Transformation in Christ_ On the Christian Attitude - Dietrich Von Hildebrand [6]
The present study is restricted to a selection of the spiritual attitudes and virtues which constitute the treasure yielded by a life in Christ, the understanding of which may reveal the intrinsic, the qualitative newness of supernatural morality. It does not pretend to completeness, not even to that completeness in a limited sense which an inexhaustible subject of this kind might admit; even in regard to the scope of its contents, it cannot claim to be comprehensive.
The purpose of this book will be fulfilled if it succeeds in evoking the mystic grandeur of the Call implied in the words of the Lord, “Follow me,” and rousing in the hearts of some the desire to be transformed in Christ. For, before all else, it is necessary for us to grasp the “height, breadth, and depth” of our vocation, and fully to comprehend the message of the Gospel which invites us not merely to become disciples of Christ and children of God, but to enter into a process of transformation in Christ. “But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18).
TRANSFORMATION
IN
CHRIST
I
The Readiness to Change
Put off the old man who is corrupted according to
the desire of error, and be renewed in the spirit of your
mind: and put on the new man, who according to God
is created injustice and holiness of truth. (Eph. 4:22-24)
THESE words of St. Paul are inscribed above the gate through which all must pass who want to reach the goal set us by God. They implicitly contain the quintessence of the process which baptized man must undergo before he attains the unfolding of the new supernatural life received in Baptism.
All true Christian life, therefore, must begin with a deep yearning to become a new man in Christ, and an inner readiness to “put off the old man”—a readiness to become something fundamentally different.
All good men desire to change
Even though he should lack religion, the will to change is not unknown to man. He longs to develop and to perfect himself. He believes he can overcome all vices and deficiencies of his nature by human force alone. All morally aspiring men are conscious of the necessity of a purposeful self-education which should cause them to change and to develop. They, too,—as contrasted to the morally indifferent man who lets himself go and abandons himself passively to his natural dispositions—reveal a certain readiness to change. But for this, no spiritual and moral growth would exist at all.
Yet, when man is touched by the light of Revelation, something entirely new has come to pass. The revelation of the Old Testament alone suffices to make the believer aware of man’s metaphysical situation and the terrible wound inflicted upon his nature by original sin. He knows that no human force can heal that wound; that he is in need of redemption. He grasps the truth that repentance is powerless to remove the guilt of sin which separates him from God, that good will and natural moral endeavor will fail to restore him to the beauty of the paradisiac state. Within him lives a deep yearning for the Redeemer, who by divine force will take the guilt of sin and bridge the gulf that separates the human race from God.
Throughout the Old Testament that yearning resounds: “Convert us, O God: and show us Thy face, and we shall be saved” (Ps. 79:4). We perceive the desire for purification which enables us to appear before God, and to endure the presence of the unspeakably Holy One: “Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: Thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow” (Ps. 50:9).
God calls us to change
The New Testament, however, reveals to us a call which far transcends that yearning. Thus Christ speaks to Nicodemus: “Amen, amen, I say to thee,