therefore, appears

subject to change. Experimental research has made him

extremely cautious, and he is wary of drawing conclusions.

He has become accustomed to critical thinking, and does not

readily venture beyond hypotheses and qualified statements.

Statistics have taught him conscientious regard for

exactitude, and he is apt to demand of any conclusion a

complete experimental proof which is unattainable. He has

thus become uncertain and hesitant where truth is concerned.

At this point the Church comforts him with dogma. We shall

not discuss its detailed content. We are solely concerned

with the fact that we are here presented with and apprehend

truths unconditionally valid, independently of changing

historical conditions, the accuracy of experimental

research, and the scruples of methodical criticism. Nor

shall we consider the factor of Catholic doctrine which is

itself temporally conditioned and therefore changeable. We

are dealing only with its unchangeable content, with dogma

in the strict sense. He who approaches dogma in the attitude

of faith will find in it the Absolute. He thus comes to

realize how extremely unreliable is his own knowledge. But

he is confronted by Truth divinely guaranteed and

unconditional. If he honestly assents to it, he becomes

"human."

He has a correct valuation of himself. His judgments are

clear, free and humble. But at the same time he is aware

that there is an Absolute, and that it confronts him here

and now in its plenitude. By his faith he receives the

Absolute into his soul. Humility and confidence, sincerity

and trust unite to constitute the fundamental disposition of

a thought adequate with the nature of things. Henceforward

the unconditional organizes the believer's thought and his

entire spiritual life. Man is aware of something, which is

absolutely fixed. This becomes the axis upon which his

entire mental world turns, a solid core of truth which gives

consistency and order to his entire experience. For it

becomes the instinctive measure of all his thinking even in

the secular sphere, the point of departure for all his

intellectual activity. Order is established in his inner

life. Those distinctions are grasped without which no

intellectual life is possible--the distinction between

certainty and uncertainty, truth and error, the great and

the petty. The soul becomes calm and joyful, able to

acknowledge its limitations yet strive after infinity, to

see its dependence, yet overcome it.

This is what is meant by becoming human.

Moral purpose is relative; ideals of perfection, standards

of goodness, and codes of individual and of social behavior

are fluctuating and unstable. Effort is thus crippled, and

the will, powerless when important decisions must be made,

will in compensation give a free rein to arbitrary impulse

in some particular sphere.

The Church confronts man with a world of absolute values, an

essential pattern of unconditional perfection, an order of

life whose features bear the stamp of truth. It is the

Person of Christ. It is the structure of values and

standards which He personified and taught, and which lives

on in the moral and hierarchical order of the Church.

The effect thus produced is the same, as before, though now

in the field of valuations and moral judgment, in the life

of practice and production; man is confronted with what is

unconditionally valid. He faces and acknowledges his own

essential limitation. But at the same time he sees that he

can attach his finite life at every point to God's Infinite

Life, and fill it with an unlimited content. He there finds

rest. He rejoices in the fact that he is a creature, and

still more that he is called to be a "partaker of the Divine

Nature." His inner life becomes real, concentrated around a

fixed center, supported by eternal laws. His goal becomes

clear, his action resolute, his whole life ordered and

coherent--he becomes human.

Men envisage their relationship with God in various and

shifting fashions. One man beholds God in every object, in

tree and stone and sea. To another He speaks from the rigid

and sublime laws of thought and duty. A third sees Him as

the Great Organizer and Architect. Yet another finds Him in

the life of the community, in love and in neighborly

assistance. One man has a clear conception of God; for

another He is a vague entity, the Great Incomprehensible; to

a third He is an abstraction. Indeed the same man may have

different conceptions of God according to his age,

experience, or moods. The danger thus arises that man may

make God in his own image, and so form a finite and petty

conception of Him; that his longing and prayer may no more

reach out freely beyond himself, but may degenerate into a

dialogue with an enlargement of his own portrait.

In the liturgy the Church displays God as He really is,

clearly and unmistakably, in all His greatness, and sets us

in His presence as His creatures. She teaches us those

aboriginal methods of communion with God which are adapted

to His nature and ours--Prayer, Sacrifice, Sacraments.

Through sacred actions and readings she awakes in us those

great fundamental emotions of adoration, gratitude,

penitence and petition.

In the liturgy man stands before God as He really is, in an

attitude of prayer which acknowledges that man is a creature

and gives honor to God. This brings the entire spiritual

world into the right perspective. Everything is called by

the right name and assumes its real form--face to face with

the true God, man becomes truly man.

That man should see with perfect clearness what he is a

creature; but that he should rejoice in this fact, and

regard it as the starting point of his ascent to the Divine,

that he should be humble, but strive after the highest;

sincere, but full of confidence, and so for the first time

be truly human; is the work of the Church. She tells man

everywhere, "Thou art but a creature, yet made in God's

image, and God is Love. Therefore He will be thine, if only

thou dost will it."

ENDNOTES

1. The way, that is an indispensable, but not exclusive way.

The more resolutely an individual acknowledges himself for

what he is, and at the same time endeavors to become and to

work out that which God has destined for him by his

individual nature, the more powerfully can the Church affect

him and complete the personality to which she can raise him.

It must once more be repeated that the individualists

imagine a contradiction in this an "alternative," where

there is in reality the indispensable pre-condition of

organic change. The more unreservedly I live in the Church,

the more completely I shall become that which I ought to be.

I can, however, live in the Church as God, and she herself

require it, only to the degree in which I mature, awaken to

my natural vocation, and became a self-realizing

personality. There is a mutual reciprocity of cause and

effect.

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