Advent Earnestness
From an Advent sermon of John Henry Newman, “Divine Calls,” meditating upon the call of Samuel:
We need not fear spiritual pride then, in following Christ’s call, if we follow it as men in earnest. Earnestness has no time to compare itself with the state of other men; earnestness has too vivid a feeling of its own infirmities to be elated at itself. Earnestness is simply set on doing God’s will. It simply says, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth,” “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?” Oh that we had more of this spirit! Oh that we could take that simple view of things, as to feel that the one thing which lies before us is to please God! What gain is it to please the world, to please the great, nay, even to please those whom we love, compared with this? What gain is it to be applauded, admired, courted, followed, compared with this one aim, of not being disobedient to a heavenly vision? What can this world offer comparable with that insight into spiritual things, that keen faith, that heavenly peace, that high sanctity, that everlasting righteousness, that hope of glory, which they have who in sincerity love and follow our Lord Jesus Christ?
Let us beg and pray Him day by day to reveal Himself to our souls more fully; to quicken our senses; to give us sight and hearing, taste and touch of the world to come; so to work within us that we may sincerely say, “Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and after that receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but Thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee: my flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.”
How wonderful to see Psalm 72 quoted from another time in such a meaningful way.
“You will guide me by your counsel
and so you will lead me to glory.
What else have I in heaven but you?
Apart from you I want nothing on earth.
My body and my heart faint for joy;
God is my possession for ever.”
(Grail translation)
The two lines preceding this excerpt are apt for those times of confusion and pain, when on looking back, one realizes:
“Yet I was always in your presence;
you were holding me by my right hand.”
One of my favorite Catholic personages is Friedrich von Hugel: layman, spiritual guide, philosophical theologian. His posthumously published “Letters to a Niece” is a spiritual classic.
His masterwork, “The Mystical Element of Religion,” identifies three constitutive elements of religion: the institutional, the intellectual, and the mystical. All are necessary, but are inevitably in tension. The challenge is to hold the tension creatively.
His typology here is dependent, I believe, on Newman’s discussion of the three offices or functions in the Church.
Von Hugel instructed that those words of the Psalm be inscribed on the Memorial Card at his death.
Not to try to distract from the thread, but I read the Newman quoted here through the lens of the several hours that I spent last weekend watching a DVD of Olivier Messaien’s absolutely extraordinary opera, Saint François d’Assise. Not a piece for those looking for high drama in the “operatic” sense of the word — the high drama is there all right, but it’s virtually all internal, in Francis’s encounter with the Lord. “Speak Lord, for thy servant heareth” — how difficult for most of us to break through the world’s distractions as Francis (and others, including presumably Newman) did.