In our journey to perfection, St John of the Cross tells us:

"For this path ascending the high mountain of perfection leads upward, and is narrow, and therefore requires travellers that have no burden weighing upon them with respect to lower things, neither aught that embarrasses them with respect to higher things: and, as this is a matter wherein we must seek after and attain to God alone, God alone must be the object of our search and attainment."(Ascent of Mt. Carmel, Bk II, Ch 7)

And as we find the answer to the mystery of our existence in God, Who manifested Himself to the World in Jesus Christ, we are required, if we want true peace and supernatural joy, to place our trust and our love... in God Alone!

But you may ask, "What about other people?" Are we not to love them too? Are they not equally important to our happiness? Let's see what King David had to say about this issue in Psalm 142 as he sought God in contemplative prayer. Note particularly line 5 below:

1: I cried unto the LORD with my voice; with my voice unto the LORD did I make my supplication.
2: I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble.
3: When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.
4: I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.
5: I cried unto thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.
6: Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I.
7: Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me.

Yes, other people are important, and we must love them, no matter who they are, for they are all "our neighbors" as Christ pointed out in the parable of "The Good Samaritan." They also make our natural life possible and provide us with a great deal of natural happiness. However, as David points out for our benefit, our hearts require something far more powerful in this life than that which can be provided by human love:

"I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul. I cried unto thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my refuge and my portion in the land of the living."

We must always remember that God is our refuge and our portion in the land of the living. We are meant to love people and all of natural creation through the love we have first established in Almighty God. For while natural life and people are very important, we were created for supernatural life. We were made for supernatural joy. And our life in the spirit, or supernatural life, must take precedance, in each moment, over all our natural supports and affections. For Christ is calling everyone today to the same perfection sought by the saint, who seeks to love God with his whole, heart, whole soul, whole mind and whole self. In its essence, the vocation of the saint does not depend on isolation or physical surroundings. It is really a matter of the spirit and "custody of the heart."

So before the transforming union can take place in this life, we must, within the context of our membership in the Church and obedience to the Teaching of the Magisterium, radically place God first in our lives... God alone! This means that all else in our life takes second place to this relationship. There are not two "First Commandments." In first place there is... only God! Now the Second Commandment is like unto the First, in that, we must truly be loving God if we are capable of truly loving our neighbor. For the love of neighbor being talked about here is not based on natural likes and attraction. It is a "supernatural" love comprised of God's Charity, the same Love by which we first Love God. And God is the reason we love our neighbor. For we love God in our neighbor, and not our neighbor for their natural attractiveness, or lack of it. So, in a sense, love of neighbor is part of the Commandment to "Love the Lord your God, with your whole heart, your whole soul,and your whole mind.

It doesn't mean, however, as many "activists" want to interpret it, that our neighbor, or our wife, or our children, or social work, or liberation of the poor are also in First Place, with the love of God, and that they can take the place of the time we spend with Him building a relationship through prayer, or that our love for them gives us the right to sin against God. On the contrary, we were created to know God, to love God, and to serve God in this life, and to be happy with God, forever, in the next. In order to achieve the freedom from attachment to other people necessary in order that we may love them with God's Love, we must learn a hard lesson, over and over.

That lesson is that other people, no matter how good they may be, or how high in the spiritual order, or like relatives, high in our estimation, are not meant to bear the burden of our absolute faith and trust. We may give individuals reasonable trust as long as that trust is in line with God's Will. However, our absolute trust must always be reserved for God, Alone, as He has revealed Himself through Jesus Christ, within the Church. And in this sense, even though we listen to good spiritual advice when it is available, we must ultmately, "walk alone," as we use our freedom to give our life to God. No one can do it for us, and it would be a mistake to expect them to. The relationship for which we are made is union with God, and not this or that person, no matter how much we love and respect them. St Teresa learned this hard lesson as, in her autobiography, she relates a lesson that came to her through a vision:

"It was of great help to me in teaching me not to put much trust in anyone, for there is none who never changes save God."

"This vision will seem meaningless, but it has since brought me the greatest profit, for its meaning was explained to me, and soon afterwards I found myself attacked, in almost exactly that way, whereupon I realized that the vision was a picture of the world, the whole of which seems to take up arms in an offensive against the poor soul. Leaving out of account those who are not great servants of the Lord, and honours and possessions and pleasures and other things of that kind, it is clear that, when the soul is not on the look out, it will find itself ensnared, or at least all these will strive their utmost to ensnare it -- friends, relatives, and, what amazes me most, very good people. By all these I found myself oppressed: they thought they were doing right and I did not know how to stand up for myself or what to do. (St Teresa, "Life" Ch. XXXIX)

"Oh, God help me! If I were to describe the different kinds of trial which I had to bear at this time, on top of the trials I have already mentioned, what a warning it would be to people that they should hate everything worldly altogether! Of all the persecutions I have suffered, this, I think, has been the worst. I mean that I found myself sorely oppressed on every side and could get relief only by raising my eyes to Heaven and calling upon God. I kept clearly in mind what I had seen in this vision. It was of great help to me in teaching me not to put much trust in anyone, for there is none who never changes save God. In these sore trials the Lord always sent me some person coming from Him who would lend me a hand, exactly as He had shown me that He would, and had revealed it to me in this vision, so that I had no need to cling to anything but pleasing the Lord. This has served to sustain the little virtue that I had in desiring to serve Thee. Blessed be Thou for ever!"

Once our priorities between God and people are straight, we can become useful vessels for carrying out God's work in the world. In his spiritual masterpiece, "The Soul of the Apostolate," Dom Chautard shows:

"... that all apostolate and all ministry should flow from an intimate union with God through a deep interior life. Dom Chautard, says Fr. Jordan Aumann, has simply developed the theological principles that charity is the source and the form of all the virtues and that true virtue does not consist in the external acts but in the interior disposition or habitus.(Dom J.-B. Chautard, The Soul of the Apostolate, tr. T. Merton, Image Books New York, N.Y., 1946.)

"Although our neighbor is better known than God by the way of the senses, nevertheless the love of God is the reason for the love of our neighbor,... Hence the precepts ordaining man to God demanded precedence of the others." (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica,Part I, Question 100, Article 6)

"Nevertheless, in the exercise of love there is a priority that is demanded by the very nature of things. The perfection of charity consists primarily in the love of God, infinitely lovable in himself; secondarily it consists in the love of neighbor and ourselves for God."(Fr. Jordan Aumann, "Spiritual Theology," Part I, footnote: Summa Theologica., q. 26, a. 4; q. 184, a. 3.)

We must want God more than we want anything else, and then we will know how to really love our neighbor. As Christ taught us, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all the rest will be added unto you!"(Matthew 6:30) We must, in effect, die to this world as far as our desire goes, and live as pilgrims from another world. We must be willing to give up all the honor and glory of this world... forever!

For, as Christ tells us in the following passages, the Love to which we are called requires the same radical commitment and single-minded courage as that required by soldiers in "warfare:"

"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." (Mat 10:34-39)

We must be willing to put desire for all things, all people, and all future gains behind our love for God...forever! Our desire for the ten-thousand things "out there," must be redirected "within," to the one thing necessary...the desire for God! And once we have made this commitment to God first in our lives, everything else will be gradually and properly ordered in relation to that primary commitment. This may cause us pain and sacrifice in those areas of our life where we are now attached to sin, desiring some self-made idol more than we desire God. But that's why the authentic spiritual path of those who really want to follow Christ, requires great courage and, at times, "radical" sacrifice. For lukewarm spirituality has no place in authentic transforming Christianity.

For those who favor compromise with the world, and want to serve "God and Mammon," will never come to the desert place where the Children of Israel found spiritual food and the manna of the joy of the Lord. For a total transformative relationship with Jesus Christ requires that we be willing to psychologically die to desire for everything in this life, rather than break our relationship with Him. All other loves, including love for self, for neighbor, for spouse and children, for relatives, and for the beauty of creation, flow from this primary Commandment.

To the extent we fail in keeping the First Commandment, we also fail to properly carry out the other, secondary loves. For those who, with the help of regular prayer, have the courage to place God first, find not only God, but all things else besides. For by loving God first, we have His Charity in our hearts by which we are able to more perfectly love ourselves, our spouse, our children, our neighbor, and all of creation. For God's love extends to all He creates. And only Eternal Love can show us how to properly love others, and satisfy the yearning and hunger of our eternal souls!

Now what this means in terms of our day-to-day life in the world depends on how far we have strayed from Almighty God. At a minimum, we are all required, no matter what our state in life, to follow "all" the teachings of the Holy Spirit taught by the Church through the Pope and Magisterium. This is the complete surrender of ourselves in love to the will of Almighty God. It's no good using our reason to develop cunningly intricate theories as to why we don't have to submit to the Holy Spirit on this or that doctrine. This is the hallmark of a failure to radically love. "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all." (James 2:10)

We are called to radical love and radical surrender! We must obey the whole law of the Church, and use our reason to help us maintain this loving submission to the work of the Holy Spirit in the world. And if we live as husband or wife in the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony, our love must be radical enough to refuse the temptation to artificial contraception. And whether single or married, our love must be radical enough to refuse the temptation to find pleasure in pornography and sexual self-abuse. And in like manner, we must take positive steps to curb gluttony in our life. And lying, cheating, foul-language, and physical violence against others mut find no place in our lives. And we must make every effort to forgive our enemies and to pray for those who have abused us.

And for married people to appreciate the "radical" commitment to God, alone, demanded by the marriage vocation, they should recall St. Thomas More, who had his head removed, giving up his spouse, his children, his possessions, and his position as lord-chancellor to England, rather than deny Jesus Christ, by denying his Catholic Faith. When the test of what he desired most in his life came his way,... He chose Almighty God! And it is credited to the memory of his name in everlasting glory, as rivers of grace have poured forth in the lives of thousands by his courageous example.

So one who would become a true Contemplative, enjoying intimate companionship with Jesus Christ, must be one who is willing to live with courage and great trust, placing God first by demonstrating complete obedience to the Holy Spirit teaching through the Pope and Magisterium, even to the point of losing everything and dying rather than betraying that relationship. And, of course, if we are sincere persons of courage, we "will" eventually lose everything, in the sense that anything we now desire more than God will be replaced in our heart by the desire for God, alone. And whether the death is psychological, in relation to desire for the people and things of this life, or physical, at the hands of those who would treat the servant as they treated the Master, it is still a radical experience of death, separating the lukewarm, nominal Christian from those who want to be contemplatives and are serious about the spiritual path leading to transforming union. For in the matter of our desires, and wanting and seeking God before all else, the words of Our Saviour clearly proclaim, "Strait is the gate, and narrow the Way that leads to Salvation, and few there are who find it!" (because there are few who are willing to put God before everything and live in radical trust, giving up their lukewarm lifestyle, and their lukewarm service to God and Mammon.)

It must be remembered, however, that this transformation we are talking about is the call to sanctity, itself, proclaimed by the Church for all Christians in these last days. And no matter how impossible this challenge may seem to us, we have to keep in mind that it is a gradual process, accomplished over time, primarily through the action of Almighty God with the cooperation of our own efforts. Since we are humans and weak, we will try and fail many times on this spiritual road. It's like climbing Everest, only those who continue to try again and again, after repeated failure and setback, eventually make it to the summit. If one gives up on the Faith, or leaves the Church, one will obviously never make it to the summit. And if one has a besetting sin connected with food, sex, pornography, sexual self-abuse, cheating, stealing, or some terrible mistake, or other weakness, be assured one "can still make it to the summit" if one is willing to turn away from that sin, whatever it is, and "try again." For He is a God of mercy! He knows that selfishness and lust of all kinds dominate our lives as a result of Original Sin. He does not dwell on our failure, only on our willingness to get back on the authentic path and "try again!"

We must not be afraid to use Confession as an aid to climbing the mountain. For that's why Amighty God made it available as a sacramental source of grace in our ongoing spiritual program! But you say, "I've tried over and over and I keep failing." That's ok, that just means you're no different than everyone else in the Church. You may continue failing, off and on, for your whole life! But if you pick yourself up...and get back on the path...God will see to it that your effort is eventually rewarded beyond all your expectations. It may come a way down the road...but it will come! You are being challenged to courage!... belief!...and finally, radical trust!

We must not be among the many who quit in the middle of the race, for we are being called to something "Supernatural," beyond our ability. And when God deems the time to be right, our effort and sacrifice will be rewarded, full measure, pressed down, running over! So we must always gird up our loins!...and continue the spiritual battle!

"Even after a grave sin, such as that of King David, who killed the husband of the woman he wanted for himself, if the soul has a sorrow which is truly fervent and proportionate to the degree of grace which it has lost, it will recover this same degree of grace; grace may even revive in the soul in a higher degree, if the contrition is still more fervent. Thus the soul has not to begin again completely from the beginning, but it continues from the point which it had reached at the moment of the fall. In the same way, the climber who falls when he has reached half-way up the mountain-side, rises immediately and continues his ascent from the point at which he has fallen. (Fr. Garrigou-LaGrange, "Three Ways of the Spiritual Life," Ch. 1, Life of Grace, Resources)

For the only failure in the spiritual life comes from "giving up!" We must not be among those poor, lost souls who compromised along the way, gave-up, and then became instant-experts, writing books on how the Church, the Faith and the spiritual path don't work. For they are right...they didn't work!... for them!... because they quit half-way up the spiritual mountain! Or we can turn around and look again at the peak of the spiritual mountain...rising through the clouds before us, and trust Christ when he declares, "With God, all things are possible!" and... try again!...single-mindedly preferring to die on the mountain rather than give up the quest!...and with dogged determination commiting ourselves .. to try again!...until we find,...someday,... somehow,...we've fought the good fight, and were standing with the saints on the summit!!

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