Advent Prior's Council
December, 1972
1. The world is bursting with resurgence. Ours is
a time when men self consciously refuse to deal with the fact
that the whole world is their responsibility and seek to escape
from that fact through a seemingly apathetic, but actually tumultuous
despair. The everpresent care is the cause of man's inner
tumult which reminds him of what he already knows: the free raw
creativity which is his life can be spent authentically rather
than merely oozing away. It is our task to discern the occurrence
of man's spending his total freedom in his societal setting, and
to also discern the factor's that elicited his embracement of
that state of being of sanctification.
MOVEMENT
2. The journey of a social movement begins with a
radical awareness of the significance of human life, an enlightenment.
Theologically speaking, this is the grasping of the divine justification
of human existence. In later development, a movement defines what
it understands to be the authentic living out of this justified
life. This is the struggle with sanctification. In the postmodern
era this living out of sanctification; 1. centers on the ontological
reality of sanctification, not its moral desirability; 2. is articulated
as objective decisional relationship to life, rather than interior
virtues, and 3. is concerned with sociological reality, not psychological
states. Signs that presently point to a sanctification trend in
the movement are: 1. the struggle of galaxy pastors to embody
symbolic roles in the church and galaxy, rather than simply attending
galaxy meeting's; and: 2. the vocational decision by regional
people to intern in the context of likely continuation with the
Order rather than interning simply to "help out the region".
EDGE
3. The Spirit Movement has shifted from being compelled
to experiment to an emphasis on demonstration. For instance, The
Local Church Experiment is being pushed to be the demonstration
of the new sociological form of the church. The 5th City experiment
is moving toward the demonstration of primal community in the
fiftyfour Area Cities of the globe. The Order of the Ecumenical
Institute is gradually taking the form of an established historical
order. In each of these instances, demonstration calls for visible
external signs of historically relevant accomplishment. Perhaps
of even greater importance demonstration calls for the embodiment
of the life of sacrificial engagement as the fulfilled life. It
is this second facet of demonstration that is concerned with sanctification.
As the Movement has pioneered in the contemporary articulation
of the Christ Word, so now it must seek to recognize the embodiment
of the authentic life deed when it occurs, discern the eliciting
factors for that doing, and articulate the quality of that doing.
In the selfconscious embracement of sanctification the movement
will find that its style will be intensified and that as a body
it will become a symbol of authentic human life in tihe present
age.
BENEVOLENCE
4. Sanctification is understood in the three major
poles of Universal Benevolence, Radical Integrity and Endless
Felicity, wherein Benevolence stands at the pole of the Father.
Universal Benevolence is the given context of the goodness of
reality, which comes to man as the imposed dominion of all creation,
the glory of his own creatureliness, and the boundless caring
for all that is. Universal Benevolence is related to Radical Integrity
as God handing over the universe to man, precipitating the obligation
of radical care requiring riskfilled decisionmaking.
Universal Benevolence is the weight that enables Felicity to have
authenticity before all that is rather than before temporal human
creations.
5. Man in his fullness shows up with an incredible
relationship to all of history, which claims his life to one of
being consumed with the burden of the whole world. This obligation
to all of creation comes as utterly impossible in light of man's
human weakness. Yet man experiences himself as having unknown
power and freedom to act, which leads to a compassion for every
situation as he knows himself to be the one on whom the future
rests.
6. Universal benevolence is that part of sanctification
of unbounded good will coming as the indicative reality that the
problem of the world; past, present and future, are my problems.
This comes when you are confronted with the innocent suffering
and identification as my own suffering as that of the world. Out
of this is the awareness of my own self as born of humanity, finally
claimed, and to be consumed by the burden of responding to all
suffering.
7. Man's glorious gift is his own humanness. As the
burden of the imposed obligation becomes clearly that which can
never be alleviated or fulfilled, man knows his finitude. Yet
his human weakness is transformed allowing him to know that he
has unbelievable power to be the onethe Savior who
has no excuses. It is similar to discovering a car on someone
and finding yourself able to lift it then realizing
that there can never again be any excuse not to act.
8. The third aspect in Universal Benevolence is a
boundless caring, in which the sanctified man is propelled beyond
himself to an active, ungratified care for all of creation. This
state of selflessness is a state in which there is no predetermined
significance for anything; there is only the liveliness present
in the situation itself. The ghetto has its own possibility in
the warm humanness of its dancing. The sanctified man sees and
lives that possibility that is selflessness. In fact
to stumble upon this state is to find yourself hooked, unable
to do trivia anymore. There is only a perpetual election to selflessness.
To be drawn out of oneself is to be compassionate ontologically.
It is to be one's selflessness in outgoing concern for his fellow
man.
9. Universal Benevolence is the occasion of stumbling
into full humanness. The weight of pure being evokes raw humanness
which creates the world. It is like getting your first job and
doing it creates the only world you have.
10. The initial awareness of the objective indicative
reality of universal benevolence is the experience of the burden
of the world being placed on your shoulders alone. The dynamics
of imposed dominion are the disclosure that one is obligated to
nothing less than the entire cosmos, which reveals the claim of
all humanity on one's passion, illuminating the indicative resolve
of being consumed in the burden of total responsibility.
11. The sanctified man inherits cosmic obligation
as the crush of receiving the whole universe on his shoulders
and knowing that in living as the victor he is also the conquered
one. Here he grasps that death awaits everyman and that there
is no escape from the sentence of doom which has always been his.
Out of this experience of doom he finds his sense of tragedy strangely
turned away from man's dying rather than fixed upon his "not
living'' the pathos of humanity. Here the universal
identification is that all man's suffering is my own. It 's like
entering the battle as general for the second time, knowing you're
responsible and that the battle will never win the war.
12. Finally claimed is the realization that one's
whole life is held in fief to all mankind, to the humanizing process
and the cause of humanness itself. Human born is the acceptance
of the contingency of being; born on Planet Earth into naked raw
humanity and the family of man, bearing the limitations, gains,
and glories of mankind. Unconditionally owned is the realization
that man's life is not his own, that his thoughts, words, deeds
and whole being are for the sake of, and belong wholly to, the
need of all mankind. Forever summoned is the experience of being
forever on stage, on call, on tab, perpetually at the disposal
of all mankind in the service of innocent suffering. Jesus wept
over Jerusalem in radical identification with the human predicament
of doom; he was forever surrounded by crowds, with no place to
lay his head and continually summoned by the centurions of this
world to heal sick children.
13. The sanctified man is consigned by the dominion
over all creation imposed on him, and that s finally the only
burden any man has to bear. He is eaten up by the fact of the
continual, utterly absurd suffering of all of creation, which
has become his own. and which he already has known he will never
alleviate. Further, he experiences that he will never be released
from his own watchfulness over the fragile journey of humanity,
that his eyes are seared open in eternal vigilance. This phenomenon
of every mans life can be seen during the New Orleans Hotel fire,
as no one walked by without being drawn to it, helpless and yet
compelled.
14. The indicative resolves resulting from Imposed
Dominion have to do with lying awake at night brooding; listening
to the news with new dread; congressional prayer at the burden
level, all the news happens on your block; you are both dreaded
by and fascinated by living before the gaze of neighbor.
15. Man's creatureliness is both the gift and the
giving of his life. This creatureliness is the disclosure of his
painfilled potential to take on his imposed dominion and
to enact his innately boundless care. He knows his glorious creatureliness
through the imposition of overwhelming demand, the transformation
of his weakness and the opening of full freedom.
16. The Impossible obligation is man's experience
of sheer demand to participate in the social process, which in
its overwhelmingness, constantly discloses his creaturely imperfection.
Man finds impossible obligation in the primal empathy through
which he stands in the struggle of all mankind throughout time
to take on the unending formation of history. The inexhaustible
potentiality is man's realization that in the midst of a seemingly
impossible situation, such as the renewal of an inner city ghetto,
an undeniable and inextinguishable creativity is called forth
from within him. Consequently, the inevitable sacrifice is for
everyman the certainty that his life will be given up in a particular
way. The impossible obligation is manifested in the decision of
parents who seek to give direction to children who in growing
up will finally make their own judgements and set their own direction.
17. Man's discoverer of himself as "creature"
is a glorious breakthrough into the awareness that his weakness
is transformed into new possibility. This transformed awareness
is experienced as unbelievable power as he stands in one ambiguous
situation after another that call forth this power. In his ever
expanding awareness he apprehends a greater life found in the
midst of his everyday encounter. Man is the vessel through which
the inevitable flow of being channels the transforming power of
history. Images and symbols are used by mass media and advertising
to synthesize the flow of being that man experiences as their
picture of the world.
18. Everyman's essential nature is perfect freedom,
which confronts the deep-seated story he tells himself that he
is not really free and furthermore does not want to be. Perfect
freedom becomes realized only when one finds that he is predestined
to responsibility for all of creation. Becoming aware of the gift
of freedom is like visioning the boundless possibility which looses
the radical total, and unconditional call of his being. Nothing
less than the world's savior, intense fear and fascination leave
him naked before the fact that he alone is the universal resurgent.
Truman saw and realized his perfect freedom in the decision of
Hiroshima.
19. As one becomes aware of his creatureliness in
being given the cause of God, he is confronted by the impossibility
of that obligation, which shows up his weakness. His weakness
becomes transformed in the knowledge that what it means to be
human is to be the weak one called to do the impossible. His perfect
freedom is realized only in being put into this humanly impossible
tension where his decision is possible. In a humanly possible
situation? no impossible obligation, no weakness revealed, and
therefore no freedom of decision exercised. Man's essential experience
of creatureliness is his glory.
20. Universal Benevolence finally issues in the state
of existence of Boundless Caring. All the past and the future
flood into a trembling present as man finds his creativity exposed
and is thrown into his perpetual election to be the dead one he
is. He is given the final humiliation of a compassion which he
is helpless to silence. His benevolence is forever boundless
He cares for all.
21. Boundless Caring shows up as exposed creativity
even when despair and apathy abound. Creative caring is exposed
in futile vigilance, is obvious actional insignificance, and in
the selfconscious realization that finally all the caring
that you can do is as nothing in the light of the need., and there
is no assurance that any good will ever be accomplished, either
immediately or finally. However, in the midst of exposed creativity,
the sanctified man Just shows up with a given sense of vigilance
over the primordial suffering of all creation, yet aware of the
final futility and insignificance of acting out his care. When
all meaning is stripped out of his caring, he is exposed to the
radical pain of rebuilding the earth out over nothing. Only then
can his caring finally be the sheer creativity which humanness
is.
22. The sanctified life knows itself as perpetual
election. "This is my beloved son" reveals Jesus as
the exemplar of singular chosenness which is the universal experience
in which each solitary decision reverberates a thousand destinies.
I am the One. As absurd responsibility it picks up the burden
of all while knowing everything is not enough. As sacrificial
passion it seeks servant hood as the great opportunity to glorify
God. Perpetual election sets its face toward Jerusalem.
23. One day man showed up having compassion he did
not ask for and would rather not have it is an ontological
givenness of humanness. Such a state of existence breaks loose
in wracking agony over the absurd suffering of all men. Man is
struck dumb by the helplessness experienced in the midst of the
inability to release the passion in his neighbors life. It comes
swiftly and unannounced like the whaling of a mother over her
dead son; it remains like the humming of bees in your being. He
is thrown into helpless humiliation in the face of this silent
screaming that wracks his soul. In boundless care he becomes the
servant guardian of the human race, all the while knowing that
if he had a thousand deaths to give, he could not stop the cry
or break the silence.
24. Caring, exposed, elected the Sanctified
man is boundlessly given permission to love God . His creative
election spans all time and space or he stands on his nothingness
and imposes with his agony a bridge over every abyss. His loving
God is the pouring of his life in the social process, in the midst
of which he discovers to his endless surprise that by such outpouring
he has become the savior of God.
25. The Universal Benevolence aspect of sanctification
is illustrated in the movie, "Hospital . " Dr. Box is
overwhelmed to the point of suicide by his responsibilities in
a collapsed hospital and by the disclosure of his weakness as
a man, a father, and a doctor. His temptation is to escape to
an idyllic mountain existence, hut he nevertheless decides, "Someone
has to be responsible."
INTEGRITY
The integral life is that lived in whole response
to the actuality Of life. Such integrity is radical in that the
actuality is disclosed through that lucidity possible only in
the Word. When the vicissitude of life are seen as unusual benevolence
that response of the sanctified man takes the form of radical
integrity. The life on radical integrity participates in creation
itself and in its actuality defines what happiness is.
27. The man who is radical integrity embodies boundless
affirmation of no things less than the mystery itself. He understands
his life to be a representational expenditure which is, through
an immediate relationship to the Mystery, a sacramental deed on
behalf of the neighbor. Because of his expenditure, life which
is the life given by the incarnate word is radiated, and he is
a Life giving presence to his situation.
28. The man of radical integrity lives in boundless
affirmation of the crushing lifedisclosing event. He sees
behind them the very source of his being and knowing that life
will always be this way, he embraces it with gratitude and participates
in all its events with passionate disinterest. Bound only to the
mystery he is free to decide where he will expend his life.
29 . The man of radical integrity knows his life
to be representational expenditure. He receives his indicative
from life itself and decides to be one of steadfast obedience.
Being called to servant hood he recreates the role within himself
and embodies the mystery as a sign Humanness
30. The man of radical integrity is a lifegiving
presence to all men. Deciding to give up all selfsignificance
he completely submits to the demand with an absurd confidence
that has no basis in this world. With self completely given over
he calls forth the divine power and transparently releases it.
31. Radical integrity supplies the power dynamic
to sanctification. Before the mystery itself life is lived out
as the necessary deed to allow the neighbor to know the mystery
and thus live his life, there no longer being any doubt that life
is possible.
32.Radical integrity has to do with the boundless
affirmation of all that is, was and is to be. It is living before
all existence with dogmatic monotheism, knowing it to be God's
creation and activity. It is standing in decisional gratitude
before the activity of God saying "Yes" to all. It is
being the one who with passionate disinterest participates in
the activity of God.
33. The stance of boundless affirmation begins with
dogmatic monotheism in which historical encounter with the coming
to be and the coming not to be of history is seen and named the
activity of God. Choosing to trust nothing but to be attentive
always to that which is behind all things arrears as fanatic absurdity
to relativists and hedonists.
34. The self-conscious decision to live in gratitude
for life's givenness enables a yes relationship to the perpetual
change life is. This loyal service of final reality gives the
sure hope that God will be God.
35. The third aspect of boundless affirmation is
passionate disinterest. The man of radical integrity is always
confronted with a multitude of immediate demands. Standing present
to the discerned activity of God enables him to transcend the
immediate situation, thus enabling an obedient response.
36. Dogmatic monotheism gives a single focus to man's
life allowing him to will one thing. Decisional gratitude makes
him actively open to all that is. Passionate disinterest enables
objective decision making as he forges the will of God.
37. Representational expenditure is the acting out
of radical integrity. Without representational expenditure, boundless
affirmation has no way to concretely manifest itself and lifegiving
presence would be seen as asceticism. It is the way in which a
man gives form to radical integrity. Representational expenditure
is manifested in three ways: in a man's steadfast obedience, his
elected servant hood and his life being an incarnational sign.
It gives self-conscious form to the pain of his lucidity.
38. The man of radical integrity manifests representational
expenditure first of all in his steadfast obedience. Obedience
is continually responding to the necessities that become apparent
in all significant encounters in life. Steadfast obedience exacts
the pain of expenditure in response, which transforms suffering
into joyful participation for the man of radical integrity. His
steadfast obedience is manifest in the disciplined motivity that
comes out of his commitment to one mission. Steadfast obedience
is the way of the man of faith in response to the demands of the
divine activity before which he stand perpetually grateful.
39. Elected servant sees his election and elects
it himself. He personalizes the necessity into his own manifest
destiny. He continuously works against his own self so that God's
will and his brothers service can be performed. He concretely
symbolizes giving his all and know that he stands totally responsible
for all of life. This transparent servant thus shows what all
men can do.
40. Representational expenditure also involves its
radical concretion in the midst of everyday life: the incarnational
sign. this encounter is seen in the embodied vision, the physical
specificity of an envisioned future that is found, in the man
of radical integrity, in papermache. But incarnation is
not just of the abstract or universal, it is also involved in
the actualizing models it is the body on the line.
Such manifestation vision and enacted models elicit from men their
own possibility, requiring of them the decision to incarnate their
own vision and models. Thus the incarnation sign is the particularity
of expenditure on behalf of others which can no longer be discussed
as abstract profession.
41. The man of radical integrity, while he embodies
representational expenditure embodies the inter dynamics: steadfast
obedience, elected servanthood and incarnational sign. Embracing
his steadfast obedience places him in the position to choose his
historical role, where he claims his own election as the servant
of all. As he embodies his elected servanthood, acting representationally
he emerges as the incarnational sign. Being the incarnational
sign, he offers that possibility to all men. If representational
expenditure does not embody all three of the above dynamics it
becomes either selfserving or selfconserving.
42. The radical integrity of sanctification is manifest
in the life style of Lifegiving presence which emerges from
boundless affirmation and representational expenditure. The dynamics
within that presence are 1) complete submission to mystery is
that total rendering of one's being to be used as the mystery
determines; i.e., Kazanzakis' Samuel says "I am his mouthpiece.
He says to me speak and I speak. I am his hands, his feet, he
says to me go and I go. 2 ) absurd confidence is that courageous
dependence on groundless hope which is resolved on the basis of
nothing; i.e., Jesus in three days I shall rise again from the
dead 3) spirit. Transparent is becoming the contentless life which
reveals the spirit deeps of every man, i.e., Jesus "and shall
draw all men unto myself.'
43. Radical Integrity issues from complete submission
which is the embodiment of the radical awareness of the final
limits of all creatures and the futility of living before anything.
In complete submission to the final mystery there is the radica1
integration of life that dares to live before the final NOTHING.
In the decision to completely submit one surrenders his own estimate
of strength and embraces his weakness which becomes his strength.
In complete submission one finds himself redirecting his
will in accordance with the reality of the final power in history,
thus becoming a manifestation of the life giving presence.
44. The man of radical integrity, stands in absurd
confidence exemplifying his finitude and increasing dependence
on that which is NO-THING. He is always resolving to hope where
there is no hope, seeing live filled with possibility. His selfhood
is released to allow the nonchalant style of absurd confidence.
It is precisely in being the broken and dependent one he is, who
dares to affirm the humanly impossible situation, that confidence
is experienced as absurd. The selfhood released in such absurd
confidence is an offense to the neighbor, yet is a sign of lifegiving
presence.
45. Spirit transparency discerns the spirit issue
in each situation, uses the necessary spirit discipline to push
through every situation. In probing the deeps the man of radical
integrity becomes a spirit address, a symbol of life to every
man.
46. When one is in complete submission his confidence
is utterly absurd and he stands as the man of spirit through which
men see God manifest. He is the symbol of life itself and in his
presence men receive the gift of life.
47. Radical integrity is the response of the wisdom
of universal benevolence. In radical integrity dogmatic monotheism,
steadfast obedience, and complete submission are found to be in
relationship with each other through the knowing of the indicative.
Likewise decisional gratitude, elected servanthood and absurd
confidence represent the response to the above. The style is spelled
out as passionate disinterestedness, incarnational sign and spirit
transparency. Radical integrity forces an answer to the question
of happiness as found in endless felicity.
Felicity
48. The election to the chosen life is manifested
through peace, joy and love in endless felicity. It is in the
midst of this intensification of universal benevolence and radical
integrity that one is both called and molded into problemless
expenditure, glorious perseverance and perfect love. And it is
here that not only is the veil rent and the gap between justification
and sanctification traversed, but apostasy becomes consummation,
brokenness is intentionalized through extraordinary assertion
and submission in representing that which is; and the style of
the contemporary saint becomes visible.
49 . Endless felicity, the embodiment dimension of
sanctification, outlines the life style for everyday living his
calling. Endless felicity is the eternal fulfillment that comes
when man throws his whole creatureliness into true breach of history.
Endless felicity is problemless expenditure, glorious perseverance,
and finally love.
50. Problemless expenditure as the cruciform dynamic
in endless felicity is the virtue which in its embodiment releases
one from any external problems and therefore occasions chastity
as glorious perseverance. Through the action of' problemless expenditure,
perfect love becomes compassion and certitude. Finally it relates
to the entire virtue of endless felicity by constantly calling
us to authentic grounding in cruciform living.
51. The virtue or glorious perseverance is seen as
the steadfast intentionality of the sanctified man as he lives
the peace, joy and fulfillment of his given life. Only utter perseverance,
allowing no thing to alter the deed, can actualize the problemless
expenditure by which he exercises his benevolence towards all
creation. In perseverance, he proclaims his perfect love and demonstrates
the consummation of the Spirit which is his greatest gift. Perseverance
is his glory for it is the power through which the sanctified
man 's felicity becomes present in his existence.
52. Perfect love is the intensification in endless
felicity of problemless expenditure and glorious perseverance.
It is the being dimension relative to the whole area of endless
felicity and thereby completes the expenditure and perseverance.
Perfect love is the discontinuous aspect of felicity which makes
expenditure the destiny that is always worthwhile. It relates
to perseverance by pushing, the doing of life to the deeps. Perfect
love is embodied by Mountain Rivera as he decided to save the
life of a friend by entering the wrestling ring which was obviously
his decision to participate in the presence of being itself.
53. Sanctification is being aware that ones total life is expenditure. It is glorious perseverance or living a life of vital reverence, of destinal resolve, and of victorious surrender. The life of sanctification is endless felicity. It is the laugh of the audience when Butch Cassidy jumps. It is Jesus commending his Spirit into the Fathers hands.
54. Problemless expenditure is one of the virtues
of the sanctified life in the dimension of endless felicity. The
saintman encounters no external problems as he expends his
life, realizing that problems can only occur in how he decides
to relate to his situation. He shows up broken, lacking skills
and insufficient and yet gives thanks for the life he has on his
hands. Faced with impossible demands, he internalizes his affirmation
towards all of life and freely lives the pain that accompanies
it. The sanctified life has only one certainty that is the expenditure
of life in its most radical sense, in which life itself will provide
all that is needed to expend ones existence. That he gives freely,
wholly and completely as the cruciformed one, as illustrated by
Jesus on the cross in the statement "forgive them for they
know not what they do."
55. Grateful inadequacy is the contingency dimension
of problemless expenditure. Grateful inadequacy is first of all
being obedient to the weakness one experiences under the burden
of the world. It is secondly being unceasingly engaged as the
weak one in history and finally is the offering to all of creation
the humanlyfrail existence that is. The Old Testament language
expresses grateful inadequacy like this, the Lord gives, the Lord
takes away. Blessed be the Lord.
56. Passionate suffering is the virtue of engagement
in the dimension of problemless expenditure, which consists first
of all of internalized doom. The taking into ones self the burden
of the world, being the suffering and care of all men. The second
dimension is passionate concern which is being the motivated one
unto death on behalf of, for the sake of redeeming the suffering
and care all men. The third dimension is painful dance which is
embodying the suffering of all men and the passion for life present
in all men in one radical style. Compassionate suffering is the
presence in history of a style that raises to selfconsciousness
the cruciform principle that is endless life itself. Saint Francis
of Assisi as he took into himself the doom of the aristocratic
lifestyle manifested the virtue of compassionate suffering
through his constant caring for all creatures (lepers included)
and through his painful dance literally dancing in the streets
and being stoned as a mad man).
57. The manifestation of endless felicity which is
most evident in human style is that which issues forth from a
stance of certitude in relation to ones destiny. This is realized
in the raw affirmation of ones fated existence realized through
the resolve to silently submit to whatever issues forth and visibly
present through an embodied trust of the way life is which transforms
fate into significant destiny. The certitude is in knowing that
this destiny is in itself the fullness of life. Jesus referred
to this in admonishing his disciples to rejoice not in their deeds
but only in the fact that their name is written in heaven.
58. Problemless expenditure in conclusion is the
virtue which calls forth true gianthood that is only found in
weakness, true service which is only found in suffering and the
kind of healing stance that is only found in the appropriation
of ones true destiny which is eternal insecurity. It is manifested
only in one who has been driven through all pretensions or external
enemies. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble,
pain or persecution? Can lack of clothes and food, danger to life
and limb, the threat of force of arms? Indeed some or us know
the truth of that ancient text . For their sake we are killed
all the day long; we were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
No, in all these things we win an overwhelming victory through
him who has proved his love for us.
59. Endless felicity is manifested in the virtue
of glorious perseverance. The sanctified man approaches all things
with a lifegiving reverence full of fear and wonder. He
acts with the courageous resolve that wells up from the depths
of his being, making him a man of iron. Yet he knows that the
final victory is always found in complete surrender to the Mystery
which demands that there be distance from all things. Nothing
daunts this man and his steadfastness is a marvel for all to behold.
60. Vital reverence is the virtue of ever standing
before the mystery as the only sustaining force in the universe,
and thus being subsumed in dreadful honor, raptured fascination,
and awefilled fidelity as decisional relations to the mystery.
As one senses that that which slowly grinds his life to bits is
also that which is the sole sustenance of life, he stands with
the honor as of a son for his father, but approaches with the
dread as of the convicted criminal for his executioner. And yet
he is compelled to raptured fascination as he experiences the
alluring appeal of that which is being itself within his being.
As dread and fascination intensify to awe, he rests in the awefilled
fidelity of one who falls and yet rises to fall again, in order
to glorify the mystery. This vital reverence is exhibited by Sisyphus,
who is sustained and yet expended by the mysterious power which
gives him over to rolling the rock up the mountain again and again,
which he does with unspeakable joy.
61. Glorious perseverance also may he described as
courageous resolve. The man who decides to participate authentically
in the task of living continually encounters overwhelmingly difficult
moments when he either can turn his back and renounce his authenticity
or he can claim the prize, the victory, the imperishable wreath.
This is his moment for courageous resolve. His life question,
Will I win the battle or will the battle win me? portends his
ultimate decision to establish the future, which he approaches
directly in final conviction that no other purpose can claim his
being. He moves in a confidence which is bound by neither time
nor space, but is motivated by an unswerving, totally, self-expanding
determination to conquer new frontiers of human possibility, and
therefore, nothing can change the direction. His thrust
forward is like General Patton who against the recommendation
powered a victorious blitz across Europe shocking the unsuspecting
enemy into submission.
62. The embodiment of glorious perseverance is victorious
surrender. This points to the ultimate joy of victory which comes
from fina1 surrender of the self to all of life. In the first
instance this surrender manifests itself in eschatological nonchalance
which neutralizes both success and failure, allowing every deed
to be rendered up to history. Secondly this surrender is graceful
resignation that is the resolute beatitude for life arid presents
all human activity in a radical context of servanthood. Finally,
this surrender is the seed bed of detachment that allows the victorious
triumphs of man's life to be actualized for in this detachment
one goes beyond the moral giving permission for responsibility
to be for the world. Victorious surrender is seen in the crucifixion
of Jesus, a deed performed in blind obedience, with open eyes
and a joyous heart.
63. Glorious perseverance is the virtue that maintains
a person in the un-ending constancy of care for the creation.
It is that virtue, finally, which allows one to stand when all
others say it is hopeless, for they have not surrendered their
deeds to history itself. President Nixon exhibited this virtue
when after having lost the presidential election of 1964, the
California gubernatorial election of 1966, heavily economically
burdened with financial commitments, and unable to secure a position
with law firms in California, he left the west coast and what
seemed to be the end of his political and public career. Then
on the east coast he secured a position with a firm and situated
himself in close proximity to the political life of Washington,
so that he successfully ran for president in 1968 and again in
1972 having accumulated one of the largest pluralities in history.
64. Perfect love is the ultimate virtue of the sanctified
life, composed of the minor virtues of inexhaustible compassion,
everlasting loyalty, and ecstatic presence. Inexhaustible compassion
is perfect love's response to the spiritual suffering of men trapped
in the doom of this world. The sanctified man manifests perfect
love by embracing the cause of being itself with everlasting loyalty.
Ecstatic presence is the depth of perfect love and the foundational
virtue of standing present to the cry or the suffering world.
An illustration of this virtue might be the efforts of Caesar
Chavez to better the life of the farmer workers in which his fasting,
his sustaining of the long battle and the catalyzing of the labor
union manifest the virtue of perfect love.
65. Perfect love manifests itself through inexhaustible
compassion, in which it becomes clear that replenishment and expenditure
are two sides of the same reality, or that care for the neighbor
means openness toward the Mystery in which all creatures have
their being. One dimension of this compassion is expansive concern,
in which the arena of concern is always being enlarged by growing
awareness. Secondly, perpetual sacrifice is the activity of constantly
deciding to be expended. Trusting only in the inexhaustibility
of spiritual reality. Thirdly, transcendent anguish is the intentional
transformation of human tragedy into ontological meaning. This
inexhaustible compassion is illustrated in Hammersjold's persistence
when his task was thankless and apparently hopeless.
66. Felicity in sanctification where perfect love
of being becomes visible, can also be described as everlasting
loyalty. Such loyalty bears constant witness to the reality of
life in prophetic truthfulness, revealing always the way life
is. This unquestioning loyalty with a committed will, gives itself
in unrelentless compassion in creating the necessary structure
of care and in revealing the mystery of life in all situations.
It not only wills this but gives itself totally in valorous slavery
to the singleness of will. Such loyalty might be pointed to in
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's decision to return to Germany and die even
though he had opportunity to extricate himself from the affair.
67. Ecstatic presence is the underlying virtue manifested
in the intensification of inexhaustible compassion and everlasting
loyalty. It is first the consuming restlessness that comes from
responding to the cries of brothers doomed to die. Secondly, it
is seen in the presence on the stage of history of the cosmically
commissioned one, selfelected to assume responsibility for
creating the face of being in his life. The depth of ecstatic
presence is the levitational silence of the pause before the return
from the center of being. Ecstatic presence finally is the embodied
radiance of Gautama the Buddha, who, having known his own justification,
now sees himself commissioned to care for the resurgence of mankind.
68. Mahatma Ghandi manifested perfect love in the
way his life was stylized in response to the necessity of creating
the future of India. The inexhaustible Compassion was seen in
the multitude of battles he fought, and the endless concerns of
the masses that he shouldered. Time and again he used his own
death as the weapon to call forth the people to claim their destiny.
Everlasting loyalty was demonstrated by a fast that nearly ended
in death over his insistence that India not be divided into two
nations. Finally, the ecstatic presence could be seen in Gandhi's
power to stop massive rioting by his presence, or to catalyze
a massive movement by a single symbolic act (the Salt march) directed
at the heart of the social contradiction.
69. Finally, Endless Felicity is the happiness of
sanctified man's total fulfillment in embracing his destiny to
responsibly care for the spirit deeps of his fellow man sensing
the full weight of this worlds woe, the sanctified man allows
himself to have only civilizational problems. Having had his own
personal integrity laid bare in the face of this world's demands,
sanctified man dares to persevere gloriously on behalf of all
mankind.
FURTHER IMPLICATIONS
EXPERIENCE
72. Our experiences in the past two days has given
us fascinating glimpses of the move to grasp sanctification at
this moment of the Great Turn. One of these is the participation
of sanctification in the recovery of the Other World. It appears
that sanctification may provide or even itself be the mythology
that allows the visitor to the Other World to be rooted in the
present social form and thus reengage this world with all
his lucidity. Other fascinations were discovered in the potential
to recapture yet another dimension of our heritage such as singing
long discarded hymns; re-examining the classic "faith and
works polarity and creating a new biblical exegesis. Prayer in
its relationship to doing also holds a promise of new discovery
as does other elements of the New Religious Mode. The practical
manifestations of living out of a global context have become more
urgent with the release that comes with the bursting of resurgence.
JUSTIFICATION
73. The psalmist is the window that begins to reveal
the distinction between justification and sanctification as we
have talked about it. The saved man who knows his crummy life
to be loved by God is catapulted into the awareness that the offense
of disobedience comes at the point of refusing to manifest the
implications of his salvation, that is, its dependence upon the
salvation of every other man. That is Universal Benevolence to
decide what it looks like to take on oneself the burden of every
man. Similarly his anger over the apostasy he knows within himself
is the refusal to trust the constancy of God to "love
His law!' to '"follow His decrees'". Radical
Integrity is to live out the faith decision in every situation
, that God has made no mistake. Therefore, the moment one discovers
God as friend (under the rubric: with God as friend, who needs
an enemy) he becomes a friend of God, loving what God loves, hating
what God hates, which is the revelation of His glory.
JESUS
74. The future implications of sanctification is
the way we appropriate the person of Jesus as the exemplar of
the Godly life, just how the incarnation of the Father gets disclosed
in His life and teachings, and carefully discerning how He stood
with radical integrity as the truth, the way, and the life for
all of humanity. The rediscovery of the power of Jesus as sheer
symbol that moves beyond the category of style will mean the creation
of another (scripture methodology) that discloses Jesus as the
door, or entrance to the Holy Life through which all of humanity
can selfconsciously pass. This methodology will push toward
a new image of the Life of Jesus in the context of sanctification
and when seen at the sociological level will be the key to the
social process, the creation of the new earth, and the new form
of human life in the post modern world.
December 31, 1972
SANCTIFICATION
THE QUALITIES OF PERFECT LOVE
INTRODUCTION
The qualities of the one who has said "yes"
to his experience and demand of perfect love are an absurd chastity'
compassion that is inextinguishable, joyous circumconsciousness
and a destinal loyalty to his very being and the mystery of life.
I. The man of absurd chastity shows up with all he
needs which is nothing. He is then free to dogmatically engage
in history with singleminded passion as the surprising powerful
weak one. When Thomas Becket was made Archbishop of Canterbury
in 1170, he resigned the Chancellorship of England, gave all his
possessions to the poor and with singleminded passion defended
the honor of God against the rising force of European nationalism
using the only weapon he had, his death. His death allowed the
high civilization of the Middle Ages to flower where it might
otherwise have withered in the bud.
II. Joyful circumconsciousness has to do with perceiving
phenomena as being interrelated in infinite pattern and with perceiving
thought processes as wildly intuitive synthesis. Heightened awareness
of the outside world comes with the awareness of oneself as part
of a totally interrelated universe, which at the same time occasions
internally trans- verbal contemplation, a mode of intuitive, nonverbal,
yet conscious thought critical for positing oneself authentically
in such a universe , which contemplation culminates in selfless
celebration, the experience of losing oneself as entity and finding
oneself anew as the dynamic of love. A statement reflecting all
the rubrics of joyful circumconsciousness coming from a Woodstock
participant follows: "It was just clear, in a way I can't
explain, that whatever was going on there, it didn't have to do
primarily with my age, but that older people there experienced
the same experience, and that everybody around the world was changed
for that happening."
III. The qualities needed for the man of perfect
love include inextinguishable compassion. This compassion manifests
itself in a willing servant of God with infinite passion who knows
himself as the perpetual revolutionary who is unendingly spilling
out his life. In the face of the possibility of total obliteration,
the North Vietnamese nation as a body demonstrates the quality
of inextinguishable compassion for the whole world and particularly
for the United States by audaciously saying no to American domination
and by continually holding the United States over against the
vision of its founding fathers, as seen in Ho Chi Minh's New Year
messages to the United States, reminding that country of its own
constitution, on which North Vietnam is based. N. Vietnam acts
as the willing servant of the rest of the World, constantly revising
its models and objectives in its demonstration of the role of
perpetual revolutionary; exhibiting infinite patience over decades
of battle; and finally willing the unending spilled outness of
its life and resources as a sign of that compassion.
IV. The one who has said "yes" to his experience and demand of perfect love senses and is loyal to the beckoning of history and his role in shaping the future. He lives the forbidden life as he affirms the whole of his life and every situation of it. He experiences terror in this world, but knowing his final accountability is to God for the world, he acts out of fear of God only and not out of fear of men. Affirming life, fearing God and being endlessly devoted to history results in a man who acts out his life's purpose with his being. The quality of destinal loyalty was demonstrated by Pope John XXIII in his recapture of the meaning of Roman Catholicism for the common man. He denied no part of the traditional teachings, but fearing only God and not the Curia, he devoted his efforts to returning the faith to the common layman, and demonstrating his life's purpose with his whole being by having the Mass translated into everyman's language and extending the hand of ecumenism across the globe.
Advent Priors Council
SANCTIFICATION DOCUMENT
December 1971