Simplicity (after Edward Leen)
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.
And Jesus said to men, “Amen, amen I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).
Our Lord, exposing to Nicodemus the divine scheme of the sacramental system by which the souls of men were to be restored to the supernatural privileges which they had lost in Adam’s fall, laid down a condition of this restoration, a strange new birth. “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
On another occasion, speaking to His apostles and desiring to warn them against allowing to develop in their hearts those evil dispositions which would prevent them from making sure their calling and election, He uses words which present an interesting parallel to those addressed to the Jewish rabbi. He says to them, “Unless you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3).
The same consequence is assigned to the fulfillment of conditions which are seemingly very different. The difference, however, is not superficial, for one saying helps merely to complete the meaning of the other.
In the first, Our Lord stated the physical transformation which would take place in the soul in order that it should have right of inheritance to God’s kingdom.
In the second, He explains in simple yet very striking terms the moral change which should follow on the physical and which was required in order that the right acquired by the sacramental birth should be made effective.
Corresponding to the profound modification the soul undergoes as the waters of baptism flow on it, and in virtue of which it receives, as born of God, a participation of God’s own nature, there must be an inner change of disposition by which it enters into a supernatural childhood. With the condition of childhood must go the disposition of childhood.
The natural guilelessness, charm, and innocence of the little one that Our Lord set before the apostles, much as these qualities must have appealed to His heart, did not constitute in themselves the idea He held out to His followers to pursue, nor did He hold them up for their admiration.
Their real value to Him was that they symbolized in sensible fashion that supernatural and spiritual perfection which Our Lord looks for and loves in the souls of His true disciples.
He urged them to become by grace what the child was by nature. Not only must we be born, we must also be converted. Not only must we undergo a physical, we must also pass through a moral process of change by which we realize in the dispositions of our soul what the baptismal character typifies.
We must become simple as children. Not with the natural guilelessness of the child of nature, but with the supernatural simplicity of the child of grace.
The virtue of simplicity makes the Christian soul the object of Our Lord’s special dilection. There is no virtue which we should pursue with so much earnestness, for it makes its possessor beloved not only of God, but of men.
Saint Peter says, “As newborn babes, desire the rational milk without guile, that thereby you may grow unto salvation” (1 Pet. 2:2).
Simplicity is not a virtue that’s easy to describe, for it seems more like the resultant of the harmonious exercise of all the virtues than one having well-defined elements peculiar to itself.
There is nobody but understands what is meant when a person is described as simple. There is no one that is insensible to the charm exercised by such a character, and yet it is difficult to analyze this subtle quality of simplicity.
Like all fundamental notions, it is best explained by showing what it is not.
The term, as used to describe a person’s character, implies absence of composition or complexity. It denotes that the character is constituted of a single quality. Single but rich. It is single with the singleness of pure light, which contains potentially, though not visibly, all the colors of the prism.
The angel enjoys the quality of simplicity because he is a pure spirit without admixture of any material element. Simplicity excludes not only the union of different substances, but also a jarring of inharmonious diversity of parts in the same substance. A spiritual substance is totally present to itself in its totality and is indivisible and one.
Simplicity as applied to character and disposition will denote a perfection which presents an analogy with the physical characteristics of a purely spiritual being. The simple character is one that is entirely devoid of complexity.
Saint Thomas says that simplicity is opposed to that kind of duplicity through which one appears outwardly different from what one is within. It is therefore a virtue by which the internal disposition shows in the external bearing, by which one’s expression of oneself in one’s life, one’s acts, one’s words, one’s conduct, is the true reflection of the soul.
Since it is a perfection and a virtue, it will be the manifestation of what is in itself good. And since it is the question of the state of nature elevated above its condition, this good must be of a supernatural order.
A person lacking in moral worth cannot be simple. He may reveal in his outward actions the inner disposition of his soul, it is true, but a prey to varying moods and passions and conflicting desires, his behavior lacks unity and consistency.
Good is one. Evil is manifold and ever-changing in its objects.
By grace, we are children of God. We shall be fully true to ourselves when we shall exhibit in our bearing and in our conduct that childlike candor and simplicity which alone will correspond truthfully to that which we are interiorly by our supernature.
Being children, we must show ourselves as children, no matter how old we may be in years, no matter how skilled in the management of the affairs of life. We shall attain to our true perfection only by carrying out in ourselves a gradual process of simplification and by reducing the complexity of our nature to a unity.
This simplicity, therefore, must be based on and spring from a life that is true. And life is true when it faithfully reproduces the pattern after which it has been designed. In our case, the exemplar of our inner spiritual life is the life lived by God Himself. Our life, therefore, ought to reflect in some measure the unity and simplicity of the life of God.
Such imitation would seem impossible for us, seeing that we are by nature so complex and composed of so many warring elements, matter and spirit, sense and reason. Even grace itself, since it conforms to the lines of nature, would seem powerless to reduce this variety to a unity.
If what is in itself manifold is to become one, the principle of this oneness is to be sought from outside and not in the thing itself.
For us, this unifying principle consists in our aiming in our existence on earth to lead our lives as children of a heavenly Father, placing all our trust in Him for all things, looking to Him for guidance and understanding, and exercising in His regard a prompt docility.
To seek in all things God’s good pleasure and His glory is to unify our lives.
To arrive at this, it is necessary to look out upon Him rather than in upon ourselves. We must use, not question, our own powers. We must give them free exercise at the sign of His will. And we must labor to exclude from our life all in us or outside of us that conflicts with this singleness of view and unity of purpose.
The obstacle to this is the undisciplined play of our passions. Children are not swayed by passions, for they have not yet been awakened in their hearts.
Whoever, says Saint Gregory, has by the discipline of a virtuous life reduced his passions to order, becomes as it were a child with regard to them, being insensible to their stirrings.
It is the activity of the passions that is the source of complexity in our lives. Our thoughts and our judgments are colored by them if we habitually yield to their suggestions. Our affections fix themselves now on one object, now on another. We experience a feeling of joy if we are put in possession of what we desire, a feeling of fear if we are in danger of losing it, and a sentiment of hate and aversion for whatever seems to stand between us and its possession or attainment.
If we are undisciplined, we become prey to our feelings. We are dragged in different directions by our loves and our hates. At one time, one feeling is uppermost. In a brief space, a different one takes possession of us. At times several passions together, envy, dislike, gloom, anger, discouragement. They all dispute the mastery in our hearts.
And our appreciations of things are determined by the passion that happens to be in the ascendant for the moment. As a consequence, these appreciations are subject to a great change and anxiety. What we like and value today loses its interest for us tomorrow.
When we are well-disposed, self-contented through the gratification of one of our desires, we have goodwill towards all, even those with whom we are not ordinarily very sympathetic. But if things go against us and we are thwarted, then the least jar to our feelings caused by such persons is sufficient to excite us to a high pitch of exasperation. The passionate are very variable and complex. There is an almost complete absence of unity and harmony in their lives. They are wanting in the virtue for which our divine Lord set such store and which He encouraged His apostles to practice.
To simplify our lives, we must regulate our passions. The root of those eleven main tendencies, love, hate, desire, aversion, joy, sadness, hope, despair, boldness, fear, and anger, which drag our souls along such different and often opposing lines of activity, is one. It is love.
It is our affection for an object that makes us desire and delight in its possession, which makes us tremble for its loss, which inspires us with hate of what is contrary to it, and fills us with aversion for what threatens the deprivation of it.
If the object is something of which we are not yet in possession, then if it seems to us within our power to attain, we are filled with hope and inspired with courage to face and overcome the obstacles that lie between us and it. If, on the other hand, its attainment appears impossible, we are plunged in fear and discouragement, as well as possessed with anger against that which we regard as preventing us from the realization of our hopes.
To simplify our life then, we have only to simplify our loves. If we do away with the multiplicity in our desires, we necessarily circumscribe the field of activity of our passions. The secret of simplicity then is to fix our affections on an object which is all-satisfying and does not admit of variation.
If we love what we ought, we shall necessarily hate what merits hatred on our part, and our hate will be at one with our love. It will be love in its reverse aspect. If we love God and God alone, then we shall cease to be a prey to a multiplicity of desires and aspirations.
If God alone is prized, nothing can cause us joy except what is Himself or leads to Him, that is, what is a beginning of the possession of Him. Nothing can cause us sadness except what tends to rob us of that possession. The objects of our passions which are based on sense tendency will no longer have the power to excite in us the affective emotions which it is their function to arouse. No longer drawn to these things for themselves, we do not succumb to their attraction, rejoicing in their possession or repining at their loss.
We can still experience all the eleven emotions that have been mentioned above, but as they revolve about one object only, they do not dissipate the energy of the soul. They tend to concentrate that energy as each contributes its own force to carry the soul in the direction of God and away from what is opposed to Him.
This simplicity becomes more perfect if this love of God takes on the form of filial piety. If we love God as a father and if we look to Him as children do to their parents. If we constantly consider ourselves as His children and as dependent on Him as children are on those who give them birth, a change will come over all our relations with Him and effect a profound simplification in our lives.
This change will reflect itself in our exterior and manifest itself in our relations with circumstances and persons. Little by little, we shall lose that self-sufficiency which so subtly pervades our manner, our actions, our words, and all our dealings with men and things, and which is the direct antithesis of the virtue of simplicity.
When we become children of God in heart and soul, cultivating a joyous sense of dependence on our heavenly Father, going through life clinging in spirit to His hand, we are what God wants us to be. In this is our life true. It is conformable to its ideal in God’s mind. In those who have attained to this habit of soul, the candor and the limpidity of the spirit radiate from the eyes and are seen in the countenance. This childlike simplicity is the source of that exterior charm which captivates all that come in contact with it, which all understand and appreciate, and yet which remains so difficult to define.
For it is different from humility. Children, properly speaking, are not humble, though their acts are. Their manner of acting can exist in the adult only when the adult has acquired the virtue of humility. True simplicity implies the absence of self-consciousness. The principal charm of children is their innocence and their utter absence of reflection on self. In fact, as soon as there appears the dawning of this self-consciousness on the face of the child, the charm of childhood has begun to pass away.
The humble person recognizes what he is in the sight of God, in the scheme of things, and assumes the attitude and exercises a conduct that befits one so placed. Humility is a disposition to act as befits one’s status, not aiming at anything beyond one’s deserts, and therefore presupposes and is based on an act of self-reflection, issuing in a knowledge of that position.
In simplicity, there is rather an absence of reflection. The whole attitude of the soul is directed outward on God and is so fixed on Him as scarcely to leave thought for self. Humility is a human virtue, as it were. Simplicity is in a sense a divine one. The latter virtue is the heavenly counterpart of the earthly beauty of the former.
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.
EW