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"From the days of John the Baptist, even until now" said our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, "the kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force""From the days of John the Baptist, even until now" said our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, "the kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force"
If, in one sense, Jesus Christ has rendered the way to Heaven more easy, by the abundant outpouring of His grace, and by the spirit of love with which He has replenished His disciples; on the other hand, He has made this way even more strait, because He came to fulfill the law in its perfection, and He requires from His followers more than God required formerly under the law of nature and the law of Moses. Thus, from the moment when John the Baptist announced the coming of the Saviour, the kingdom of Heaven is only to be obtained through the violence we do to ourselves; we must seize it, and carry it, as it were, by assault. This saying is hard to nature, because it is against nature herself that we must wage war, and this resistance must sometimes be "unto blood," without truce or repose. If the service of God consisted only in a certain routine of external devotion, compatible with a life of ease and comfort, with all the allurements of self-love, and with a secret complacency in ourselves and all we do, the number of saints that is to say, of true Christians, true lovers of the Gospel would not be so rare, and our condition would be in every respect happier than that of the Jews, to whom God prescribed so many exterior practices from which the law of grace has delivered us.
But for these exterior practices Jesus Christ has substituted interior ones, which are incomparably more difficult and painful. He came not, He said, "to bring peace, but a sword." He puts this sword in the hands of His servants, and He wishes that they should make use of it against themselves, in that circumcision of the heart which mortifies without pity all the inclinations of corrupt nature, even to finally putting it to death, and leaving in the heart, thus mortified, no single trace of the old Adam.
Again I say, how hard, how difficult to bear this! So long as it is only a question of saying certain prescribed prayers, of visiting the churches, of practicing works of charity, plenty of people can be found to embrace this kind of devotion. A director who requires no more than this is eagerly listened to: he is a man of God: he is a saint. But if he begins to speak of correcting certain defects, of overcoming human respect, of reforming natural character, of keeping a check on natural inclinations and feelings, and of following in everything the leading of grace, he is no longer listened to; he exaggerates; he goes further than is necessary.
It is nevertheless certain that the true spirit of Christianity consists in this: that a real Christian should look upon himself as his greatest enemy: that he should wage continual war against himself; that he should spare himself in nothing, and count all his progress by the victories he gains over himself.
When we begin to give ourselves entirely to God, He treats us at first with great kindness, to win us to Himself; He fills the soul with an ineffable peace and joy; He makes us take a delight in solitude, in recollection, in all our religious duties; He makes the practice of virtue easy to us; nothing is a trouble to us; we think we are capable of everything.
But as soon as He is once certain of a soul, immediately He begins to enlighten her as to her defects; He raises by degrees the veil which concealed them from her, and He inspires her with a firm will to overcome them. From that moment such a soul turns against herself; she undertakes the conquest of self-love; she pursues it relentlessly wherever she perceives it; and when she is thoroughly illuminated by the Divine light, where does she not perceive it? She sees in herself nothing but misery, imperfection, and sin; self-seeking and attachment to her own will; her very devotion appears to her full of defects. She once thought she loved God, and now she finds that this love was nothing but another form of self-seeking; that she has appropriated to herself the gifts of God; that she has served Him only for selfish ends; that she has thought highly of herself and despised others whom she considers not to have received the same graces as herself.
God shows her all this gradually; for if He were to show it to her all at once she could not bear it, and would fall into despair. But the little He does show her is sufficient to convince her that she has not even begun to enter upon the way of perfection, and that she has many and many a hard battle to fight before she can arrive at the end of it.
If the soul is courageous and faithful, what does she do then? She humbles herself, without despairing; she places all her confidence in God; she implores His assistance in the war she is going to undertake. Then she fills her mind and heart with this maxim from the book of the "Imitation of Christ" - "You will make no progress except in so far as you do violence to yourself;" a maxim which contains the purest spirit of the Gospel, and which all the Saints have followed.
After their example, she also declares war against nature, against her own mind and heart, against her natural character and disposition; and in order that she may not be carried away by imagination or an indiscreet zeal, she begs of God that He will Himself direct her in this war, that He will enlighten her as to the enemies against whom she ought to fight, that He will pass over nothing, but will warn her of all that goes on within her, that she may regulate all by the help of His grace. She forms the generous resolution of restraining herself in everything, and of allowing nothing in herself which could wound the infinite sanctity of God.
Now she is a true soldier of Jesus Christ; now she is enrolled under His banner. Until now God has only been preparing and disposing her for this great grace; but from this moment she is clothed with the armour of faith, and enters in good earnest upon the field of battle.
How long shall this conflict last?
It shall last as long as there is one enemy to conquer, as long as nature shall preserve one spark of life, as long as the old Adam is not utterly destroyed.
A good Christian never lays down his arms, and all is not finished for him even when he has fought till his strength is exhausted. What do I mean to express by this? What can remain for him to do when he is worn-out by his own victories, and when he has carried his violence against himself as far as it can possibly go? There remains nothing for him to do, but there remains for him to suffer the action of God, Who henceforth will do alone what is beyond the strength of man.
Sanctity is begun by our own efforts, sustained and assisted by Divine grace: it is finished and perfected solely by the Divine operation. Man raises the edifice as high as he can, but because there is a great deal that is human in this edifice, God destroys all the work of man, and substitutes for it His own work; and the creature has nothing else to do but to allow the Creator to act as He pleases. The creature acts no more, but he suffers, because God is acting upon him; he no longer uses violence towards himself, but he suffers it; and this purely passive state is immeasurably more painful. As long as the soul is acting there is always the consciousness of strength, and that consciousness is sustaining. Also, in the consciousness of strength there is always a little self-love, and the soul can scarcely help attributing to herself some share in the victory, since she has indeed contributed to it.
But when God acts alone, every faculty of action is taken from the soul. She sees perfectly what God is doing in her, but she cannot second Him; and it is no trouble to her now to attribute nothing to herself, because she sees plainly that she has no part in it. Besides, all the work of God then consists in destroying, in overturning, in despoiling the soul, and reducing her to a perfect emptiness and nakedness; and He demands of her no other correspondence than that she should patiently allow herself to be despoiled of all the gifts, all the graces, all the virtues with which God had adorned her, and which she had appropriated to herself.
Oh! what a great and difficult work is this total destruction, this annihilation of the creature! What a warfare to sustain for so many long years! And then, when we think all is finished, to have to bear new and far more terrible blows from the Hand of God Himself, Who acts upon His creature as the sovereign Master, and exercises upon her all the authority she freely gave Him by renouncing her liberty to Him! What courage is necessary to undertake and bring to a final conclusion the war against ourselves! But what a far greater courage is necessary to bear the war which God Himself wages against us, and to allow ourselves to be crushed under the blows of His all-powerful Hand!
O my God! now I begin to understand what that violence is which he whom You call to the perfection of Your Gospel must do to himself, and must experience. But thanks be to Your infinite Mercy, this sight does not frighten me. If I relied on myself, I should give up all, because I feel that I am capable of nothing. But I rely upon You alone, and "I can do all things through Him that strengthens me." You have begun the work; and my ardent hope is, that You will continue it and finish it. I wish to have no other part in it than to co-operate with You as much as I am able, and then to leave You to do with me as You will.
- taken from Manual for Interior Souls, by Father Jean Nicolas Grou