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God alone must have primacy

Having examined the essence of true simplicity and distinguished it from its false counterpart, we are now faced with the question as to how it can be attained. The answer is: not by pursuing simplicity itself as a supreme goal, but by striving for a just and adequate response to the divine truth. The methods which lead us towards true simplicity, and which we are about to expose, must be looked upon not as devices for the acquisition of true simplicity but as attitudes intrinsically precious and in conformity to the will of God, and thus productive—among other good results—of true simplicity.

In the first place, we shall be on the road towards true simplicity by investing the unum necessarium with an unconditional primacy in our life. We must have the inmost readiness to relinquish anything if God wills it. No creaturely good must possess our heart to the point of setting a limit, of whatever kind, to our total devotion to Christ, in the sense that we should say, as it were, “I would willingly renounce anything else, but not this one thing.” Everything else must be ready to vanish before the call of Christ, sequere me; we must follow Him, relictis omnibus. Nothing must limit our devotion to God, nor make it dependent on certain conditions.

Our full self-donation to Christ, the surrender as Cardinal Newman has called it, the heroic relinquishment of the natural basis and of our natural selves: such is the primal act conducive to simplicity. At this point we become aware of the great task of ridding ourselves of all inordinate attachment to creaturely goods: a task which is the chief object of all ascetical training. Throughout the Gospels, the Lord admonishes us thereto. “He that loveth father or mother more than me . . . and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me” (Matt. 10:37). Christ does not withhold from our eyes the consequences of our failure so to detach ourselves from all goods, our failure to acquire freedom for the unum necessarium and hence for true simplicity: “And they began all at once to make excuse. The first said to him: I have bought a farm and I must go out and see it: I pray thee, hold me excused. And another said: I have bought five yoke of oxen and I go to try them: I pray thee, hold me excused. And another said: I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come” (Luke 14:18-20).

Yet we must live in the world

Yet, is it not the will of God that we should apply ourselves to the manifold tasks which are inherent in life and which every day carries with it? Even a hermit in the desert cannot wholly eschew a modest diversity of daily tasks; how could we, who are certainly not all elected to live as recluses? Surely, the primacy of the unum necessarium cannot dispense us from our several duties concerning our fellow men, our profession, our daily bread, and so forth? Much as we may recognize that preeminence of the unum necessarium, is not our life essentially subject to the multiform system of great and small agenda, compelling us to divide our attention and our interests?

We must shun sinful or frivolous activities

Certainly, full simplicity will only be possible in eternity, when God will be all in everything, and when we shall behold, condensed in one moment, “what shall be in the end without end” (St. Augustine, De civ. Dei 22.30). Still, even our life in statu viae will glow with a character of simplicity if we put the unum necessarium first, and more, bring everything to the one denominator which is Christ. In view of the fact that all things are controlled and ordered by one principle, and that this principle of unity is objectively identical with the Word ultimately addressed to all being, the manifold concerns and tasks will no longer be apt to despoil our life of simplicity and inward unity.

But how may this process, which we have termed bringing everything to one denominator, be in concreto accomplished? First, by considering and judging all things in the light