Climbing the ladder of perfection to the Sacred Heart

Climbing the ladder of perfection to the Sacred Heart

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Dear Friends of the Heart of Christ,

        Before entering the monastery, I remember receiving a letter from the novice mistress at our Wilmington, Delaware monastery which gave me some very wise spiritual advice.  She had written, “I cannot pull you up the heights by sheer effort alone;  it must come slowly from God.”  I have never forgotten these words, even after 35 years of religious life.  As time goes by I understand the sheer truth of them, as I look back over those years filled with joys, sorrows, struggles, but also grace that came from on high.  It is always something of a mystery how God touches the human soul, igniting a little spark at first, and fanning the flames of it through small providential occurrences.  Despite the entrapments of our secular culture that want to ensnare us in darkness, the presence of God stands firm, offering us the opportunity of coming to know and experience His heartfelt love and faithfulness in deeper and stronger ways.

        It is good to remember that there were people who ascended the “spiritual mountain” with such perseverance that nothing could stop them from continuing on to the top.  In the life of our sister Saint Margaret Mary we witness how all her efforts were directed toward promoting the glory of the Heart of Christ and when she had exhausted all her energies for that purpose, she realized that her mission on earth was accomplished and that she would soon return to God.  She died at the early age of forty-three, having fulfilled her great desire to see the Sacred Heart honored and loved in her community and Order (though devotion to the Sacred Heart was only in the beginning stages of its expansion and development in the Church at large.)

        In our own lives, God works to draw us up the ladder of perfection as well.  Often, it seems to me, this is accomplished by carrying the burdens of our ordinary activities and responsibilities and offering them for the work of sanctification.  This is how I understand the words given me by my first religious teacher in the monastery.  The every day responsibilities that we shoulder are actually the rungs of the ladder of perfection that take us toward the Divine Heart.  When these are done with the intention of glorifying God exclusively, then our progress is assured on the journey inward.  When St. Teresa of Avila wrote her classic The Interior Castle she made it clear that advancement in the spiritual life can come only when we are exclusively focused on our relationship with God and desire to place Him first in everything.  Even when we pray, we should not seek for the consolations of God that occasionally come to us, but look solely at the Creator, at Him alone.

        In the Salesian spiritual perspective we hear the phrase “God’s good pleasure.”  Embracing “God’s good pleasure” attunes us to the mysterious workings of God who interacts with souls differently, bringing each closer to Him by various means, usually through some sort of purification.  In each of the mansions or castles that St. Teresa speaks of, we leave something of our tainted human selves behind, elevating our spirits in the process and making ourselves more receptive to divine love.  In addressing her spiritual daughters St. Teresa imparts this advice: “Therefore daughters if you want me to tell you about the way to arrive at contemplation (perfection), you will have to bear with me while I enlarge on some other matters (the practice of virtues) even though they may not seem important to you, for in my opinion they are.  And if you don’t want to hear about them or practice them, continue your mental prayer all your life, but in that case I assure you, and all persons who desire this blessing, that in my opinion you will not attain true contemplation (perfection).”

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        So we see how important the practice of virtue is for mounting the ladder to God’s heart.  To travel upward we must proceed downward.  It is the paradox of the spiritual life, one of kenosis, emptying all that binds us and weighs us down to the things of the flesh, for “the mysterious law of life and death is this:  If we want to travel the road to glory, we must proceed by way of the cross.  To be Jesus’ disciple, to be with Him in paradise, means following Him in the direction He has undertaken.  This entails fidelity to Jesus’ teachings even under personal setbacks, even under ridicule and criticism, even under the threatening loss of one’s position, security, or life.  To nullify the effects of death means to realize that I am dependent on Another, that my life is received from the Creator and cannot be treated as my personal property to do with as I please…” [Sacred Heart talk given in October of 1990.]

        True love of God, returning to the thought of St. Teresa of Avila, consists of the lessening of one’s own satisfactions, and conforming our will to that of God’s.  Perhaps no one has captured the spiritual quest more poetically than the great Spanish mystic, St. John of the Cross, who wrote: “My Beloved, the mountains, the lonely wooded valleys, strange islands, roaring rivers, the whistling of love-filled breezes.  The tranquil night at the time of the rising dawn, silent music, sounding solitude, the supper that refreshes and brings love.”  While we slowly move inward by God’s grace, we enjoy the tranquility and rest and quiet of the peaceful night, which God grants to the faithful soul who is resolved to follow Him whole-heartedly.  This is refreshment along the way, while God prepares us to surrender our all to Him in perfect love.

        On our spiritual journey it is truly a blessing to find someone who understands the working of grace in the human soul.  Fortunately, for Saint Margaret Mary, there emerged by God’s providence, a consummate spiritual guide in the person of the Jesuit priest, Claude la Colombiere.  Even before meeting him, she heard an interior voice which gave her assurance.  “Here is my perfect friend,” it said.  In time and with careful discernment, Claude was able to verify the authenticity of the revelations given to her and convince her superiors that they need not fear the Spirit by which she was being led.  In her book of Foundations, we can also note Teresa of Avila’s admonitions to those in religious authority: “A prioress must not think that she can understand a soul immediately;  let her leave this to God, for it is He  alone who can understand the soul, and let her try to guide each soul in the way in which His Majesty is leading it.”  For those with little spiritual formation, there is always the chance that the signs of God’s presence in a soul can be misapprehended.  On the other hand, true spiritual discernment is a delicate balance of waiting on the Lord’s actions and providing the right framework of guidance to encourage the soul’s advance to closer union with Him.

        Our life on earth is nothing other than a preparation to meet the One who created us in love.  The great pattern of this preparation is Christ;  how He lived His life and what teachings He left as a guide to our own transformation in Him.  When we look at the transfiguration scene (commemorated on August 6th) we get a glimpse of that eternal glory which awaits us, but which for now is so shrouded in shadows.  It is revealing that the great Catholic thinker and writer John Henry Newman, chose as the epithet for his tombstone: “Out of shadows, into the light.”  He realized that one day, not in this world, we will see things as they really are;  that the clarity of eternal truth will penetrate our souls and that this truth will bring us enlightenment and the knowledge of our great need for God’s mercy.

         But for the moment we are all on a “climbing” journey, striving for that spiritual perfection which comes only to those who choose to run the race in fidelity to the teachings of Christ.  In her allegorical novel, Hinds’ Feet on High Places, Hannah Hurnard portrays this ascent to the high places by employing the character of Much Afraid as someone who can only accomplish her mission through the help of the Good Shepherd.  With her traveling companions Sorrow and Suffering she does succeed against all odds in arriving at the High Places, after much tribulation.  And in the end she learns many valuable lessons of life, particularly that “there are no obstacles which our Savior’s love cannot overcome,” for “the High Places of victory and union with Christ can be reached by learning to accept, day by day, the actual conditions and tests permitted by God, by laying down our own will and accepting His.  The lessons of accepting and triumphing over evil, of becoming acquainted with grief, and pain, and of finding them transformed into something incomparably precious;  these are the lessons of the allegory in this book.”

        Let us pray that the Heart of Christ will bless each of us with the grace and strength to keep the eyes of our hearts ever turned towards Him, so that we may run the race of life well and someday share in the glory of the beloved friends of Christ’s eternal, sacred heart.†

This talk on Sacred Heart Spirituality was given on August 2nd, 2015 by one of the Sisters of the Visitation of Holy Mary at the Visitation Monastery in Tyringham, Massachusetts.  The next talk will be held on Sunday, October 4th, 2015 at 4:00 pm.  All are invited to attend.