by Father Robert Lauder

Third in a series

I suspect that readers of this column have had the experience that I have had frequently. The experience is having some problem or topic that you are trying to understand more clearly, and then something you are reading sheds light on that problem or topic

At times, I have found the reading through a search because of my interest; at other times, the reading is a pleasant surprise. However and whenever it happens in my life, I want to share the experience with others. Evelyn Underhill’s book, “The Spiritual Life” (Morehouse, 1937, pp. 128) was a delightful surprise.

The problem that I have been thinking about a great deal in recent years is how to call back many who have stopped practicing their Catholic faith or even have decided to leave the Church. Reading Underhill has reminded me that God is active in every person’s life, even in the lives of those who very rarely, if ever, think about God or their relationship with God.

The book has also reminded me that we do not save or redeem people. Jesus has done that. What we should try to do is be ready to serve in any way that God wishes so that God might use us to help others to be open to God’s redeeming love.

Respond or Resist

Underhill believes that the moment that we become aware of the creative presence of God in our lives and so are able either to respond or resist is the moment that our spiritual lives begin. Of course, that moment can happen in many ways.

Underhill comments on the dramatic moments that occurred in the lives of St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of Genoa. She mentions that what happens when the moment of awareness happens is that a Reality that was always there discloses itself in its awesome presence and intimate nearness and the person’s life can be changed. Underhill comments that a human person is a finite center of consciousness which is able to long for infinity.

She writes the following about the experience of God’s presence in a person’s life:

“In all the records of those who have had this experience, we notice that there is always the sense that we are concerned with two realities, not one: that while it is true that there is something in man which longs for the Perfect and can move towards it, what matters most and takes precedence of all else is the fact of a living Reality over against men, who stoops toward him, and first incites and then supports and responds to his seeking. And it is through this strange communion between the finite and the Infinite, the seeker and the sought, the creature man and the Creator God – we may sometimes think of in impersonal terms borrowed from physical nature and sometimes in personal terms borrowed from the language of human love – that the spiritual life develops in depth and power.” (pp. 50-51)

Looking at the lives of those who have taken God’s presence in their lives seriously, Underhill notes that though people may use different terminology, the pattern is always the same. She claims it always involves mortification and prayer.

In regard to mortification, Underhill means any activity that involves the renunciation of sinfulness. In other words, mortification means tending to ourselves, making an effort to allow God’s presence to become more influential in our lives. By prayer, she means attending to God. For Underhill, prayer is taking part in the continual conversation and communion with God.

Ruled by Truth

Though the following statement expresses a truth that I have believed for most of my life, reading it in Underhill’s book struck me:

“God … has made or rather is making each person reading these words for Himself; and that our lives will not achieve stability until they are ruled by that truth.” (p. 57)

Often while reflecting on the insights in “The Spiritual Life,” I thought of one of my favorite sections of Sacred Scripture. It is in chapter three of St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. St. Paul is stating how he has come to count everything else in his life as unimportant in comparison to his experience of the Risen Christ. Noting that he hopes that he will eventually experience the resurrection, he writes:

“Not that I have already obtained this, or already have been made perfect, but I press on hoping that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it already. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind, I strain forward to what is before. I press on towards the goal, to the prize of God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.”