The Church And The Catholic
by Romano Guardini

5. COMMUNITY

IDEAS have their seasons, as plants have their seasons of

growth, flowering and ripening of fruit. The seed is capable

of growth from the beginning, but does not germinate until

the spring comes. So it is with ideas. Every idea is

abstractly possible at any period, but in the concrete

cannot become a living growth either in the life of the

individual or of society at any epoch indiscriminately. This

would be possible only if thought were to be a mechanical

process, the operation of an isolated reason. It is on the

contrary a vital process of a living person, and therefore

affected by the forces and states both of the individual and

the community to which he belongs. An idea becomes powerful

and fertile in a man only when its due season has come; when

his other ideas are so ordered that it can take its place

among them; when his soul gives it a vital response, and

there are psychological tensions, which it relaxes or

intensifies. And in society an idea becomes fruitful, takes

root, and develops its intrinsic possibilities only when the

soil is prepared for it.

Thus the idea--or rather the experience--of society has

found its appointed hours. Only a little while ago man felt

himself a self-contained microcosm. His ties with his

fellow-men--the State for example, the family affinity of

ideas--he was apt to regard either as illusions or as

institutions serving purely utilitarian ends or assuring his

safety. The one thing of which he was certain was himself,

his existence in and for himself. Of others, and of

fellowship with them, he was conscious only as something

dubious and shadowy.

This was due to a psychological defect. He lacked the

instinctive awareness of external reality, and in particular

of other minds. He was not conscious of their inner life as

a datum of his own experience, at least not as something

actively affecting him. This attitude could find expression

in totally different ways, from icy indifference to ruthless

violence. A desire, it is true, for others made itself felt,

the longing to be assured that a fellow-man is indeed there,

a longing for understanding and comradeship. But it was

always cut short by the despairing thought, "It is

impossible. I am imprisoned in my solitary isolation." A

fundamental sentiment of individualism cut men from their

fellows.

If man was to escape despair or weary resignation, there

remained nothing for him but to make a virtue of his dire

necessity, and a very stern and bitter virtue it was. He

must transform his yearning into pride, and his desire into

refusal; he must attempt to convince himself that "the

common life makes men common," and a proud isolation is the

only noble attitude.

But when men's eyes were opened, how false all this was seen

to be! They were opened, not by arguments--arguments are so

weak in vital questions--but by a psychological

transformation. Man became totally changed. New forces were

at work in his soul, and he outgrew individualism. For his

new outlook the possibility of a community has become self-

evident. Nor does it arise from the deliberate conjunction

of self-contained individuals. This is the erroneous

conception which is impoverishing our social life and

dividing the nations No society is something to be taken for

granted which requires no proof. It is as primary and as

necessary as individuality. And to-day we ask ourselves how

could we have put up so long with our self-imposed isolation

Is not the present distress of Europe the last and most

terrible spasm of this old disease? When the right time

comes, the perception will triumph that one nation is as

dependent upon the others, as one individual upon his

fellows. The doctrines of the philosophy of isolation have

not succeeded in keeping men apart. They possessed a shadowy

existence so long as men's souls were strangers to each

other. But as soon as the social sense of community awoke,

all such theories were swept away. For the nations also this

spring will come. Their eyes will be opened; and they will

see that they belong to each other. On that day all

doctrines of national selfishness, all the economic and

political systems based on mistrust and mutual isolation,

will vanish in smoke.

Yes, this experience of human community has come to many,

and the rest have at least been influenced by it The path to

the souls of others lies open. What matter to us the

doctrines of individualism, subjectivism, and solipsism? Is

the way to the soul of another man after all so much further

than the path to my own? The spell is dissolving. The common

life does not make men common. That is true only of the

wrong type of community A good society is the source of

happiness and power. It tests the pliability and power of

resistance of our personality. It is in the highest sense a

task, and a lofty enterprise.

So strong indeed has the will for community become-the word

indeed, like every other valuable thing, is already

deteriorating into a cheap slogan--that it is attracting men

almost too powerfully to their fellows. Already we are

becoming aware of the baneful possibilities of an

exaggerated cult of the community. It is capable of

destroying personality. We are beginning to understand the

element of truth in the older individualism and to realize

that society also has its problem.

The problem whether the souls of others are or are not

accessible to us is not the only one. It was answered once

and for all when man's fundamentally social nature was first

experienced. But the answer has raised a further problem:

what is the relation between the free individual and

society? What kind of society is valuable, what kind the

reverse? What kind of society is noble, what kind degrading?

Recognizing independent personality and real community with

others as the two poles of human life, we inquire, how

should the one be constituted, if the other is to co-exist

with it? How is the one to be made perfect by the other?

I will ask you to be patient while I tell you something

about the last meeting of the Quickborn Association[1] at Burg

Rothenfels. On that occasion the demands of the community

were emphasized. The individual, we were told, is bound to

his fellows by a natural loyalty, and is pledged to them

with all he is and all he has. He must regard himself as a

member of the same community with other classes and sections

of his countrymen, giving to them all and receiving from

them all.

Suddenly in the midst of these discussions, as though by a

concerted plan, there sprang up at various points, and

gathered strength, the idea of personality. The community

must be so constituted that the dignity and inner freedom of

the individual personality remain possible within it. For

free personality is the presupposition of all true

community. Those who grasped what was happening were

astounded. Never before had I so profoundly experienced the

power of life to maintain itself spontaneously, when it is

not repressed by force.

This indeed is the supreme problem--how can a society be

full-blooded and deep-rooted, a mutual surrender of its

members very selves, and at the same time inherited

personality continue to flourish vigorously and freely?

Once more I must repeat, it is beyond the scope of man's

natural powers. One of two things must happen. Either the

power of community will burst all bounds, swamp the free

personality of the individual, and strip him of spiritual

dignity, or else the individual personality will assert

itself victoriously, and in the process sever its organic

bonds with the community. So deeply has original sin

shattered the fundamental structure of human life.

But the Church stands before us as the one great Power which

makes possible a perfect community when members are genuine

personalities.

First and foremost she produces a true community. She

effects a community of truth, the common possession those

supreme supernatural realities of which faith makes us

conscious. They are the foundations of the supernatural

life, for all the same--God, Christ, grace, and the work of

the Holy Spirit.

What does this mean for the community? All its members stand

upon the same foundation. In all alike the same forces are

at work. The same aims are acknowledged by all. Their

judgments are based on the same standards of valuation. They

recognize the same ideals of human moral perfection, and

their fundamental dispositions are identical. In spite of

all their dissimilarities, how close must be the bond

between men, who take their Catholic faith seriously. How

deep must be the knowledge one can have of another! For he

knows the motives which finally decide his moral decisions

and the beliefs which guide his conduct of life.

One man can have this knowledge of another because the lives

of both are rooted in the same ultimate realities. One can

help another, because he no longer need find reasons for

trusting him. The deepest grounds of mutual trust are

evident to both. Real consolation becomes possible, because

its grounds are admitted by both parties. There is a common

seriousness of purpose, a common consecration, and a common

worship, for the same sublime facts and mysteries are

honored by all alike. There is a common endeavor and a

common struggle, because the final aims of all are the same.

There is a common joy--the joy of the Church's festivals--

for a cause of rejoicing need not be sought far afield, and

after anxious search. Joy is everywhere, and can therefore

be a factor and bond of community.

There is also a community of sacrifice, a community of

mutual love, of command and obedience. No one can genuinely

yield interior obedience if he is not aware of an ultimate

bond between himself and his superior. But when he is aware

of it, trust enters into his obedience, confidence into the

command. Moreover, there can be no community of love without

a bond, upon which the mutual self-surrender is based. Thus

the community of truth becomes a community of love, of

obedience, and of command. These, however, are the forces

which constitute society, also the ways in which a bridge is

built between man and man, by superiority, subordination,

and equal co-operation.

And all this is realized, not timidly and distrustfully, but

from a professed consciousness of interdependence, by a

mutual trust, and responsibility. But this is possible only

when that first fundamental community of truth exists, the

foundation of all other manifestations of community.

There is a community of life, and it is immeasurably deep.

The same current of grace flows through all alike, the same

active power of God. The same real Christ is present in all,

as the ideal and prime exemplar of perfection, our incentive

to pursue it and the creative power which makes it possible.

The sacrament of community, Communion, is incomprehensible.

In it man is one with God; God is personally united with

him, and is given to him as his very own. But with this one

God not only one man is united, but all his fellows. And

each receives God into his personal being; yet each receives

Him on behalf of the others also on behalf of husband or

wife, of children, parents, relatives and friends--for all

those to whom he is bound by ties of love.

There is a community of spirit and spiritual life--the

mystical Body of Christ. Through Baptism the individual is

born into it, into new, supernatural life common to all who

live by it. But as yet he is merely a member of this

organism. Confirmation makes him an adult member, and gives

him rights, duties, and responsibilities in it. It gives him

the commission and the power to pursue his calling as work

for the Kingdom of God, with and for others. Holy Communion

deepens his community with God, with others in God. By sin

it is ruptured or impaired; in the sacrament of Penance man

acknowledges his fault before the divinely appointed

representative of the ecclesiastical community, makes

satisfaction to it, and is received back into it. Extreme

Unction gives him the strength to remain loyal to it in

sickness and death. Marriage intertwines the roots of the

natural community of the individual and the race with those

of the supernatural community. Finally, in Holy Orders, he

who has been baptized and confirmed receives a power to act

as God's representative, command and lead. Thus the

sacraments are forms and processes, in which the life of the

supernatural community begins, progresses, recovers lost

ground, and is continually propagated.

Holy Mass is throughout a communal act. This truth has been

widely forgotten. It has often been made the private

devotion of the individual. But the evidence of the first

Christian centuries proves its communal character to the

hilt. The bishop officiated, and his priests concelebrated

with him, as at the present day newly-consecrated priests

concelebrate at their ordination. The people brought their

gifts to the altar, and from among these were chosen the

bread and the wine which were to be the material of the

sacrifice offered for all. And these offerings were

themselves recognized as symbols of the community. As the

bread consists of many grains of wheat, and the wine has

been pressed from a multitude of grapes, the mystical Body

of Christ consists of many individuals. The people brought

their offerings to the altar in person, that all might be

drawn into the mystical unity to be effected when the

substance of the bread and wine could be changed into the

Body and Blood of Christ. All shared in the divine banquet,

after they had banished from their hearts by the kiss of

peace everything inimical to community life. When the sacred

Bread was broken, portions were taken to prisoners and the

sick. One bishop would send them to another, as a sign that

all were united in a community transcending the limitations

of space. And after each celebration a particle of the

sacred Bread was preserved until the next and dipped in the

Chalice, to show that this unity transcended time. To

discover the roots of this sentiment we must read Our Lord's

discourse after the Last Supper (John xiii-xvii.), and the

Epistles of St. Paul and St. John. These sources bring home

to us with an overwhelming force the fact that Christ

instituted His Sacrifice and Sacrament as communal acts,

expressions of the community between God and man, and

between men in God, all "in Christ," Who "has made us

partakers of the divine nature." Such was the belief and

practice of the Apostles, and of the Church after them. Read

what the Apostolic Fathers wrote on this topic, the epistles

of St. Ignatius, for instance, and then above all read the

liturgy itself. And though to-day, this communal character

of the liturgy is not clearly brought out in its details,

the Holy Sacrifice, or indeed the liturgy as a whole, is

intelligible only by those profoundly imbued with the

communal spirit and the will to participate in the community

life.

Contemplate for a moment those dogmas of the Church

specifically concerned with the Community.

In the beginning we find a community of responsibility and

destiny. So profound is the solidarity of mankind, that the

obedience of the first man would have been the safeguard of

all; and his guilt was the guilt of all. This is the mystery

of original sin. It is intolerable to the individualist, who

has not grasped the extent of human solidarity. But the man

who has understood that every self exists also in his

neighbor; that every man shares the life of all other men,

and that this happiness and suffering are bound up with

theirs, will realize that, in the dogma of original sin, the

Church has really touched the very foundation of all human

society.

But it is this very solidarity which makes the community of

redemption possible. Since every man in his profoundest

being is thus bound up with his fellows, so that another's

guilt can become his, the atonement made by the One can be

the atonement made by all the rest. God's Son becomes Man,

and takes upon Himself the guilt of the entire human race.

This is no empty phrase, or sublime imagination. Gethsemane

is sufficient proof that it was a most awful reality, a most

real experience. Jesus became our representative, and His

sufferings thus became the property of our race. He redeemed

us, not by His example, doctrine or instructions--all these

are of secondary importance--but by the representative and

atoning satisfaction in which He assumed before God the

responsibility of our guilt. So far reaching is this

objective community of atonement, that by its power any

child, without any co-operation on its part, is reborn into

a new life and mode of existence.

We now come to the solidarity between the regenerate, that

is, the community or Communion of Saints. The one grace of

Christ flows through them all as a single stream of life.

All live by the same pattern, this example which influences

them all. The one Holy Spirit is at work in them all. Each

possesses grace not merely for himself, but for all the

rest. He passes it on in every word, every encounter with

others, every good thought, and every work of charity. Every

increase of the grace he possesses, by the greater fidelity,

the deepening and inner growth of his spiritual life which

it effects, swells the stream of grace for all the others.

Whenever an individual grows in knowledge and love, the

others are also affected, and not only through speech,

writing or visible example, but also directly, by an

immediate and substantial transmission of love and light

from soul to soul.

The prayer of my fellows, their works, their growth in grace

and purity are mine also. When we encountered a pure and

profound spirit--a man nearer to God than ourselves, and in

whom the current of life flows fresh and strong--did we not

form the wish, "I would like a share in you"? In the

Communion of Saints this actually comes to pass. There is

something unutterably magnificent and profound in the

thought that I am to share in all the purity and fullness of

supernatural life hidden in the souls of others, and it is

mine, too, in the solidarity of Christ's Body.

Have you ever thought about the community of suffering? Have

you considered that one man transmits to another not only

the force of example, speech and instruction, not only the

superflux of grace and the efficacy of prayer and

intercession, but also the power of suffering? Have you ever

contemplated a truth of awe-inspiring profundity: that

whenever one member offers his suffering to God for others

in the community of Christ's Passion, that suffering becomes

a life-giving and redeeming force for those for whom it has

been offered up, and where nothing else could bring them

help at any distance in space and in spite of any barriers

intervening.

Not one of us knows to what extent he is living by the power

of grace which flows into him through others--by the hidden

prayer of the tranquil heart, the atoning sacrifices offered

up by persons unknown to him, and the satisfaction made on

his behalf by those who in silence offer themselves for

their brethren. It is a community of the deepest and most

intimate forces. They are silent, for nothing noisy can

produce these substantial effects. But it cannot resist them

because their source is God.

This community transcends all boundaries. It knows nothing

of distance. It embraces all countries and peoples. It

transcends the bounds of time, for in it the past is as

active as the present. From this point, tradition, which is

so often regarded in a purely external aspect, becomes a

living realization. And this community transcends the

boundaries of this life, for it extends beyond the grave,

embracing--both the Saints in Heaven, and the souls in

Purgatory.

"That they all may be one": thus Christ prayed in the hour

before His Passion: one in God, and one with each other.

That prayer is being continually fulfilled in the Church.

The Church is "the truth in love," as St. Paul so

magnificently describes it. She is truth, in the deepest

sense of living truth, essential truth; a flawless harmony

of being a divine fullness of life, a living creation. But

it is a fullness of truth which is love, and is constantly

striving to become a greater love. It is a light, which is

at the same time a glowing heat, a treasure which cannot be

contained in itself but must communicate itself to others, a

stream which needs must flow, a possession which must be

common to all, must give itself freely to all. The Church is

love. She is truth, which communicates itself. She is the

treasure which must be the common property of all. She is

the life, which multiplies itself, takes hold of all and of

its very nature must be a common life, a life of boundless

mutual donation in which all belongs to all.

Our contemplation must here ascend to the perfection and

exemplar of society, the Triune God. My best utterance here

is but a stammering. But permit me to speak as best I can.

God is the pure life of truth. Its fullness, however, is so

vast that it is productive, and God possesses it as the

Father--that is to say, as a generating Person--and

transmits it to the Son. And when in turn--I speak according

to our human usage, in terms of before and after, though in

reality the whole process is eternal--the Son stands before

the Father as the begotten Fullness of divine Truth, their

mutual knowledge kindles a mutual and eternal love, and this

love of Father and Son flames up as the Holy Ghost.

This community is infinite. It is an infinite life, an

infinite possession, in which all things are mutually

surrendered in perfect community. Everything is in common--

life, power, truth, happiness--so perfectly indeed that

there is no longer simply a possession of the same object,

but the existence of identical life, and the community is an

identity of the same substance and the same nature.

This divine community is externalized in the Church. For

what is it that we then possess in common? What is that All

which we receive and give? It is nothing less than the

everlasting life of God, in which we are "given a share"

through the mystery of regeneration, and which ever and

again flows into us in the mystery of the Holy Communion.

God is in me, and in you, and in us all. We are all born

again from the Father, in Christ, through the Holy Ghost. He

is in us, and we in Him. Only read those wonderful chapters

of St. John which speak of this mystery, Our Lord's parting

discourse to His disciples.

Yet all this is but feeble words. No human utterance can go

further. At this point we may quote the final words of St.

Bonaventure's treatise on the Ascent of the Spirit in God--

("Itinerarium Mentis in Deum"), when he tells his readers:

"If you desire further knowledge, question silence, not

speech; desire not the understanding; the heartfelt

utterance of prayer, not reading and study; the bridegroom,

not the teacher; God, not men; darkness, not daylight. Do

not question light, but fire, the fire which kindles every

heart it touches to a flame that rises up to God in the

ecstasy of an overflowing heart and burning Love."

This infinite mystery of truth which has become love, of a

possession which belongs to all, this community without

limit or end, this giving without reserve--that is the

Church, the earthly extension of the divine community, the

reflection of God's mutual self-donation. In his last work,

which death did not allow him to finish, the "Discourses on

the Hexameron," "Collationes in Hexameron," St. Bonaventure

has spoken most illuminatingly of this mystery. And you may

gather further light from Scheeben's "Mysterien des

Christentums" (Mysteries of the Christian Faith).

We have followed the mystery of society to its fountainhead-

-God. There, too, however, we find a counterpart to this

society, namely, self-maintenance.

The Father bestows all things upon the Son, and Father and

Son all things upon the Holy Ghost. All but one thing--the

personal self. That remains immutably contained in itself.

Personal unity, the dignity and sublimity of the self, can

never be given away. In the process of mutual donation, in

the excess of unity, we behold a point of rest, something

abiding, surrounded by an impenetrable and sacred circle. It

is personality. It can neither be given nor received. It

rests in itself. In the very heart of the perfect society it

stands alone, fixed in itself. This constitutes its

essential inviolability. This inviolability of the person

has its counterpart in God's relations with man. To be sure

we all possess the same God. To every man He gives Himself

and His entire self. But He gives Himself to each in a

unique fashion, corresponding to his unique personality. In

God we are all one, members of a community indescribably

close. But at the same time each may be sure that God

belongs to him in different fashion from that in which He

belongs to anyone else, and that in this relationship, he is

alone with God. The value of friendship is diminished when

it is shared with many. But I know that God--and this is the

miracle of His infinite life--belongs to all, but to each in

a unique fashion. The holy circle of pure isolation

surrounds that peace in which a man's inmost self is alone

with his God.

And this law is repeated in every community worthy of the

name. This is a truth of the first importance. A profound

communal solidarity unites all the members of the Church,

but in it the individual is never swallowed up in a

featureless identity. It is often said that the communal

life of the Church is cold. It is we who are cold, because

we are still individualists. We all of us continue the

frigid isolation of the social contract and the machine. But

we desire to become wholly Catholic. Then, indeed, we shall

experience the meaning of community. Then we shall become

conscious of a living current passing from man to man, of

the pulse throbbing from the heart of Christ through all His

members. And yet that hallowed circle will always surround

the inmost sanctuary and keep it inviolate. No one will be

permitted to approach another too closely, to force his way

into another man's soul, to lay a hand upon his inner

independence, or override it. A profound reverence for human

personality will govern everything. For it is the foundation

of the Catholic style, whether solemn or joyful, in the

Catholic manner of making requests or giving presents, the

Catholic way of looking at things, the Catholic attitude:

in short, of everything truly Catholic.[2]

Catholic commands are always inspired by reverence for their

subject. They are based upon the knowledge that personality

is sacred. To command in the Catholic style demands

humility, not only from the man who obeys, but from the man

who gives the command. It rejects violence, and the more

completely, the more defenseless the subordinate in

question. The Catholic superior knows that he is the servant

of God's authority, and that it is his duty to increase by

degrees the independence of his subordinates, and so make

them as free as himself.

Catholic obedience is always dignified. It is not

obsequious, or a weak leaning on the support of another, but

the free and honorable submission to that reasonable

obedience, in which the subject knows its limits, and keeps

his own independence.

The Catholic way of sharing with others, of giving and

receiving, is chaste. It never surrenders the final

independence of the person, never breaks down that holy

peace within which the soul enjoys her deepest community

life, alone with God.

Catholic charity gives help, without wounding the

recipient's dignity.

Catholic friendship recognizes this mystery, and ensures

that the parties to it always remain new to each other.

Catholic marriage is the perfect isolation of two human

beings, and this is the source of its perennial youth.

All this is a sublime ideal. But it is the very soul of

Catholic community life.

At Rothenfels one of those present remarked, "Our fellowship

must be such that its members are prepared if necessary to

give and sacrifice all for each other. Nevertheless it does

not proceed directly from man to man--that is the nature of

fellowship in which free individuals bind themselves to

their fellows by ties of friendship or love--but from me to

God, and from God to you." These words were spoken of a

particular association. But they state a law which applies

in some degree to every true community--however complete it

may be, personality must remain inviolate. All community

life presupposes this inner isolation.

And it is also the beginning and the end of form. For form

signifies that there is a genuine community, but that it is

limited in every direction by a consciousness of inner

difference between man and man. Forms are but ways in which

this fundamental attitude finds an appropriate expression in

the various manifestations of community life, and becomes

the law which preserves that life from corruption.

The road towards this goal, however, and not only for the

elite alone, but for every man of good will, is the Church.

She makes it possible for "all" to "be one," and "have all

things common." And she also brings home to us as a living

conviction the fact that it does not profit a man "if he

gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul."

ENDNOTES

1. The Quickborn Association of Catholic Youth was founded

in 1910 with Burg Rothenfels a. Main as its headquarters.

Its aim is the permeation of the whole of life, literature,

and art, with the Catholic spirit. In 1921 it numbered about

6,000 members. (Translator's Note.)

2. I should like here to sketch another line of thought.

Catholicism regards every human being as the child of God.

In this respect all are fundamentally equal. It is the human

being alone that counts in all the essential religious

relationships, such as in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in

the Sacraments, in the approach to the various religious

activities and responsibilities. I do not know if any other

social organization besides the Church exists, in which men

meet so naturally as man to man, even if one of the parties

is an officer of the society. In Confession, for instance,

both priest and penitent are removed from their respective

social positions and confront each other in their essential

characters. Within the spiritual sphere of the Church "the

soul," "the human being," "the priest," "the sinner," "the

man," "the woman," are in evidence, in short the entire

collection of essential human types and aspects detached

from their social environment. And this as a matter of

course. Once the threshold of the Church is crossed, the

fundamental categories of humanity occupy the scene. A

simplification of the personality is effected. It is reduced

to its essential human elements, cleared of all the

obscurations introduced by human imperfections or the

influences of a particular epoch. In this consists that

unique sense of equality in the Church, which is the more

perfect, because it passes without special notice.

On the other hand, the Church is the uncompromising foe of

the "democratic" spirit, which would obliterate all

distinctions of rank and natural capacity. In this sense she

is whole-heartedly aristocratic. This is indeed involved in

the tremendous power of tradition. "Democratism"--not

democracy--is a wholly modern conception and a novelty. It

makes genuine choice, valuation, and testing impossible. The

power of tradition, on the contrary, compels the present to

submit to a test and rejects those factors which are not

strong enough to endure it. Kierkegaard's "Buch uber Adler"

has brought out in a very remarkable manner this selective

and testing force of tradition. Authority also is

aristocratic, if it really possesses the courage and

strength to rule, and is not merely disguised weakness. The

"democratistic" attitude of mind can neither command, nor

obey.

Moreover, the Church, by her teaching and institutional

embodiment of the evangelical counsels, has set before each

one of us the possibility of an extraordinary vocation. She

is charged with having established a double morality, one,

more easy-going for the world, and another more lofty code

for the cloister. If old historical prejudices and scarcely

disguised hatred did not stand in the way, it would soon be

recognized that this economy is alone in accordance with

man's nature. From every man the Church requires perfection-

-that is to say, with all his strength he must love God, do

His Will, and work for His Kingdom in his particular sphere.

She exhorts every man to grow more and more deeply into God,

and so by degrees to make his entire life the service of

God, until he can truly say, "I live, now not I: but Christ

liveth in me."

This is the Christian attitude to life. It admits, however,

an essential difference in the rule of life which gives it

practical embodiment. The Christian attitude is the

readiness to follow the path to which God is calling. But He

does not call all by the same road. The majority He calls to

follow the ordinary, a few the extraordinary road. The

ordinary rule of life is that in which the natural and

supernatural values and demands are brought into an

harmonious balance. The extraordinary rule of life is that

in which even in the external conduct of life everything is

directed immediately to the supernatural. The former

commanded; the latter counseled. The former is open to all

men, the latter only to those "who can take it." To deny

that there is any difference between the two rules of life

is to deny the actual conditions of human existence. And it

is untrue to say that every man is suited to the

extraordinary path. It is untrue even in the natural sphere;

how much more therefore in the religious. It is Philistinism

and democratism which demand the abolition of the

extraordinary rule of life, that the follower of the

ordinary path may not suffer from a sense of inferiority. On

the other hand it is fantastic--and an extremely foolish and

dangerous fantasy, too--to maintain that all are called to

follow the extraordinary path. Everyone who has once

considered what this implies will agree. The Church

distinguishes the two rules. This expresses her aristocratic

attitude, which refuses to surrender to any cravings for

equality.

Yet we can show that it is precisely by this distinction

that each rule of life makes the full development of the

other possible, so that the complete structure of human life

can be built up. The rule of life in which the extraordinary

principle finds objective expression is that of the

evangelical counsels--poverty, chastity, and obedience.

These are means by which man in the concrete wholly

transfers the momentum of his life to God, places surrender

at every point above self-preservation, the supernatural

above the natural. Actually the way of life resulting from

these counsels can either be followed freely "in the world,"

or else in the regulated forms represented by religious

orders. What, then, is the significance of the latter for

the community? I am leaving out of account here the actual

services they perform, for example their care of the poor

and the sick, the intercession for the community made by the

religious rule, who in their contemplation present the

entire human race to God. I am concerned solely with the

consideration of their sociological effect. The

extraordinary fact of a perfect voluntary renunciation--and

not as an ephemeral exception, but as a perpetual

phenomenon--gives that great majority who follow the

ordinary path, that independence of the possessions

concerned, which is the more indispensable perquisite of

their right use. To take one instance; marriage, is the

isolation of two persons in God, and as a form of community,

which is more than the mere sum of two partners and

something higher, the image of God's Kingdom, the Church;

and in every aspect as a fertility duly ordered. As such it

cannot be established merely upon the basis on those natural

forces which tend towards marriage (To many this may seem a

paradox; and it is. But when we have long pondered the forms

of human life; the relation between their aims arising from

their very nature and the forces actually at their disposal,

the relation between one form and another; and the intrinsic

economy of life, we come to understand that what

superficially seems a paradox is often the only truly

natural thing. Paradox is embedded in the very heart of

normality. It is so here.) The forces which normally produce

marriage are insufficient to make a marriage which fulfills

its own inner nature. Such a marriage requires a perfect

capacity of assent and surrender, but also an equally great

independence of the sexual factor. Without the former the

union is too superficial; without the latter it lacks inner

dignity and the capacity for fidelity. Nature, however

cannot by itself produce this. It is only that perfect

surrender in the conduct of life, which "thinks only of the

things that are God's," which, by the constant influence it

has exerted upon others through the centuries, awakens in

the married also the strength requisite for complete

surrender, with all the sacrifices that this entails. And

their total renunciation of sex creates that freedom from

the excessive power of sex, which in its turn reacts upon

the mass of men and women and alone can make marriage

faithful and chaste. To deny the possibility of this

renunciation and surrender to God is also to deny man's

noblest capacities and shake the foundation of true

marriage. On the other hand, if a renunciation is to be

truly heroic, the thing renounced must admittedly be

valuable. An epoch must be fully aware of the value of

marriage, of the treasures it comprises, if the sacrifice of

the celibate is to be seen as something truly extraordinary.

Marriage must display that profound inner wealth, must

possess that nobility, must be that miraculous product

fashioned by the co-operation of natural and supernatural

forces, which Christ willed, Paul suggested, and the Church

has always cherished. For the distinctive sacrifice in

virginity is its renunciation of the perfect community and

creative powers which only marriage can produce. Thus the

loneliness of the extraordinary path can alone ensure that

the rule, namely, marriage, shall become noble and profound.

But conversely only marriage makes that sacrifice what it

must be, if it is to realize the values inherent in its

nature. Marriage, too need be heroic, if the life of

virginity is to escape the danger of becoming commonplace.

The extraordinary is not heroic simply as such. On the

contrary it consists in the perfect purity, generosity, and

fidelity with which the extraordinary vocation is fulfilled.

Similarly the ordinary is not of its nature commonplace. It

also becomes heroic when it is realized with perfect purity,

courage and fidelity. We must not confuse the characteristic

distinctions between the two ways with distinctions of moral

dispositions. There "extraordinary" may also be very

"commonplace," the ordinary very heroic. Marriage and

virginity or more generally--the rule and the exception--

duty and counsel--are forms of Christian life. "Mediocre"

and "heroic," on the contrary, are attitudes towards life.

Every form of life can be lived in an heroic or in a

mediocre spirit. And the resolve to live a life of heroic

and unreserved self-devotion does not of itself determine

the form of life in which it shall be accomplished. The

"good will" decides the former choice, "vocation" the

latter. We need men and women to live the extraordinary form

of life heroically. But we have just as great need of others

to live the ordinary form of life heroically. Heroism in

marriage is just as indispensable as heroism in virginity.

And it is certain that both types of heroism, viewed from

the sociological standpoint, mutually support each other.

So deeply are aristocracy and--the right term does not

exist--democracy interwoven in the Catholic spiritual order.

Those who take the right point of view will observe at every

turn, with a delight mingled with a certain awe, how

marvelously, how even uncannily right the Church is in all

her values and arrangements; and how her attitude so

commonly charged with hostility to life is in complete

accord with life's most profound demands. We have, indeed,

good cause to trust the Church! We have but to encounter

such a masterpiece of the divine penetration and fashioning

of human life, and all objections vanish into thin air....

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