Disciple-Making with Mercenary Love

The Calling of Peter and Andrew by Caravaggio (1603-1606)

What is needed in these times to ignite a “new evangelization” that will return zeal and vigor to our Catholic parishes and dioceses? We certainly are in need of personal and ecclesial renewal that is faithful to our Lord, and to His call to us, that is authentic, and deep, and holy. We certainly have many books and programs now circulating through the Church¹ that promise such renewal!

On a personal note, my wife and I have been involved in some of these programs or books, at the parish-level. These experiences have shown me a consistent pattern in parish responses to such renewal programs: there is initial apparent success, followed by declining interest and participation, leading to a quiet death of the program, and a return to parish life as it was, and was not, before. Reflecting upon the recurring pattern, I begin to see some fatal flaws in these programs. Considering the rough, and sometimes resistant, fields of some parishes, we ought to have predicted little lasting fruit. I’ve concluded that we need a better plan. We have been trying to build (1) using plans that are incomplete, (2) with materials inadequate to the task, and besides that, (3) upon sand. I will try to discuss each of those three very problematic obstacles to an authentic and lasting renewal in our parishes.

Problem 1: An incomplete, thus erroneous, spirituality
The crucially important problem as I see it with contemporary renewal programs is that they do not recognize the character and needs of the interior life of grace. They do not include the very old—traditional and normative—path of the development of a Christian disciple. To be explicit: they do not include or recognize that the interior spiritual life of a person in Christ is intended to grow in a progressing process through specific stages, separated by specific spiritual crises.²

We are intended to grow in Christ, beginning with (a first) Conversion into Christ, with Baptism, then

1. A Purgative Stage of the Beginner, leading to
   — a Second Conversion: the Dark Night of the Senses, leading to
2. An Illuminative Stage of the Proficient, leading to
   — a Third Conversion: the Dark Night of the Spirit, leading to
3. A Unitive Stage of the Perfect.

The problem with the modern parish programs listed below (in footnote 1) is that they implicitly presume that there is one process of discipleship—simple, continuous, and linear—from conversion to death. This simplistic “path” includes all believers—the “babes in Christ” as well as the “mature” in Him (1 Cor 3), the “children” as well as the “young men” as well as the “elders” (1 Jn 2)—in the one simple and linear path to holiness in Christ, to our vocation. In natural life, this would imagine that a “young man”—a teenager, an adolescent—is no more, nor less, than a larger and older child. And a mature adult is simply a bigger and even older child. No, maturation is not that simple, nor linear and continuous—neither natural maturation nor supernatural, spiritual maturation. Maturation, both natural and supernatural, both physical and spiritual, is a process of stages of profound interior (and exterior) development separated by discontinuities!

Thomas Aquinas dealt with this issue a very long time ago. He saw the growth of life in Christ in terms of holy charity, and argued for the truth of the three stages—and argued against the (old) error of one long continuous line of many “degrees”— of many small incremental steps in the interior life.³

Article 9. Whether charity is rightly distinguished into three degrees, beginning, progress, and perfection?

• Objection 1. It would seem unfitting to distinguish three degrees of charity, beginning, progress, and perfection. For there are many degrees between the beginning of charity and its ultimate perfection. Therefore, it is not right to put only one.
• Objection 2. Further, charity begins to progress as soon as it begins to be. Therefore we ought not to distinguish between charity as progressing and as beginning.
• Objection 3. Further, in this world, however perfect a man’s charity may be, it can increase, as stated above (Article 7). Now for charity to increase is to progress. Therefore, perfect charity ought not to be distinguished from progressing charity. So the aforesaid degrees are unsuitably assigned to charity.

On the contrary, Augustine says (In prim. canon. Joan. Tract. v): “As soon as charity is born, it takes food,” which refers to beginners, “after taking food, it waxes strong,” which refers to those who are progressing, “and when it has become strong it is perfected,” which refers to the perfect. Therefore, there are three degrees of charity.

I answer that the spiritual increase of charity may be considered in respect of a certain likeness to the growth of the human body. For although this latter growth may be divided into many parts, yet it has certain fixed divisions according to those particular actions or pursuits to which man is brought by this same growth. Thus, we speak of a man being an infant until he has the use of reason, after which we distinguish another state of man wherein he begins to speak, and to use his reason, while there is again a third state, that of puberty, when he begins to acquire the power of generation, and so on, until he arrives at perfection.

In like manner, the divers degrees of charity are distinguished according to the different pursuits to which man is brought by the increase of charity.

For at first, it is incumbent on man to occupy himself chiefly with avoiding sin and resisting his concupiscences, which move him in opposition to charity—this concerns beginners, in whom charity has to be fed or fostered lest it be destroyed.

In the second place, man’s chief pursuit is to aim at progress in goodness, and this is the pursuit of the proficient, whose chief aim is to strengthen their charity by adding to it;

While man’s third pursuit is to aim chiefly at union with, and enjoyment of, God—this belongs to the perfect who “desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.”

It is helpful to see God’s consistency! St. Thomas also pointed out the correlations of the stages of spiritual, interior life with the stages of natural, physical / intellectual / emotional / life. To put this into a table:

See also figure 1, which includes as well the grades of prayer appropriate to the three main stages of the interior life.

(click to enlarge)

Why is this important?
Truth—reality—are important for their own sake, but wise and prudent—and effective—spiritual guides and teachers who are about the task of “making disciples” need to make them as Jesus did. We need not look for stages or steps in psychology; we need not try to appeal to “enlightened self-interest” as salesmen, and motivational speakers, do. We need to be true to the truth. Jesus formed His Apostles in stages, by design and with intention. We can see this easily in the correspondence below:

When is a disciple ready to “make disciples”? When is a Christian ready to “witness” to his Christian faith? When is a Catholic ready to “defend the Faith”? These questions are important, and deserve wise and prudent reflection—with the wisdom and prudence given by the Spirit, and not that which is merely human. We cannot give what we do not have, but we are called to give that which God has given us to give to others, for the sake of His holy charity.

Is someone who has not successfully experienced the interior purgations of the Dark Night of the Senses—that is, a Beginner in the interior life—capable and ready to “make disciples”? The Night of Senses purifies and purges the soul of much “mercenary love.” Such self-interested love is love of God, and for His Church, and willingness to work His works, but with impure, self-interested motives. Mercenary love only loves for the good it brings for the self, and not for the pure love of God, because of who God is, and for His glory. Mercenary love is an impurity that dominates in the Purgative Stage. St. Catherine of Siena writes of “mercenary love,” as cited by Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange:⁴

In her Dialogue [Ch. 60] St. Catherine of Siena speaks of this self-love, describing it as “the mercenary love of the imperfect,” of those who, without being conscious of it, serve God from self-interest, because they are attached to temporal or spiritual consolations, and who shed tears of self-pity when they are deprived of them.

It is a strange but not uncommon mixture of sincere love of God with an inordinate love of self. The soul loves God more than itself, otherwise it would not be in the state of grace, it would not possess charity; but it still loves itself with an inordinate love. It has not yet reached the stage of loving itself in God, and for His sake. Such a state of soul is neither white nor black; it is a light gray, in which there is more white than black. The soul is on the upward path, but it still has a tendency to slip downwards.

Beginners can be drawn to serve the Church, but their motives and depth of commitment are in need of purification. Such purification of heart ought to be the concern in the Purgative Stage, even though it cannot be deeply dealt with until the passive purgations that only God can effect. After we do what we must do, God can do what only He can do. God Himself can deal with these deeply rooted imperfections of self-love, in the passive purgations of the Dark Nights.

John of the Cross writes of much beautiful fruit of the first Dark Night, and entrance into the Illuminative Stage, including this:

11. Finally, insofar as these persons are purged of their sensory affections and appetites, they obtain freedom of spirit in which they acquire the twelve fruits of the Holy Spirit.

12. These aridities, then, make people walk with purity in the love of God. No longer are they moved to act by the delight and satisfaction they find in a work, as perhaps they were when they derived this from their deeds, but by the desire of pleasing God. They are neither presumptuous nor self-satisfied, as was their custom in the time of their prosperity, but fearful and disquieted about themselves, and lacking in any self-satisfaction.⁵

Speaking more generally of the spiritual changes and developments needed, but lacking in beginners, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange wrote that newly emerging in the second conversion, and continued in the Illuminative Stage of the Proficients, is:

… a greater abundance of light in contemplation, and in the work of the apostolate; by intense desires for the glory of God, and the salvation of souls, and by a greater facility in prayer. Not infrequently we find in the proficients the prayer of Quiet, in which the will is momentarily held captive by the love of God. This period is marked also by a great facility in doing works for God, such as teaching, directing, organizing, and the rest. This is to love God, not only with the whole heart, but with the whole soul, with the whole of one’s activities; but not yet with the whole strength, nor with the whole mind, because God has not yet achieved complete dominion in that higher region of the soul which we call the spirit.⁶

No one expects a child to assume the works and witness of an adult. Who sends a child into battle, in a real war? But many programs assume that any Christian (whether or not he is in some “purgative stage” of his spiritual life) can become a worker in the field of evangelization and a witness for Christ. Certainly, a child can be a witness for Christ! A child can be a holy saint, and can witness in his own beautiful way—but there is a difference between the witness of a spiritual child, still largely unformed in the Faith, and the witness of a spiritual adult, having a mature spiritual life. St. Paul wrote,

1Cor 3:1 But I, brethren, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ.

1Cor 3:2 I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready,

1Cor 3:3 …for you are still of the flesh.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews had similar discernment for his readers:

Heb 5:11 About this we have much to say which is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.

Heb 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food;

Heb 5:13 For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child.

Heb 5:14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.

Heb 6:1 Therefore, let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ, and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God…

No one expects a child to know with any surety what he “wants to be,” i.e., what his human gifts from God are. But some of these programs set about seeking to discover a Christian’s spiritual gifts—and, therefore, his/her place and part in the Body of Christ—wherever he is in his interior life. Activity of the Spirit does come forward, revealing such gifts and charisms, but experientially in the Illuminative Stage—after the active purgations of the Beginner, and after the second conversion and the passive purgations of a Dark Night of the Senses. Indeed, Christ, in the work of interior formation, accomplished in His Apostles, and told them specifically to wait for the empowerment of the Spirit before they set off in works for the Kingdom. He knew they were not yet ready to work; their formation had not yet matured to that point, not yet:

Act 1:4 And while staying with them, he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father,…

Act 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Problem 2: We need adequate materials to build a renewal.
A substantive, living spiritual renewal in a Christian has “one thing necessary”— a healthy and growing interior life of grace—an interior life that is recognized and understood as intended by God to grow through three distinct stages into maturation. That precious interior life must be guarded and nurtured, kept close to the heart of Mother Church, and fed with divine grace and the living and holy Word of God, Holy Scripture. That interior life must be led out of, and away from, the world, and the self, and the devil in zealous purgations of all opposed to the life of God. Augustine wrote:⁷

Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly, by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly, by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience.

The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” [Ps. 3: 3] In the one, the princes, and the nations it subdues, are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.”[Ps. 18:1]

Renewal will never come if we seek the common but deadly aberration of a supposed compromise between the two cities! They cannot coexist in the soul of man; they are opposed to one another: one will fall; one will rise. “You cannot serve God and Mammon,” the Lord said. All are called to holiness, and the perfection of charity—and holiness cannot be attained, charity cannot be perfected, God cannot be served with one’s whole heart and mind and soul and strength—if one avoids the one path to Christ, and the dark nights of holy purgation, and the power of the Holy Spirit that that one authentic path brings, through its three stages.

Problem 3: Renewal cannot come and remain in a house built upon sand.
Look carefully at any “renewal” plan that claims less than total commitment to Christ and His Truth. Those He called, left all, and followed Him! At the Cross, they came to know their own cowardice, and their pusillanimity, and their love of themselves: their mercenary discipleship. Grace is free, but it is not cheap: it costs the whole world, but brings the highest heavens. Count the cost! Run from any book or plan that ends up exalting you and “moderating” God! All – ALL – is found in Him. Remain in Him, in the beginning, and in the darkness, and in the holy Light of the promised Spirit! He will shepherd you home.