Maturity and Participation in the Divine Nature

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

There are questions that we can sometimes ask ourselves, like, “Why do I react that way? Why am I like this? Can I change?” Sometimes we may pose them about other people: “Why is that person like that?”

It's relevant to take a deeper look at these questions in view of our goal, which is to become more like Jesus Christ, allowing Him to act in our lives.

This process encompasses all the dimensions of someone who, in becoming divinized, retains the features of an authentic humanity while raising them in accord with our Christian vocation.

The Church tells us that “Christ is true God and true man” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, Points 464, 480). The phrase occurs in Latin frequently, perfectus Deus, perfectus homo. In Him, we contemplate the fully complete human being.

St. John Paul II in his Encyclical, “The Redeemer of Man”–Redemptor Hominis says, “Christ the Redeemer ‘fully reveals man to himself.’ If we may use the expression, this is the human dimension of the mystery of Redemption. In this dimension man finds again the greatness, dignity, and value that belong to his humanity.”

The new life we received at Baptism is destined to be built up “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” as St. Paul says to the Ephesians (Eph. 4:13).

The divine element, the supernatural one, is decisive in personal holiness, and it unites and harmonizes all the human aspects. But we shouldn't forget that included here, as an intrinsic and necessary element, is the human one.

In Friends of God, St. Josemaría said, “If we accept the responsibility of being children of God, we will realize that God wants us to be very human. Our heads should indeed be touching heaven, but our feet should be firmly on the ground.

“The price of living as Christians is not that of ceasing to be human or of abandoning the effort to acquire those virtues which some have even without knowing Christ. The price paid for each Christian is the redeeming Blood of Our Lord, and he, I insist, wants us to be both very human and very divine, struggling each day to imitate him who is perfect God and perfect man” (Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, Point 75).

The action of grace in souls goes hand in hand with growth in human maturity, with perfecting our character.

What is character? Somebody wants to find “character.” That's what you have left when you lose everything else (Evan Esar, Comic Dictionary).

So while cultivating the supernatural virtues, a Christian who seeks holiness will strive to attain the ways of acting and thinking that characterize someone as being mature and balanced, ordered, industrious, punctual, et cetera, et cetera.

That person will be motivated, not merely by the desire for perfection, but by the eagerness to reflect the life of Christ.

St. Josemaría asks in The Forge (Point 468), “My child, where do men find in you the Christ they are looking for? In your pride? In your desire to impose yourself on others? In those little character defects which you don't wish to overcome? In your stubbornness? … Is Christ to be found there? No, he is not!”

The answer gives us the clue to this endeavor. “You need to have your own personality, agreed. But you should try to make it conform exactly to Christ's.”

Our personality is influenced, first of all, by what we have inherited, which began to be manifested from birth, often called temperament.

It's also influenced by factors connected with our upbringing, personal decisions, relationships with others and with God, and many other factors, possibly even unconscious ones.

All this leads to a variety of types of personalities or characters (extroverted or timid, spirited or reserved, carefree or apprehensive), expressed in one's way of working, interacting with others, of considering daily events.

These elements influence each person's moral life by facilitating the development of certain virtues, or, if the effort to attain these is lacking, the appearance of defects.

An enterprising personality can make it easier to acquire the virtue of industriousness, provided one has the discipline needed to avoid the defects of inconstancy and activism.

God counts on our personality in leading us along the path to holiness. Each one's way of being is like fertile land that needs to be cultivated. If we patiently and cheerfully remove the stones and weeds that impede the action of grace, it will begin to “bring forth a grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matt. 13:8).

All men and women can make fruitful the talents received from God's hands, provided they allow themselves to be transformed by the action of the Holy Spirit, forging a personality that reflects Christ's face.

But this does not imply losing one's own personal traits. In The Way (Point 947), St. Josemaría says, “You have to be different from one another, as the saints in heaven are different, each having their own personal and special characteristics.”

While we need to strengthen and polish our personality in keeping with the Christian way of living, we aren't striving to become some kind of “superperson.”

Rather the model is Christ Jesus, who has a human nature like ours, but perfect in its normality and elevated by grace.

Certainly, we also have a lofty example in Our Lady: in Mary, we see the fullness of humanity—and of normality.

The proverbial humility and simplicity of Mary, probably the most cherished of her qualities in the entire Christian tradition, along with her closeness and tender affection for all her children, virtues of a good mother—all these are the best confirmation of her perfection.

Although still a creature, we can tell Mary: “greater than you, none but God!” (J. Escrivá, The Way, Point 496). She's so fully human, so charmingly feminine: the Lady par excellence.

The word “maturity” means being ripe, fully developed, and by extension it refers to the fullness of being.

And so, its best paradigm can be found in Our Lord's life. Contemplating in the Gospels how Christ dealt with people, His fortitude in suffering, His decisiveness in undertaking the mission received from His Father—here we have the criterion of maturity.

At the same time, our faith incorporates all the noble values found in different cultures. So it's useful to take into account the traditional criteria of human maturity, while also purifying them. This has [been] done throughout the history of Christian spirituality, to a greater or lesser extent.

The Greco-Roman classical world, which the Fathers of the Church so wisely Christianized, especially placed wisdom and prudence at the center of the ideal of human maturity, understood with various nuances.

The Christian philosophers and theologians of the early Church enriched this view, pointing out the pre-eminence of theological virtues, especially charity, “which binds everything together in perfect harmony,” as St. Paul says (Col. 3:14), and gives form to all the virtues.

In our day and age, the study of human maturity has been complemented by the different perspectives offered by the modern sciences. These findings are useful to the extent that they start from a vision of the human person open to the Christian message.

Some tend to distinguish three key fields of maturity: intellectual, emotional, and social.

Significant features of intellectual maturity include: an adequate self-concept (with a close correspondence between how one views oneself and how one really is, firmly based on sincerity with oneself); this, with clearly defined personal goals and purposes, with open and unlimited horizons; a harmonious set of values; ethical and moral certainty; a healthy realism in relation to oneself and others; the capacity for reflection and calm analysis of problems; creativity and initiative.

Some features of emotional maturity, without trying to be exhaustive, could include: balanced reactions to life's events, without being discouraged by failure or becoming unrealistic after success; the capacity for flexible and constructive self-control; the ability to love and to give oneself generously to others; confidence and firmness in decisions and commitments; serenity and the ability to overcome challenges and difficulties; optimism, cheerfulness, friendliness, and good humor.

Elements of social maturity include: a sincere affection for others, respecting their rights and seeking to discover and remedy their needs; being understanding when faced with a diversity of opinions, or values, or cultural features, without falling into prejudices; independence and a critical capacity in the face of a dominant culture, pressure groups, or fashions; naturalness in one's behavior that leads to acting without mere conventionalism; the capacity to listen and understand; the ability to work with others.

We could summarize all these traits by saying that the mature person is able to develop a noble, clear, and coherent life-project, with the positive outlook needed to carry it out readily.

Maturity is a process that requires time and passes through various stages. Its growth is usually gradual, although certain events in a person's life can lead to rapid advances.

The birth of a first child can be a milestone that can suddenly wake a person up to the implications of this new responsibility. Or going through serious economic hardships can result in a new evaluation of what is truly important in life.

The transforming power of grace is a significant factor in the path to maturity. In the better-known saints, we see their high ideals, their firm convictions, their humility (the most adequate self-concept), their boundless creativity and initiative, their capacity for self-giving and love shown in deeds, their infectious optimism, their effective and universal openness, expressed in their apostolic zeal.

We see all this in the clear example of the life of St. Josemaría Escrivá, who from his youth felt the action of grace in strengthening his personality.

In spite of confronting many difficulties, when still quite young he felt within himself a peace of mind that was out of the ordinary.

And so, in some of his notes, he said, “I believe that the Lord has put in my soul another characteristic: peace—the ability to have peace and to give peace—judging by what I see in the people I deal with or whom I direct” (J. Escrivá, Notes, No. 1095, quoted in Andrés Vázquez de Prada, The Founder of Opus Dei Volume I, Chapter 8).

The words of the Psalm could be appropriately applied to him, “I have more understanding than the elders, because I keep your commands” (Ps. 119:100).

And all of this is compatible with the reality that maturity is usually acquired over time, through confronting the failures and successes that are part of the working of divine Providence.

Although sometimes it's clear when a person has reached a certain stage of maturity in life, the task of bettering one's way of being is a lifetime project.

It's one of the reasons why our formation never ends. Self-knowledge and the acceptance of our character can give us the peace needed so as not to become discouraged in all our efforts.

That doesn't mean being content with what we've already achieved. Rather it means recognizing that the heroism of holiness does not require having a perfect personality or of aspiring to an idealized way of being.

Holiness requires a patient’s day-to-day struggle, recognizing our mistakes and asking for forgiveness.

In Christ is Passing By, we're told, “The true-to-life stories of Christian heroes resemble our own experience: they fought and won; they fought and lost. And then, repentant, they returned to the fray” (J. Escrivá, Christ is Passing By, Point 76).

God counts on our effort, prolonged over time, to polish our way of being. Someone told the Servant of God, Dora del Hoyo, the first Assistant Numerary of Opus Dei, towards the end of her life: “Dora, nobody who saw you then would believe it if they could see you now. You're like a different person.”

She laughed, knowing very well what it meant. This is quoted in her biography (Javier Medina, Dora del Hoyo, a Lighted Lamp).

That person helped Dora to realize how, over the years, her character had reached a degree of equanimity that moderated her otherwise strong temperament.

Human maturity “shows itself above all,” said the Second Vatican Council, “in a certain stability of mind, in a capacity for making hard decisions, and in the right way of judging events and people” (Vatican II, Decree, Optatam totius, Point 11, October 28, 1965).

The adult person has a real and objective idea of themselves. They're able to distinguish their effective achievements from what are still only desires, or plans, or dreams. And they're able to accept their limitations.

Those characteristics give them a feeling of security which enables them to act in a coherent, responsible, and free way. They know how to adapt themselves to circumstances without rigid inflexibility or weakness, without yielding or insisting on their rights according to the letter of the law.

The immature person frequently deceives themselves in their plans and projects because they don't know their own real capabilities. They live insecurely, avoiding, by way of excuses, accepting their own responsibility. And they don't easily recognize and admit setbacks and mistakes.

High-handed and arrogant behavior, obstinacy, opinionated vanity, unwillingness to correct one's errors, a mode of behavior inappropriately out of correspondence with one's age, frequent flights by daydream and fantasy into an unreal world as a refuge and escape—all these are signs of immaturity.

The Christian has to be serene, as Our Lord was, never lacking composure, not liable to be buffeted by fits of ill humor or carried away by impulsive reactions out of all proportion to their cause, and ready to accept the situation in which they find themselves with a smile or with a modicum of patience.

The balanced person has a prudent confidence in themselves, without relying on themselves totally, because they know that although they have their ‘feet on the ground’ they can go astray and make mistakes.

When the matter requires it, they know how to ask for suitable advice so that they can then decide for themselves and take responsibility for their actions.

Many weaknesses are related to immaturity and are signs of it: laxity, inability to accept a reverse without seeking the sympathy of others, fear of exertion, frequent complaints against setbacks and disappointments that are part and parcel of every human life, a search for ease and comfort above all else, and lack of effort in study and work.

Maturity makes us realistic and objective. One spiritual writer says, “The dreamer is seldom one who is prepared to struggle: it is easier and more amusing for that person to seek refuge and comfort in an imaginary world of their creation, in which by wishful thinking they're always the leader who grasps reality and understands and controls it or makes it serve their ends. Thus, the dreamer can become a spineless, weak-willed creature” (Federico Suárez, About Being a Priest)—the very opposite of a person who could be a disciple of Christ.

Maturity requires the tenacity to continue a work once begun, to its very end, without giving up the struggle in the face of this or that obstacle that stands in our way.

In this endeavor to become a more mature person, to follow that pathway to maturity, we can count on Our Lady's help and motherly care.

Pope Francis has said, “Our Lady does just that with us. Mary helps us grow humanly and in our faith, to be strong and not give in to the temptation to be people and Christians who are superficial, but to live responsibly, to tend increasingly towards what is highest” (cf. Pope Francis, Address, May 4, 2013).

Our Lady, “the model and living school of all the virtues,” as she's been called by St. Ambrose (St. Ambrose, Treatise on Virginity), will help us “to reach a perfect maturity according to the measure of Christ Jesus” (Eph. 4:13).

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

BWM