“Don’t be afraid to deepen that relationship with God, to seek the Lord through prayer and through living the spiritual life vibrantly. It’s a commitment, but the rewards are tremendous: to have that relationship with God, to know God’s presence not only in prayer but in the midst of my daily life, and to seek and find God in all things.” — Saint John Paul II
This book is an attempt to explore a number of important issues facing the Church in the third decade of the twenty-first century. Its starting point is the prophetic vision of Saint John Paul II in the Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio Ineunte(2001), written as the Church stepped into a new century with all its challenges and opportunities. There he set out what he believed should be her main focus: the universal call to holiness, addressed to every baptised Christian as the very raison d’être of the life of faith. He insisted that all pastoral initiatives must be set in relation to holiness. Looking beyond his own time-limited pontificate, he foresaw that making holiness the unifying focus of the Church’s efforts in this century would have profound consequences for her life and direction.
Sadly, that vision has largely gone unheeded. Instead of becoming an invigorating call to action, it has remained an aspiration, rarely ignored by design but simply forgotten, in a document few now cite or even remember. Yet the challenge Pope John Paul set, and the consequences of taking it seriously, grow more pressing with every year of the century.
How, then, do we honour a call that is the spiritual birthright of all the faithful and not of a privileged few? How do we make available to everyone the treasury of spiritual teaching left by the saints, who call us to follow the road to holiness they trod before us and from whom we can learn so much on our own journey, as citizens of the Church and the culture of the twenty-first century? How do we give spiritual formation its rightful place, not only in the life of the Church but in the preparation of our future priests, so that they may first enter upon their own journey of holiness and then help those who long for a deeper relationship with God?
How do we help our good and hardworking priests rediscover their central role as cura animarum, the cure of souls, in a demanding pastoral life that so often draws them away from their true spiritual focus as ordained ministers and icons of Christ to the Church? How do we recover the art, and it is an art that can be learned, of spiritual direction? How do we help our priests regain confidence in the unique spiritual work that only they can do, after years in which their belief in themselves has been so undermined and challenged? And how do we meet the needs of the encouraging new phenomenon of growing numbers, mostly young people, who come forward to be baptised and who hunger for the life-giving food of holiness that only the Church can give, in contrast to the “bare cupboard” of a secular culture that offers little lasting or reliable spiritual nourishment?
These are the themes this book tries to address and open up for discussion. In exploring them I have tried not only to present the issues but also to offer tentative theoretical and practical proposals which, if implemented, or even attempted, might help make Saint John Paul’s vision a reality. I acknowledge that the scope of the book is large, some would say too large, and I accept that criticism as legitimate. In my defence, my main hope is not to solve the Pope’s challenge but to open a conversation about it.
The Lost Art of Pointing
To illustrate what I am trying to do, I want to turn to religious art and to an analogy I call “the lost art of pointing.”
A famous example appears on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, in Michelangelo’s depiction of the creation of Adam. God extends a finger of life towards the first man, and Adam, in response to this gesture of new life for himself and for all humanity, reaches back in gratitude. Polite Western society may discourage pointing, but God has no such qualms. He points.
So does his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. We see it in the Contarelli Chapel of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, which holds three paintings by Caravaggio from the life of Saint Matthew. The one that draws the most visitors is his masterpiece, The Calling of Saint Matthew, a chiaroscuro portrayal of conversion. The new life it announces will be marked by a change of name, from Levi to Matthew, and a change of vocation, from tax collector to apostle.
The painting captures a decisive moment. Levi sits in his all-too-familiar counting house, surrounded by colleagues of various ages and absorbed in the business of this passing world. Into that secular setting Jesus enters, accompanied by Saint Peter, the first Pope and the rock on which the Church is built, and with them comes a shaft of light so typical of Caravaggio. It is the light of grace, which will turn Levi from the external world of commerce to the interior world of heaven. And Jesus points towards him. Art historians tell us that Caravaggio had in mind the gesture of the Sistine ceiling, which he, as a resident of Rome, would have known well.
It is worth noting that Jesus and Peter are dressed in the clothing of first-century Palestine, while Levi and his companions wear the fashionable dress of Caravaggio’s own time. This matters both artistically and spiritually. Jesus and Peter come from the vertical, eternal realm of heaven into the horizontal realm of time, where Levi is occupied with earthly business and its distractions. Peter, too, points, and his presence is significant: any call must carry the validity and support of the Church Christ founded.
Levi alone seems to see them and the finger that indicates radical change and invitation. His response is one we all recognise. When someone enters a crowded room and points in our direction, we point to ourselves and ask, “Do you mean me?” His gesture expresses humility and astonishment that Jesus should choose him. Another powerful detail is the window on the right, whose glazing bars form a cross. Many see in it the artist’s reminder that to follow Jesus is to follow him to Calvary.
It is striking that this spiritual symbolism comes from a man with notorious failings of his own, hardly a model of Catholic piety. Yet his religious imagery is used with extraordinary power.
The third painting is by a far less celebrated artist, François-André Vincent, and I came across it on a visit to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. Entitled La Leçon de labourage (“The Ploughing Lesson”), it depicts a young family in the French countryside. An experienced farmer is ploughing with a team of oxen, preparing the field for seed in hope of a good harvest. The father has asked whether his young son might try, and the painting shows the boy being taught how to hold the plough and keep his furrows straight and true. The farmer instructs him by pointing the way. The scene is simple, yet it carries a profound spiritual meaning that touches a central theme of this book.
Together, these three paintings from different eras speak powerfully of the themes of the book you hold in your hands. They speak of God’s creation of us as his beloved sons and daughters, who respond to the gift of life with gratitude and a willingness to do his will. They speak of the capax Dei, our God-given capacity for God, which nothing in this passing world can ever fully satisfy. They show that God calls each of us to a unique and personal vocation which, if followed faithfully and wholeheartedly, helps to build his Kingdom on earth and assures our salvation. And they remind us that following Jesus involves the cross, for there is no true spiritual progress without suffering.
“The Ploughing Lesson” teaches two further lessons about priestly ministry. First, a priest must learn to be a skilled spiritual ploughman, working the field of his own life and his own journey into holiness. Second, through a faithful, lived commitment to holiness he becomes an expert in spiritual husbandry, able to guide others along the true and straight ways of holiness. He does so by pointing, in the footsteps of the saints, whose example and writings show how the work is done.
These three images, then, set out the way this book travels. I began with a word from Saint John Paul II, and I would like to end with it:
“Don’t be afraid to deepen that relationship with God… to seek and find God in all things.”
Chapter 1: Holiness, the Cure of Souls, and the Reordering of Priestly Formation
Chapter 2: “Be Perfect as Your Heavenly Father Is Perfect”: The Universal Call to Holiness
Chapter 3: “Until Christ Is Formed in You”: Giving Birth to Christ
Chapter 4: The Cantus Firmus: The Enduring Melody of Faith
Chapter 5: “We Could Sing Better Songs”: Conversion and the New Song