Marriage and the Counsels (1)

IS IT possible to arrive at perfection without following the evangelical counsels?

Put in this way, the question can have two answers depending on whether the effective practice of the counsels is to be understood or simply the spirit of the counsels.

Perfection consists in the exercise of charity as the duty of one’s state implies it. “Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” was said to all not just to priests and religious.

And again to all, “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind and with all thy strength.”

The perfection of charity is commanded to all and not only counseled.

That the evangelical counsels are a help to the exercise of the virtue of charity for those who have elected to live by them is certain; they are not the only means.

The Gospel makes it perfectly clear. There is the observance of the Commandments—a necessity for all; there is the observance of the counsels—for those who desire it; those only would be obliged to adopt this second means who have evidence that without them they could not attain their salvation—a rare case indeed.

But it appears to be a very difficult thing to arrive at the perfection of charity without adopting the spirit of the counsels.

In fact there are three great obstacles to the perfect service of God: excessive attachment to the goods of earth; the tendency to seek purely selfish satisfactions where the affections of the heart are concerned; finally the habit of obeying not so much God’s will for our life as personal caprice and the false demands of the world.

From this it is evident that the pursuit of perfection presupposes the spirit of detachment; it means using things, as Saint Paul would say, as if we did not use them at all. That suggestion is good not only for life in the cloister but every bit as good if not more so, in view of the greater difficulty, in the simple life of observing the Commandments. The spirit of poverty in either case is essential.

The pursuit of perfection while living in the midst of the world likewise calls for the spirit of chastity, the chastity of the heart—not to the point of having to deprive themselves of everything as those do who are vowed to the virginal state but to the point of the privations necessary to meet the demands of the conjugal state. Therefore, the spirit of chastity is equally essential.

Striving for perfection in the midst of the world still allows the individual entire liberty regarding many of the details of life, the so-called good things of life as well as ideas, companionship, dress. The soldier, Ernest Psichari, yearned as he used to say, “to be free of everything except Jesus Christ.”

Strive for obedience to God alone who said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all the rest shall be added unto you.” I must not let “the rest” take precedence over “the Kingdom.”

Obedience to God should not be marked by formal passivity but by vision and conviction. Let me measure the distance from the place I am now to the summit of Christianity.