Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [145]
The saint is so dead unto himself that his solicitude is altogether borne and guided by God, who “maketh his sun to rise upon the good and bad” (Matt. 5:45), and woos our souls with inconceivable forbearance.
The fervor of the saint reveals a rhythm that can no longer be measured by natural standards. He borrows, so to speak, the rule of his being from God; and may speak with St. Paul: “Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me” (2 Cor. 12:9).
No longer do we face here the massive impetus of a powerful nature—its place is taken by a soaring tranquillity; we discern an attitude completely embedded in the peace of God; an awareness (uniting the utmost devotion to detached serenity) of being nothing but an instrument of God, who also disposes of ways other than those which this particular servant of His has devised or is pursuing, nay, who “is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matt. 3:9), and who therefore never depends necessarily on himself. Such a man is as though he had cast all earthly weight from him. He irradiates a mild and yet resistless energy which makes all natural impetus appear as impotent weakness.
In all our search and struggle for the kingdom of God, we must again and again examine ourselves as to whether we have reached the stage of such a supernatural hunger and thirst. It is not enough that we should burn: it must be the light, serene flame rising from a heart penetrated and lit up by the love of Christ. We must examine whether our zeal is tempered with holy patience; whether we are inspired by that tender, sensitive, attentive charity which is molded by the longanimity of God.
We must question if we are proof against the temptation of endeavoring to establish the kingdom of God by assault, by trampling on our fellow men. We must keep on our guard against the delusion that the paths we have chosen shall infallibly lead us to our goal. We must bear in mind the advice St. Ambrose gave to St. Monica, at a time when her son Augustine was still unconverted, that she should speak more with God about her son than with her son about God. To that advice she conformed; and we know what was to be the reward of her holy patience.
Our hunger and thirst for justice and the kingdom of God is a necessary condition of our transformation in Christ. The glow that pervades it, however, must have its source not in our nature but in Christ. “For the charity of Christ presseth us,” says St. Paul (2 Cor. 5:14): meaning that it is not merely his love for Christ but Christ active in his love that fills him and urges him on—not a natural love but one that issues from his participation in Christ, and that bears a quality entirely new and sui generis.
We must hunger and thirst for Christ Himself
But the justice referred to in the Sermon on the Mount does not mean the kingdom of God only; in the deepest sense, it means Christ Himself. After Him, whom the Church (Litany of the Most. Holy Name of Jesus) names Sol Justitiae (the Sun of justice), must we hunger and thirst. When our heart says with St. Thomas Aquinas, “No other reward do we desire, O Lord, than Thee Thyself,” and with St. Bonaventure, “May my heart ever hunger for Thee and be nourished by Thee, whose sight the angels desire; may my innermost soul be filled by the sweetness of Thy savor and ever thirst for Thee, the fount of life, the fount of wisdom and science, the fount of eternal life, the torrent of joy, the plenitude of the house of God”—then only do we hunger and thirst for true justice.
It is, then, Christ after whom we must hunger and thirst above all, yearning for the vision of His face and saying with the Psalmist, “Thy face have I sought, O Lord, Thy face will I seek” (Introit of Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension). A thirst no earthly good may quench