Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote that for him, at the end of the day, there is only one worthwhile joy – the feeling you get from cooperating rightfully within the big picture of things, by taking your place within the great cosmic jigsaw puzzle. Joy and meaning come from being one tiny piece within the overall progress of the universe.
What Teilhard says here is really true for everyone. There is one thing that can bring real meaning, deep joy and true inner peace, and that is when, with our lives, we fill that particular space that has been uniquely allotted to us.
This should lead us to search in depth, in an ever discerning attitude, to seek God’s will, which is communicated to us through His Word and through our particular history and character. We need to learn to listen deeply to what makes us truly happy and what gives us true reason for our daily living.
This process is not easy as it entails a deep knowledge of ourselves, as only when we penetrate the inner chambers of our being can we be free enough to respond to the role we were created to fulfil.
Knowing and discovering oneself becomes the road less travelled but the only true way to an authentic spirituality. The more one enters the inner chambers of the heart the more one realises how complicated we are and how much our actions are motivated by mixed motivations.
The inner, spiritual world is very much a reflection of the physical world. If we take the human body we know that there are countless hidden, silent processes, all going on at once. Cells are growing and dividing, and we have developed an elaborate system that we call the immune system, which protects us. Whether we are healthy or sick at a given moment depends largely on countless, silent, hidden processes that happen inside. Everything is interconnected; no part does anything that doesn’t affect everything else.
What we mean when we speak about the Church and spirituality is exactly this inner journey, an experience of freedom, of becoming what we are created to become
This is also true of our personal vocation, when we discover the meaning and vocation of our life we also discover where our true peace abides.
Another important help in the journey of self-discovery is the Christian community. We do not come to know ourselves just by introspection or psychoanalysis but also by living with and receiving feedback from others. Our personal vocation is not just for ourselves but also for others and only in the measure of our opening to and loving others can our personal vocation be slowly revealed to us.
It is against this background that the words of Lutheran theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer become prophetic: “Only the person who can live alone can live in a community and only the one who can live in a community can live alone.”
Only when we know ourselves and respect our differences can we remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.
This process of self-discovery leads to abandon our first instincts of self-protection and suspicion, and move, in the words of Henri Nouwen, from the house of fear to the house of love. A true Christian is someone who moves from the place of isolation and opens his heart to the transforming power of grace.
What we mean when we speak about the Church and spirituality is exactly this inner journey, an experience of freedom, of becoming what we are created to become.
Finding our vocation gives us the freedom to live not by conformity to pre-set rules but by deep respect and understanding, by realising that we are a small part in a greater whole, that we can never be self-sufficient without the experience of others. Happiness in a Christian sense comes by discovering and living our particular contribution in the bigger jigsaw puzzle of life.
frmartincilia@gmail.com
Fr Martin Cilia is a member of the Missionary Society of St Paul.