The Sequela Christi
The moral life of a Christian does not entail a laundry list of rules to follow. From experience, we realize that even the short list of 10 Commandments and their even shorter summation from the lips of Jesus proves to me more than we can manage. For even if we desire to do good, “our sinful passions, awakened by the law, [work] in our members to bear fruit for death” (Rom 7:5). The good news was, is, and always will be…Jesus is here for us. He will enter our hearts at our invitation and, through His grace, convert and shape our interior and remove the discrepancy between our lives and His life. Until, like the saints in our tradition, we become living witnesses to the glory of God. “We put away the old self, and be renewed in the spirit of [our] minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth” (Eph 4:22-24). By giving our obedient, loving yes to God, our exterior will manifest what is going on in our hearts. The saints are indeed wildly different, yet they, in common, display traits of the personality of Christ. In our journey, we can study these traits through Christ and his saints to discern where we can participate in our conversion. What follows is a quick look at only seven of these traits. As we aim to align ourselves with the eternal truth, this exercise will continue to yield good fruit our entire lives.
Poverty
Born in a barn on the road to be counted in a census of the general population, our Lord was arguably the wealthiest man who had ever lived. He held the keys to heaven with the right to give them to another, true possession. However, we learn from his actions that possessions and material wealth should not be valued above all. He calmed storms, healed wounds, and converted water to wine; if material wealth was essential to our well-being, it is reasonable to assume he would have provided that to his followers. He did not; he does not. Many of his saints through the ages have been poor. Yet, many have been wealthy as well. Demonstrating that wealth itself is not evil but is not good in and of itself. Wealth is here as part of the nature of the material world. Its proper use is where our free will ought to be applied. Instead of hoarding the fruits of our labor, our riches, we are meant to use them in charity to glorify the Father. Jesus did precisely this. He took the material wealth at his command and used it to serve the needs of His followers. We ought to use our riches, however large or small, as stewards, always remembering the caveat…” it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God” (Matt 19:24). We are not meant to keep the gifts the Lord gave us for ourselves, they are intended to be shared.
Chastity
Jesus was a virgin. Like many saints who followed him, he was devoted to the Father and married to His vocation. This is not to imply that only virgins can become saints. We have Zellie and Louis Martin, whose union with each other in service of the Lord brought a family of nuns into the service of the Church. Chastity does not obtain solely in the state of virginity. It is the virtue whereby we refrain from all unlawful sexual activity and intercourse. It develops within us the virtues of temperance and hones our ability to control our passions instead of being enthralled by them. Whether we are celibately chaste or devoted to a life partner and open to a life-giving union with that partner, chastity is a moral good.
Prayer Life
Our Lord prayed. He removed himself from the crowds to pray in solitude. He taught His disciples how to pray. He remembered his friends and enemies in prayer. His life was a prayer. As disciples of Jesus, this trait ought to come first. Everything we have depends on the Lord. It is appropriate to bring everything in front of Him then. If prayer is a conversation with God and our life is a gift from God supported by his omnipotence, then not speaking to him constantly is, well, odd. Like the young child who thinks that her parents cannot see her because she goes around the corner. There are no corners around which we can go to be removed from God. There is no proper starting point for prayer, “Lord teach me to pray,” “Lord teach me to remember to pray,” or simply “Lord.” Talk to Him, who wants more for you than you possibly want. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you” (Matt 7:7).
Trust in the Father’s Will
As we develop our prayer life, we’ll experience the pedagogy that what is important here is not what we want but what God wants for us. We must trust him as Jesus trusted him. We can ask in prayer and remember that His will is best. “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; still not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).
Commitment to Truth
When doing the Father’s will in this life, we will be met with resistance. “You cannot serve God and Mammon” (Matt 6:24). Whatever time Christians find themselves in, the world resists them in some way. We don’t come here for friends qua friends. We come for the sake of the Kingdom. Our neighbors are all of God’s children; they need God’s Truth and grace to make it home. We cannot sugarcoat that Truth. It stands on its own; it is not a human consensus or of human making; it is eternal and unchangeable. We must speak it and let the chips fall where they may. The friend who leaves may have not yet received it. Perhaps you will not see the flower that grows from the seed, but trust that God requires you to speak the truth. His grace continues to pour equally on those who receive it and those who “block their ears.”
Love for Sinners
Those friends that left or that group in college who teased you because they found you a prude. Pray for them! Use the words of our Lord while he looked out from His cross, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Mother Angelica was fond of saying, you don’t have to like it, but you must do it; pray for your enemies through gritted teeth if you must, and eventually, you’ll understand the lesson from that action.
Honoring the Choices of Men
Like his Father with Pharaoh, our Lord Jesus Christ honored man’s choices. God offered signs of credibility to Pharoah and then let Pharoah refuse them. When questioned, Jesus did not soften his hard teachings; He let followers leave. We will face that in our lives as we follow the Lord. It could be friends or family members. We offer the good news and honor that these people are also made in the image of God. We trust the Lord to continue to shower his graces on them, but we must not force them to convert for a conversion it would not be. Conversion requires interior assent. As we deepen our understanding of this in the moral life, we understand, like St. Francis, “..that spiritual merchandise hath its beginning in the contempt of the world, and that the warfare of Christ is to be begun by victory over self” and not over other men (St. Bonaventure, The Life of Saint Francis, 11).
St. Francis Follows Jesus
Of course, the list could go on, “If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25). The grace of our Lord will help us develop the virtues that lead to these interior conversions of heart. As is said, the Catholic Church works. She delivers on her promises. When faced with the feeling of “how can I do this?” rest assured, we will face this if we are on the right course take comfort in knowing that our compass is pointing to the Father through Jesus. If we need more than that, we have plenty of examples from the lives of the saints. Because to be Holy, one must be good. They are excellent examples of moral life. St Francis of Assisi, the guy in the gardens feeding the birds, him. His life is an excellent example of a radical exterior shift due to interior conversion and, yes, to Jesus.
Poverty
Francis understood the narrow way as it concerns the wealth of the world. By inward conversion, he grew to despise riches for himself yet understood that material goods had a proper use. As a wise steward, he once sold some cloth and “finding there a poor priest, he showed him due reverence and proffered him the money [from the sale] for the repair of the church, and the use of the poor” (St. Bonaventure, The Life of Saint Francis, 15). We often see this trait in the devout. Venerable Fulton Sheen was known to leave his coats and cloaks on the backs of the poor whom he would pass on his walks around New York City. Had Fulton Sheen been on the streets with Francis, more coats would have been laid upon the backs of the needy. For, once, when Si Francis was walking about his city, “ …he met a certain soldier, of noble birth, but poor and ill-clad; whereupon, compassionating his poverty, with a kindly impulse he forthwith did off his garments and put them on him, thus in- one act fulfilling a twofold ministry of kindliness, insomuch as he both covered the shame of a noble knight and relieved the destitution of a poor man” (St. Bonaventure, The Life of Saint Francis, 9).
Commitment to Truth
Upon finding the truth, St. Francis would never again let it go, even when it came between himself and his family. Akin to what happened to St. Thomas, the beginning of St. Francis’ life of conversion was met with resistance from his family. “When his father heard these outcries, he ran out at once, not to deliver him, but rather to destroy him; laying aside all compunction, he dragged him into the house, and there afflicted him first with words, then with stripes and bonds. But Francis was thereby rendered but the more eager and valiant to carry out that which he had begun, remembering that saying of the Gospel: ‘Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’ (St. Bonaventure, The Life of Saint Francis, 16).
Prayer Life
“When the brethren besought him to teach them to pray, he said: ‘When ye pray, say ‘Our Father,’ and: ‘We adore Thee, 0 Christ, in all Thy churches that be in the whole world, and we bless Thee fur that by Thy holy Cross Thou hast redeemed the world.’ Moreover, he taught them to praise God in all things and through all His creatures, to reverence priests with an especial honor, to firmly hold and confess the true faith, according as the Holy Roman Church doth both hold and teach it.” (St. Bonaventure, The Life of Saint Francis, 35). Here, we see that same reverence Jesus had in his constant thanks for ALL things.
How will you follow Christ?
We needn’t become overwhelmed thinking that the order is so large and the shoes are so big that we can never fill them. We have but to ask and follow. The sacraments give us grace, the saints provide examples, and Jesus fills our hearts with what we need to begin the path of radical conversion. Pick a trait from the list and ponder how and when your life diverges from His life and how and when it jives. Keep going. More traits, more days, less distance between…run the race; Heaven waits for you.
St. Bonaventure. The Life of St. Francis. Translated by Ewert Cousins, Paulist Press, 1978.