Immediacy, efficiency, and speed have been accepted as the criteria for life. By contrast, the life of faith is slow and demands a superhuman constancy; its progress is oscillating and cannot be verified by exact methods of measurement. Consequently, we feel defrauded, confused, and as if lost in a jungle.
Under the influence of psychological and sociological sciences, subjective criteria prevail today. That which was “objective”—such as the truths of faith, the norms of morality, or the ideal—has lost its relevance and value, while a clear path opens for subjective and instinctive values. Today, the emotional, the affective, and the spontaneous are in fashion.
From this stems the fact that certain criteria, such as self-mastery, have been completely devalued, while comfort is established as the new norm of behavior. Today, asceticism, self-improvement, and deprivation—indispensable elements in the journey toward God—have no meaning; to many, those words even sound repugnant. At the very least, they think such things are harmful to the development of the personality.
The norm they have practically adopted coincides entirely with the ideal of the consumer society: to enjoy life to the fullest, to consume the greatest number of goods, and to grant oneself maximum satisfaction within that ideal: “let us eat and drink and crown ourselves with rosebuds” (Wisdom 2:8). Of course, this is not said in such blunt words. Instead, it is said: we must avoid repression, we must encourage spontaneity, we must not violate nature, and it is necessary to ensure authenticity.
Today, people do not know what to do with silence. The consumer society has created a diverse industry to promote distraction and amusement, thereby sparing man from the “horror of the void” and solitude. In this way, the object is adapted to the subject, established norms are not tolerated, and free rein is given to spontaneity—the daughter of subjectivity.
We live in the new desert. The path to God is bristling with difficulties. Temptations change their names. Long ago, temptations were called the overflowing pots, the fried fish, the roasted meat, the onions, and the watermelons of Egypt. Today, temptations are called horizontalism, secularism, hedonism, subjectivism, spontaneity, and frivolity.
How many of the pilgrims will reach the Promised Land?, How many will abandon the hard march of faith?, Will we too have to get used to the idea that only a “small remnant” will reach total fidelity to God?, What and where is the Jordan that we must cross to enter the zone of Liberty?
Once again, the horizon is populated with questions, silence, and darkness. This is the price of faith.
Taken from the book “Show Me Your Face,” Chapter II, section “Experiential Difficulties” by Father Ignacio Larrañaga.
