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By Root 2205 0

from Christ must be preserved and be made into a durable and inherent stamp on our nature. Only we must always remain changeable in the sense of remaining, upon each level securely attained, susceptible of ascent towards yet higher levels along the path of transformation in Christ. But every such act of remodelling refers back to the previous level, and thus has its place in the solid framework of continuity. The previous phase will not be buried or obliterated: its essential content will reappear on the higher level, although deepened, amplified and transfigured in the context of that higher grade of perfection. Thus shall we keep fidelity to Christ, when we follow His call to penetrate into Him ever deeper, and without reserve. It is one and the same Christ who by successive degrees reveals to us His face more and more fully, and who owns us more and more completely as we become more deeply transformed in Him.

But this requires our capacity to discern whether the new impression is really a more valid and relevant one. On the basis of continuity alone shall we be able wisely and fruitfully to confront the new thing with the old so as to avoid falling back from a higher level to a lower one or yielding to a new impression when it belongs to a level inferior to the one we have already reached.

Is there not, however, also a duty of fidelity towards our own God-created individuality? Is it right for us to ignore—in our unlimited readiness for transformation—what we feel to be the particular talents which God has entrusted to us, that ineffable essence which we feel to be our ultimate core?

Readiness to change preserves true individuality

Certainly, the radical readiness to change in the sense used here does not entail renunciation of the particularity of our personality as willed by God. But this concept, the particular individuality of a person, has a dual meaning. On the one hand, it may designate the character of a person as an empirical whole, including also whatever vices, defects, imperfections, eccentricities, and accidental features his personality may contain. Or else, we mean by individuality the particular, unique, and inimitable thought in the mind of God which every human being embodies. It is only in a saint that individuality thus conceived can fully display itself. For it contains, on the one hand, the particular natural character of the person which, however, never implies defects and imperfections as such; and on the other hand, a supernatural transfiguration and elevation of that particular nature. Now the readiness to change, as discussed here, refers in the first place to all the negative and ultimately spurious tendencies in our nature which oppose a barrier to our control by Christ. But it also refers, further, to all that is naturally good in us; for the latter is not destined to remain natural but to become enhanced and transfigured by the re-creative action of the supernatural.

No renunciation of the specific value attaching to individuality, no denial of the person’s particular nature as willed by God is implied in this transformation. This is best illustrated by the example of the saints. Though it can be said of each of them alike that “he no longer lives but Christ lives in him,” they are individualities with marked contours. Let us only think of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of Siena—to mention only two of the most obvious examples. It is as legitimate to preserve our individuality in the sense of the particular call of God which it enshrines as it is illegitimate to stick to what we commonly regard as our nature. The maintenance of our divinely sanctioned particular individuality can never conflict with our transformation by Christ. It cannot involve us in resisting the uplifting force and in shielding any part of our nature from Christ. For, so long as we keep immured in our nature, that divinely sanctioned individuality is not yet achieved; it is only when “we live no longer but Christ lives in us” that it can unfold integrally.

The great mystery of our metaphysical situation,