The Interior Life
'Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye'.
Since the essential is invisible to the eye, many people, you and I are fooling ourselves having or not conscience that we are not seeking the essential. Why to seek the essential? Because otherwise we are going to waste our time, waste our energies, waste our enthusiasm and love on something that is not worth it.
It is very good that we start with this thoughts for today's formation since it is about The Interior Life. Along this formation today, you will be able to answer the questions: 'What is interior life?' 'What does it serve for?' 'How do I know if I have an interior life?' 'Why interior life is important?'
So we understand and distinguish it, there are two types or two ways of referring to the interior life which we could talk about: the first one is related to the person who actually met Jesus and for that reason has a spiritual life and live in the Grace of God. We could define this one as an interior life in a sense of life of grace. The second one is a higher degree, in a sense of dimension, it is like comparing the life of holy people, saints of the Church, to the life of regular people, and it could be identified when we refer to the activism.
Obviously if we go truly deep on the steps of the spiritual or the interior life, we need to come to one of the Masters of the Church who wrote a wonderful book, very worth reading, called 'The Interior Castle" - Saint Teresa of Avila - where she states there are Seven Mansions - and it defines the steps of the spiritual life. But today we want to open the subject and clarify some points to help us understand.
There is a plague in the Church nowadays and this plague is called activism (or Christian activism): it is the sense of service that needs done, evangelization and millions of ways of keeping yourself active (it doesn't mean it is bad, since it should be done - this needs to happen and it is very necessary) but the fact is it does lead many people to do lots of things to God and most of the time don't find enough time to develop their interior life.
One classic example of it could be identified on the Gospel from Saint Luke, in the person of the sisters Mary and Martha:
"In the course of their journey he came to a village, and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. She had a sister called Mary, who sat down at the Lord's feet and listened to him speaking. Now Martha, who was DISTRACTED WITH ALL THE SERVING, came to him and said, 'Lord, do you not care that my sister is leaving me to do the serving all by myself? Please tell her to help me. But the Lord answered, 'Martha, Martha,' he said, 'you worry and fret about so many things, and yet few are needed, indeed only one. It is Mary who has chosen the better part, and it is not to be taken from her." (Luke 10:38-42)
Like Martha many people are willing do this and do that because we need to spread the Good News, we need to evangelize, we need to talk about God to others but many times the same people forget that before spreading it we are called to live the Good News, evangelize and acquire formation to ourselves and it is better talk to God first before talking about him.
There is surely a big need of missions to preach the Gospel to the pagans of the modern world but maybe the worst pagans are living in our houses and they keep on being pagans, don't convert to Christ and live a worldly life much more when they look at our lives that is hollow. Many Catholics and Christians lack this deepening on their faith...
ONE OF THE REASONS FOR IT COULD BE BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE A STRONG ENCOUNTER WITH JESUS LIKE SAINT PAUL (WHICH WE REFLECTED UPON ON THE PREVIOUS FORMATION 'CLICK HERE') WHICH CHANGED THEIR LIVES ONCE AND FOREVER. NO ONE WHO EVER MET CHRIST WAS THE SAME AGAIN!! OTHER REASON COULD BE BECAUSE WE WERE NEVER TOLD WE NEED TO DEEPEN OUR FAITH! AND IT COULD BE EVEN BECAUSE THE LACK OF EXAMPLES AROUND THE PEOPLE OF GOD!
When we look at Saint Therese of Lisieux and come to realize she is the patroness of the missions in the Catholic Church, many would say, 'How could she have this title if she never even left the Carmel?' and it is the specific and central point we are talking about: because of her interior life! There was a stage in her life where she couldn't barely walk because of her fragile body and sickness (pneumonia), she would be in processions many times with no reluctance. At other times she would be sent by her superior to the garden - to get some fresh air - and regardless the fact that she couldn't make another step, she would obey her superior and offer every step given as a small sacrifice for the missionaries of the whole world.
And it was step by step, offering one small sacrifice after another, being small and hidden to the world that she became one huge saint with a example recognized by the Church that could be followed and it will lead us to the holiness.
What could we say about Saint Teresa of Avila (whose mention we made above) which was also a Master of prayer and which was used by God to convert more than 10 thousand pagans with one single fervorous prayer? It seems to be a joke but is actually reality and these 2 mere examples are just to remind us that the essential is invisible, it is what won't be taken away from us.
The interior life is a wonderful place where we could be ourselves alone with Jesus and in there spend time to contemplate him, stay with him and in his presence allow him to transform everything in us, our mind, our thoughts, our wishes, our dreams, our plans and objectives in life, our way of living our life and everything that is important or not to us: it is a complete surrender to the will of God, until everything in us is transformed in God through his Spirit.
It seems to be a wee bit too much? Do you think I am exaggerating and this is not bearable? Do you think I am too high to write this down? Well, let's read what Saint Paul wrote about the spiritual and the carnal or natural man (or the person who has got an interior life and the person who has not got):
"Now, the Spirit we have received is not the spirit of the world but God's own Spirit, so that we may understand the lavish gifts God has given us. And these are what we speak of, not in the terms learnt from human philosophy, but in terms learnt from the Spirit, fitting spiritual language to spiritual things. THE NATURAL PERSON HAS NO ROOM FOR THE GIFTS OF GOD'S SPIRIT; TO HIM THEY ARE FOLLY; he cannot recognize them, because their value can be assessed only in the Spirit. THE SPIRITUAL PERSON, ON THE OTHER HAND, CAN ASSESS THE VALUE OF EVERYTHING, and that person's value cannot be assessed by anybody else. For: who has ever known the mind of the Lord? Who has ever been his adviser? But we are those who have the mind of Christ". (1Cor 2:12-16)
WHAT COURAGE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF SAINT PAUL TO SAY, 'WE HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST!' TRUTH BE SAID: THE PERSON WHO TRULY HAS AN INTERIOR LIFE HAS THE MIND AND THE WAY OF CHRIST, AND THAT IS NOT TOO MUCH, THAT IS CALLED BEING A GENUINE CHRISTIAN. IT IS TO BE OTHER CHRISTS THAT WE ARE CALLED!
We are too carnal and too natural people to understand money and richness are not an end but could be a way that could be used to get to the essential, that is to save souls, that is to convert them who don't know God back to him, that is bring people to Christ. Instead, people are too attached to their material achievements and that is why they are not happy, because these attachments become sins, and the sin the is the reason for our sadness, while happiness is found in holiness.
"We brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it; but as long as we have food and clothing, we shall be content with that. People who long to be rich are a prey to trial; they get trapped into all sorts of foolish and harmful ambitions which plunge people into ruin and destruction. 'THE LOVE OF MONEY IS THE ROOT OF ALL EVILS' and there are some who, pursuing it, have wandered away from the faith and so given their souls any number of fatal wounds. But, as someone dedicated to God, avoid all that. You must aim to be upright and religious, filled with faith and love, perseverance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith and win the eternal life to which you were called and for which you made you noble profession of faith before many witnesses." (1 Thimoty 6:7-12)
Nowadays it is nearly a miracle for someone to be content with what they have... Not many people care for the essential. We need to have an interior life to be happy with what we have and the way we are. The world and the ones who live by the spirit of the world are sick because they are hallow, vain, superficial, hypocrites, live their lives like animals because they lack an interior life.
The interior life is so important that we could say that who haven't got it is a soul-less, he lives a life like the animals do, like creatures. But we are called to be sons of God, like Jesus, for the love of God call us to be so.
"You must see what great love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God's children -- which is what we are! The reason why the world does not acknowledge us is that it did not acknowledge him. My dear friends, we are already God's children, but what we shall be in the future has not yet been revealed. We are well aware that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is. Whoever treasures this hope of him purifies himself, to be as pure as he is." (1 John 3:1-3)
What happens with the world and with the Christians who don't have an interior life is the complete discontentment. If someone is black they want to be white; if they are white they want to be darker (like people who live in areas without much sun and spend a lot of money on fake tan and sunbeds -- Belfast people); if they have curly hair they want to have it straight; if they are skinny they want to be like a skeleton; if women have small breast they want to enlarge it, etc.
IT IS NOT ABOUT SOMETHING OUTSIDE WE COULD CHANGE THAT WILL MAKE US HAPPIER. WE COULD CHANGE THE WHOLE BODY AND WORLD OUTSIDE AND WE WILL STILL BE SAD, BECAUSE IT IS ABOUT WHAT WE BRING INSIDE, IT IS ABOUT OUR HEART, OUR SOUL, OUR SPIRIT, OUR INTERIOR LIFE (OR THE LACK OF IT) WHERE THE HAPPINESS OR SADNESS RESIDE. THE ESSENTIAL IS INVISIBLE TO THE EYES!
The reality we live in will only be changed when we assume our posture as real Christians, when we assume our spiritual life, make progress and live a truthful interior life. The ones who have an interior life folow what Saint Paul would teach their spiritual sons to live, like Saint Titus, who will see God in everything and will look at the world with purity (that Jesus said it is necessary to see God - "Blessed are the pure in heart: they shall see God." Mathew 5:8).
"To those who are pure themselves, everything is pure; but to those who have been corrupted and lack faith, nothing can be pure -- the corruption is both in their minds and in their consciences. They claim to know God but by their works they deny him; they are outrageously rebellious and quite untrustworthy for any good work." (Titus 1:15-16)
There are in the history of the Church, people who were so pure which would have cause envy to the angels (if that was possible), there were people who were so holy who would have impressed God (if that was possible and God wasn't as almighty and powerful he is), there were people who did the will of God so perfectly that were formed personally by the very Our Blessed Mother and many times it could put us off...
But also there is also great saints in the Church who arrived to the highest levels on the interior life and holiness but have a known past full of terrible things and awful deeds like Saint Francis of Assisi or Saint Augustine (and many others). Saint Augustine would look at this great saints (on the 4th century) and be impressed but he said a phrase that could serve as inspiration for us as well, 'If they can, why cannot I?'.
In other words: If God operated great things in the life of people like Saint Peter who denied Jesus three times and regardless that he made him the First Pope; like Saul who was a persecutor of Christians and became Saint Paul one of the biggest pagans evangelist; like David who killed his friend and stole his wife and forced her to sin in adultery and still he was called Man of God's heart; why cannot he operate in mine too? This should generate hope and great hope in our hearts.
Saints are there to be like arrows pointing to God and to bring us to follow their luminous path of interior life and to the interior life. There is a wonderful book written by a holy french priest called Jean-Baptiste Chautard which every Catholic should read called "The soul of the apostolate" where he call our attention to the spiritual and interior life and which ardently combat against the Christian Activism.
To finish off and do not extend too much this text I want to share with you the conversion of Jean-Baptiste Chautard who belonged to a noble family. His conversion was one of those conversions operated through the hands of God himself by using a person with a profound interior life. He was a student of Economy and one day he was walking on the campus and saw a priest praying with his breviary. He would say then about this priest who changed his life forever, 'His bearing, full of respect and religion was a revelation to me and produced in me an urgent need to pray from then on, and to pray in the way this priest was praying. The Church appeared, concretized, so to speak, in this worthy minister, in communion with his God'.
It is needless to say that after this he became a man of prayer, joined the order of the Trappists in France (Avignon). He became a Dom (or Abbot Chautard) of the motherhouse of one of the most important abbeys of the Trappist Order (Sept-Fons). One of the most famous phrases from his book is "WE MUST NEVER LEAVE THE GOD OF WORKS FOR THE WORKS OF GOD!"
I confess that the first time I read this, maybe about 10 years ago it took me a while to figure it out but eventually I understood and came to have many and many wonderful experiences with Christ that I will share with you in this blog... Keep tuned to be inspired and touch by the grace of God, our Lord!
The certainty every person with an interior life have is that of being so united with God through Christ that nothing, like Saint Paul would say, in heaven or earth, nor any occasion that could ever happen, absolutely nothing could apart us from this perfect union, like saint John of the Cross would say, with him.
May God inspire us with his holiness and give us a profound interior life!
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