Understanding Sex

Alice von Hildebrand has recently taken issue with the way Christopher West explains John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. Alice von Hildebrand is someone I greatly admire and respect, so when she speaks I listen. I know many others feel the same. Her main concern with West seems to be his lack of reverence when discussing something as “intimate” and “extremely serious” as sex. Von Hildebrand is also concerned that West does not respect the tremendous danger posed to us by concupiscence. Read the CNA article

Recently, West, in an interview with ABC, made remarks suggesting that Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body takes what was good in the sexual revolution a step further. West sees an explicit and “profound” conncection between Hugh Hefner and Pope John Paul II. Both saw that sex was good and natural, but only one (JPII) saw how sex can be sanctified. There is a good point to be made here, but it does lack reverence. But I think this is exactly what West is trying to do. He is trying to use “the language of the world” in order to show the world a “better way”, like a Trojan horse of Holy Love Making in the temple of the Aphrodite. This is fine as far as it goes, but I do share von Hildebrand’s concerns. If sex is sacred, it should be talked about with reverence. If sex is beautiful then it should be talked about in the language of beauty. This was something her husband, Dietrich von Hildebrand, was very concerned with. He wrote that one of the greatest sins that go unnoticed in our world is irreverence. Giving a proper response to value is what makes us human and a proper mark of reverence. An improper response to value belies irreverence. It seems this understanding of irreverence in response to value is what underlies Alice von Hildebrand’s concerns with West’s approach to sex. I tend to agree with her. Let us not be prudish Puritans, but lets us not be Holy Playboys either.

The Catholic Conscience

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus always has some interesting things to say in his “While We’re At It” section of First Things. The tidbit below is regarding the role the conscience plays in the Catholic mind, and comes with a book recommendation. These words are forever timely as there is perhaps no other word in the English language that is more misunderstood than the word “conscience”.

Fr. Neuhaus from the January 2009 issue of FT:

You may have run into the claim that the Catholic teaching on conscience is is really quite circular: You must act according to conscience; your conscience must be rightly formed in accord with truth; the Church teaches the truth. Thus the upshot is, critics say, you must do what the Church tells you to do, and so much for all the fine talk about conscience. There is indeed much confusion about conscience. Some think of conscience as a little built-in moral regulator that scolds you when you do wrong and commends you when you do right. Much like the cute cartoons in which a little angel is seated on one shoulder and a little devil on the other. Others confuse conscience with sincerity. To act in conscience is to determine your deepest feelings on a matter and to act accordingly. Rather, conscience is a God-given capacity and desire to seek the truth and, working together with the gifts of reason and will, to act on the truth. What then is the role of the Church’s teaching? The answer has to do not so much with conscience as with faith. If one believes that, as Jesus promised, the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit in her teaching, the Church is an indispensable source of truth, including moral truth. If one does not believe that, one is, to that extent, not a Catholic Christian. Conscience does not establish truth—whether by automatic moral monitor or by sincerity of feelings—but enables us to discern and respond to truth. It is not simply a matter of doing what the Church tells you to do. It is a matter of acting in conscience, in the hope that one’s conscience is formed by truth. These are among the questions very deftly and persuasively treated by Fr. Thomas Williams in his new book, Knowing Right from Wrong: A Christian Guide to Conscience. Reading it is time spent in good conscience

Protectors of the Flock

From today’s second reading of the Divine Office; some pastoral advice by Pope Saint Gregory the Great:

A spiritual guide should be silent when discretion requires and speak when words are of service. Otherwise he may say what he should not or be silent when he should speak. Indiscreet speech may lead men into error and an imprudent silence may leave in error those who could have been taught. Pastors who lack foresight hesitate to say openly what is right because they fear losing the favour of men. As the voice of truth tells us, such leaders are not zealous pastors who protect their flocks, rather they are like mercenaries who flee by taking refuge in silence when the wolf appears.

The Lord reproaches them through the prophet: They are dumb dogs that cannot bark. On another occasion he complains: You did not advance against the foe or set up a wall in front of the house of Israel, so that you might stand fast in battle on the day of the Lord. To advance against the foe involves a bold resistance to the powers of this world in defence of the flock. To stand fast in battle on the day of the Lord means to oppose the wicked enemy out of love for what is right.

When a pastor has been afraid to assert what is right, has he not turned his back and fled by remaining silent? Whereas if he intervenes on behalf of the flock, he sets up a wall against the enemy in front of the house of Israel. Therefore, the Lord again says to his unfaithful people: Your prophets saw false and foolish visions and did not point out your wickedness, that you might repent of your sins. The name of the prophet is sometimes given in the sacred writings to teachers who both declare the present to be fleeting and reveal what is to come. The word of God accuses them of seeing false visions because they are afraid to reproach men for their faults and thereby lull the evildoer with an empty promise of safety. Because they fear reproach, they keep silent and fail to point out the sinner’s wrongdoing.

The word of reproach is a key that unlocks a door, because reproach reveals a fault of which the evildoer is himself often unaware. That is why Paul says of the bishop: He must be able to encourage men in sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. For the same reason God tells us through Malachi: The lips of the priest are to preserve knowledge, and men shall look to him for the law, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. Finally, that is also the reason why the Lord warns us through Isaiah: Cry out and be not still; raise your voice in a trumpet call.

Anyone ordained a priest undertakes the task of preaching, so that with a loud cry he may go on ahead of the terrible judge who follows. If, then, a priest does not know how to preach, what kind of cry can such a dumb herald utter? It was to bring this home that the Holy Spirit descended in the form of tongues on the first pastors, for he causes those whom he has filled, to speak out spontaneously

Let us pray for such pastors who will be fearless in protecting the sheep from the wolves.

Intercessory Prayer

Taken from today’s second reading of the Divine Office: Saint Catherine of Siena from her Dialogue on Divine Providence,

My sweet Lord, look with mercy upon your people and especially upon the mystical body of your Church. Greater glory is given to your name for pardoning a multitude of your creatures than if I alone were pardoned for my great sins against your majesty. It would be no consolation for me to enjoy your life if your holy people stood in death. For I see that sin darkens the life of your bride the Church – my sin and the sins of others.

It is a special grace I ask for, this pardon for the creatures you have made in your image and likeness. When you created man, you were moved by love to make him in your own image. Surely only love could so dignify your creatures. But I know very well that man lost the dignity you gave him; he deserved to lose it, since he had committed sin.

Moved by love and wishing to reconcile the human race to yourself, you gave us your only-begotten Son. He became our mediator and our justice by taking on all our injustice and sin out of obedience to your will, eternal Father, just as you willed that he take on our human nature. What an immeasurably profound love! Your Son went down from the heights of his divinity to the depths of our humanity. Can anyone’s heart remain closed and hardened after this?

We image your divinity, but you image our humanity in that union of the two which you have worked in a man. You have veiled the Godhead in a cloud, in the clay of our humanity. Only your love could so dignify the flesh of Adam. And so by reason of this immeasurable love I beg, with all the strength of my soul, that you freely extend your mercy to all your lowly creatures.

Suffering and Providence

From Saint Francis de Sales’ Treatise on the Love of God:

Considered in themselves, trials certainly cannot be loved, but looked at in their origin – that is, in God’s Providence and ordaining will – they are worthy of unlimited love…

The Stoics, particularly good Epictetus, placed all their philosophy in this: to abstain and sustain; to forbear and to bear up under; to abstain from and to forbear earthly pleasures, delights, and honors, and to sustain and to bear up under injuries, labors, and troubles. Christian doctrine, the sole true philosophy, has three principles on which it bases all its practices: self-denial, which is far more than to abstain from pleasures; to carry Christ’s cross, which is far more than to lift it up; and to follow our Lord, not only in renouncing self and in carrying His Cross, but also in whatever belongs to the practice of every kind of good work. Still it is evident that there is not as much love in self-denial and such deeds as in suffering. In fact, in Sacred Scripture, the Holy Spirit points out that the climax in our Lord’s love for us is the Passion and death He suffered for us.

To love God’s will in consolations is a good love when it is truly God’s will we love and not the consolation wherein it lies. Still, it is a love without opposition, repugnance, or effort. Who would not love so worthy a will in so agreeable a form?

To love God’s will in His commandments, counsels, and inspirations is the second degree of love and it is much more perfect. It carries us forward to renounce and give up our own will, and enables us to abstain from and forbear many pleasures, but not all of them.

To love suffering and affliction out of love for God is the summit of most holy charity. In it nothing is pleasant but the divine will alone; there is great opposition on the part of our nature; and not only do we forsake all pleasures, but we embrace torments and labors.

The Necessity of Prayer for Contemplation

So if contemplation is so important for our lives, indeed it part and parcel to our transformation in Christ, how is it to be done? Dietrich von Hildebrand answers:

The true Christian must at any cost conquer a place in his life for contemplation. He must firmly refuse to let himself be dragged into a whirlpool of activities in which he is driven incessantly from one task to another, purpose succeeding purpose, without a pause. The present period of perpetual unrest, in which the machine has come to be the model, the causa exemplaris, of well-nigh all things, in which everything is caught in a process of instrumentalization, in which Leistung (“achievement”) with the emphasis on quantity and mere technical perfection, has assumed priority over being in a substantial and meaningful sense – this period of shallow hyperactivity is only too apt to drag us into that whirlpool of outward preoccupations.

All our actions, even those with a religious or moral importance, which therefore essentially appeal to the contemplative attitude, we tend to perform in the manner of discharging a duty or of acquitting ourselves of a task – not to say, of turning out the required output. We live in uninterrupted tension, never ceasing to be conquered about what has next to be settled; and many of us no longer know any alternative to work except recreation and amusement.

I believe this is what I called “noise”. So how are we to overcome all this noise and achieve a contemplative frame of mind¹? von Hildebrand answers:

First, we should consecrate every day a certain space of time to inward prayer. There must be such a fraction of the day, in which we drop all our topical or habitual concerns before God, facing Him in complete emptiness, so as to be filled by the holy presence of Christ alone.

Yet, we must guard from performing the inner prayer as though we were dispatching a business among others, assimilating it to the rhythm of current tasks. We must really loose the spasm of activity and be dominated by the consciousness of departing in our inward prayer towards the superior realm of ultimate being, in radical transcendence of the aims and concerns which habitually rule the course of our thoughts.

All these we must leave behind, pronouncing a nescivi (“I have forgotten”)….

Inward prayer is the utmost antithesis to all tense activity: we cannot practice it fruitfully unless we succeed in extricating ourselves from the rhythm of affairs to be settled. To preserve that pragmatic attitude during our inward prayer is to falsify the latter’s essence to the point of absurdity.

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¹ This is not to say our entire lives are to be spent in perpetual contemplation. Dietrich von  Hildebrand makes a sharp distinction between recollection and contemplation.  In Recollection “we become or make ourselves empty of pragmatical concerns, directing ourselves to the absolute…. In this respect, recollection is a preamble to contemplation…. Whereas our earthly life could not be purely contemplative, it should always remain recollected.”

On Contemplation and Beauty

Our old friend, Dietrich von Hildebrand again. This time on the subject of contemplation. From Transformation in Christ, Chapter 6:

In order that contemplation may bring out its full meaning and attain its perfection, another feature must be present. The object must affect us not only with its isolated specific content, it must elevate us into the world of valid and ultimate reality. We must, in contemplation, meet that world as such, so as to acquire suddenly a comprehensive new attitude towards all things.

Who of us does not know the supreme moments when a great truth, a glorious beauty of art or of nature, or the soul of a beloved person manifests itself to our soul with a lightning-like splendor, gracing our eyes with a vision of ultimate reality and prompting us to exclaim, “O Lord, how admirable is Thy name in the whole earth!” (Ps. 8:10)?

That other feature of contemplation which must be present, to which the feature noted above is an addition, is the sense of timelessness. In contemplation proper, we are taken up out of the world of time, or rather, the temporal world around us ceases to exist.

In regards to the question in the second paragraph quoted above, I am afraid of the great awkwardness with which many people in 2008 would answer such a question. Dietrich von Hildebrand was by all accounts a highly cultured and educated man with a supreme appreciation for beauty, whether it be found in nature, art, or music. Perhaps only he could ask such a question with child-like naivete. He may have been unaware that not everyone has the gift of being able to appreciate beauty or even recognize it as he did. Nevertheless, I will trust, or at least hope, that everyone has had the kind of “supreme moment” noted above; if not a full realization of such contemplative joy, at least a hint of it.

However, if there are many who have not had such an experience, it is certainly because of the noise that fills our world. Without silence of heart and soul, contemplation is impossible. Our soul needs silence so that it can hear the voice of its maker.

“And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” I Kings 19:11-12 (RSV)

Compounding the problem of our inability to assume a contemplitive posture, we appear to have also lost a true appreciation for beauty. We are not sure why we need to study poetry anymore, or why we should care about making art that elevates the soul, or why we should care about the great works of Mozart and J.S. Bach. We can’t even agree about what is beautiful. I suppose even a trash can full of shit can look beautiful if you’re depraved enough to see it. Have you seen what counts as art these days?

I am reminded of the famous words of Fyodor Dostoevsky through his great character Prince Myshkin: “beauty will save the world.” It would seem so. Beauty will save the world because it will draw us back into contemplation. When authentic beauty is appreciated and reverenced in our culture, it is a sure sign that our souls have once again found value in silence and can once again hear the voice of God.

Imagine a world in which beauty is reverenced. What place would there be for war? How could rape or any sort of violence against a human being exist when the essential beauty of each person is apprecated in its fullness? How could pornography exist in a world that honors true beauty? Of course, sin will always be a reality of our world, but if our culture, with all its great power to influence and shape minds, would only embrace goodness, truth, and beauty, what a different place this world would be.

Indeed, beauty just might save the world.

True Simplicity

In Chapter 5 of Transformation in Christ, Dietrich von Hildebrand deals with, what he calls, true simplicity. By this he means a sole orientation of one’s life toward God, the unum necessarium. This simplicity is contrasted with a life devoted to one of many things, where consideration of God’s will is but one consideration among many. This kind of complex life is splintered because it is not solely directed toward God. To quote that famous passage from Saint Augustine, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee”. When we try to serve God and mammon our lives become split. Sin introduces disunity in the soul, precisely because it takes our gaze from God. The true simplicity that should accompany a Christian life is now disrupted. Only when sin is removed from our lives, and this is accomplished only through a transformation in Christ, does unity reign within our soul as we direct our gaze toward God alone. As Dietrich von Hildebrand is quick to point out, true simplicity is very difficult to obtain and cannot be fully obtained this side of the beatific vision. However, this is the holiness of life to which we are are called. “Be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy.” (Lev 19.2)

From Chapter 5 of Transformation in Christ :

A person confined within his natural attitude may not squander his interests on a multitude of trivial irrelevancies: he may concentrate upon an important cause, consecrate himself to a noble vocation, or be overwhelmed with a great love. However, he will then be exhausted, as it were, by that one thing, valuable maybe, but yet only one among many human concerns. Everything else is obscured, and he cannot afford to pay adequate attention even to a genuine good if it be unconnected with the thing which now engrosses his interest.

It is not so with true simplicity, involving an exclusive devotion to the unum necessarium alone. With this, new forces spring up in the man; an abundance of spiritual intensity arises from his participation in the life of Christ. New torrents are released, of which he knew nothing before; he is now enabled to react adequately, in a far greater measure than in his former life, to human individualities and the manifoldness of situations…

How inexhaustible becomes thereby the capacity for devoting ourselves to our fellow creatures and to their legitimate cares. Only think of the saints: St. Paul for example, when he says, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is scandalized, and I am not on fire?” (2 Cor 11.29). This is a measure of love which transcends all natural categories. Or again, what a never relaxing intensity in attending to a variety of high tasks do we find in St. Albert the Great, adding the immensity of his scientific work to his monastic duties and his episcopal functions! With similar intent we may point to the life of a St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

From the natural standpoint, such a simultaneity of nobly performed duties might well seem impossible. But the saints could achieve such an abundance of life precisely because they were simple and by reason of their simplicity participated in the life of Christ.

In the preceding passage an important concept is taken for granted, of which Dietrich von Hildebrand treats elsewhere in Transformation in Christ. Simplicity in the natural order implies a narrowness of life (first paragraph quoted above), while simplicity in sole devotion to God implies great depth. The reason for this is to be found in the hierarchy of being. God, the alpha and omega, at the top, down to angels, to humans, to animals, to plant life, to non-biological matter, and so forth. When we orientate our lives toward God, we become focused on the unum necessarium, the ultimate and divine logos of the world, the source of life itself. This implies great depth, in that we are able to encounter the world in conspectu Dei (in view of God), and thus we are capable of seeing “things” (and people) as they really are. However, when our focus is on things of this world this depth of meaning is lost. No longer are we orientated towards the source of all life. We are instead focused on the things of this world, in which no light of meaning can be shed on anything else. We thus become narrow.

I cannot recommend highly enough a complete and careful reading of Transformation in Christ (Amazon link). It’s a lengthy book (500 pages), but it is not difficult. It was meant to be read slowly, and I suggest having a pencil or highlighter in hand. In fact, this is a work to be studied, not read. Transformation in Christ is one of the great spiritual classics of the last century, written by a truly great man. To learn more about Dietrich von Hildebrand, I highly recommend The Soul of a Lion (Amazon link), written by his wife, Alice von Hildebrand – a distinguished philosopher in her own right. Buy both together and get free shipping from Amazon!

Self-Knowledge in Christ

This Dietrich von Hildebrand fellow is really good. Someone should take an interest in him and try to revive his works or something. Oh, who can we find to do such a thing!

In this passage from Transformation in Christ, Dietrich von Hildebrand makes a distinction between true self-knowledge rooted in the removal of vice from our lives, and a false self-knowledge that seeks to know ourselves merely because we find ourselves to be interesting.

Whenever we take a purely psychological interest in ourselves and thus analyze our character in the manner of mere spectators, we peruse a false and sterile self-knowledge… The fact that the person in question happens to be ourselves merely intensifies our curiosity, without changing its quality. We experience ourselves as we would a character in a novel, without in any way feeling responsible for his defects…

This type of self-knowledge is not rooted in any willingness to change, and so it is completely sterile from the standpoint of moral progress. People who are wont to diagnose their blemishes in this neutral and purely psychological mood will draw from such discoveries no increased power to overcome their defects. On the contrary, such an indolently neutral self-knowledge will make them even more inclined to resign themselves to those defects as a matter of course. They are more remote from the chance of curing those ills than they would if they knew nothing about them. They are often disposed to admit their faults overtly, without restraint or reticence: not however from the motive of humility, nor under the impulse of guilt-consciousness, but because they pique themselves on presenting their vices, a psychologically absorbing sight.

Clearly, this false type of self-knowledge is much more common in our day and age. Rarely do we find anyone who is serious about rooting out sin in their lives. I suspect this is because what used to be thought of as sin is no longer thought of as such. Quite the contrary, what was formerly called a vice is now something to be proud of – one characteristic among many that make up who we are. I like the Beatles. I’m a Green Bay Packers fan. I’m good at math. I enjoy masturbation. (I’m pretty sure I heard this list in my college days).

This is in no way meant to condemn the greater culture, but rather a challenge to those who have been (hopefully) radically transformed by the Gospel message and are thus called to be a light to the world, the salt of the earth. If sin is no longer recognized as such, it is surely our fault. If it is we who are called to “go forth and make disciples of all nations”, then the reason vice is exalted in our age is because we have failed to carry out this commission of Christ. We have failed to proclaim the good news – that Christ is Lord and sin no longer has any power over us.

Does this mean we are to go around condemning the sins of others, “beating them over the head”, as it were, pretending that we are the holy, the few, the true righteous? Of course, not! At the heart of the Gospel message is a love that, while standing firmly in the truth of our moral responsibilities, does not condemn the world. Surely, sin is to be abhorred in all of its forms, but this is not the abhorrence of the self-righteous, but the lament of a lover. When we see someone we love (and we are called to love all, even, and perhaps most especially, our enemies) bound by something we know to be mortally wounding to their soul, it is out of love that we plead for their freedom and salvation. This plea is most immediately raised toward Our Lord, in whom we, and those we love, have such freedom from sin. We intercede on behalf of the beloved, recognizing the stain of sin on our own souls, and that the mercy God has shown us will now be bestowed on the one we love.

Of course, we are to convey our grievous concerns to those whom we have the surety (and often we do not) of sinful behavior. It is our moral duty. But if such a duty, and how tough a duty it is to carry out, is not rooted in love, it will be of little or no avail.

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I do not often pontificate like this on my blog. I intend this blog to be more of a commonplace book than a lecture podium, and as such my blog tends to be a collection of quotes from those far more eloquent than I. Only once in a very long while does this commonplace book turn into a journal. I suppose this is one of those times.

As far as the “homily”, I just needed to get this topic off my chest – to think out loud. Of late, I have been struck by the literally overwhelming love of God. I have a hard time putting it into words, as many who know me may be able to attest. Sometimes I think I end up talking about “love” so much and with such ineloquence that I end up explaining God’s love with no more depth than a bumper sticker. I know that love is at the heart of the Gospel. I know love is why Christ came. And more fundamentally, love is why we exist. This is a love so unfathomable that it is beyond all words. It is the love that animated Mother Teresa and the many, many Saints throughout the ages. To quote a great Catholic theologian of the last century, “love alone is credible” – all else fades away and is purged by the fire.

I am often surprised by the numbers of people visiting this blog. I expect many are accidental or very brief visits, and while “all are welcome” (to quote a very bad Catholic hymn) the intended audience is often myself. I publish this post in the knowledge that someone other than myself may find it helpful.

Readiness to Change

In very beginning of perhaps his greatest work, Transformation in Christ, Dietrich von Hildebrand says the perquisite to holiness (i.e. being transformed in Christ) is simply a “readiness to change”. This is, however, not the mere desire to improve one’s self that all men of natural virtue should possess. There is a sharp distinction between wanting to improve and desiring a fundamental change to our being. The former can come about naturally in all men of good will. The latter is of supernatural origin. In the opening chapter to Transformation in Christ, Dietrich von Hildebrand draws this distinction with great lucidity, and challenges us in the process. Emphasis is von Hildebrand’s:

Readiness to change vs. natural optimism

In regard to their perspective readiness to change, the difference between the Christian and the natural idealist is obvious. The idealist is suffused with optimism concerning human nature as such. He underestimates the depth of our defects; he is unaware of the wound, incurable by human means, with which our nature is afflicted. He overlooks our impotence to erase a moral guilt or to bring about autonomously a moral regeneration of ourselves. Moreover, his infatuation with activity prevents him from understanding even the necessity of a basic renewal. He fails to sense the essential inadequacy of all natural morality, as well as the incomparable superiority of virtue supernaturally founded, let alone the full presence of such virtue – holiness.

His readiness to change will differ, therefore, from that of the Christian, above all in the following respects. First, he has in mind a relative change only: an evolution immanent to nature. His endeavor is not, as is the Christian’s, to let his nature as a whole be transformed from above, nor to let his character be stamped with a new coinage, a new face, as it were, whose features far transcend human nature and all its possibilities. His object is not to be reborn: to become radically – from the root, that is – another man; he merely wants to perfect himself within the framework of his natural dispositions. He is intent on ensuring an unhampered evolution of these dispositions and potentialities. Sometimes even an express approval of his own nature is implicit therein, and a self-evident confidence in the given tendencies of his nature as they are before being worked upon by conscious self-criticism. Such was, for instance, Goethe’s case. Invariably in the idealist, the readiness to change is limited to a concept of nature’s immanent evolution or self-perfection: it’s scope remains exclusively human. Whereas with the Christian, it refers to a basic transformation and redemption of things human by things divine: to a supernatural goal.

A second point of difference is closely connected with this. The idealist’s readiness to change is aimed at certain details or aspects only, never at his character as a whole. The aspiring man of natural morality is intent on eradicating this defect, on acquiring that virtue; the Christian, however, is intent on becoming another man in all things, in regard to both what is bad and what is naturally good in him. He knows that what is naturally good, too, is insufficient before God; that it, too, must submit to supernatural transformation – to a re-creation, we might say, by the new principle of supernatural life conveyed to him by Baptism.

Thirdly, the man of natural moral endeavor, willing as he may be to change in one way or another, will always stick to the firm ground of Nature. How could he be asked to relinquish that foothold, tumbling off into the void? Yet it is precisely this firm ground which the Christian does leave. His readiness to change impels him to break with his unredeemed nature as a whole: he wills to leave the firm ground of unredeemed nature under his feet and to tumble, so to speak, into the arms of Christ. Only he who may say with St. Paul, “I know in whom I have believed” can risk the enormous adventure of dying unto himself and of relinquishing the natural foundation.

Want more? Click here for the audio for all 40 episodes of A Knight for Truth – an EWTN series with Thomas Howard and Alice von Hildebrand, dedicated to the life and work (specifically Transformation in Christ) of Dietrich von Hildebrand.