Sermon Blog
Evangelical Sanctity the Completion of Natural Virtue
October 4, 2024
The name “Christian” means “little Christ.” That’s what God intends us to be. But as we go about our days, we can forget that, “WHILE [sic] Christianity reveals the pardon of sin and the promise of eternal life through the mediation of Christ, it also professes to point out means for the present improvement of our moral nature itself.” God has something more in mind for us than just helping us avoid sin, change our bad habits and rescue us from hell. St. John Henry Newman, in his homily, “Evangelical Sanctity the Completion of Natural Virtue” helps us understand how we become Christians, and encourages us to go all the way.
The path of sanctity is difficult, and many are tempted to stop short of the goal. Newman says that some “clearly perceiving that Christian morality and devotion are something extraordinarily excellent and divine, have sought to embody them in a strict outward separation from the world, a ceremonial worship, severe austerities, and a fixed adjustment of the claims of duty in all the varying minutiæ of daily conduct…” But despite their outward piety, they lack the life of the Holy Spirit, the Person of the Godhead who brings real inner and outer transformation.
Others are quick to settle for the apparent societal contributions of Christianity: a more civilized society, a more ethical system of government, more peace. Nemwan points out that these are not directly Christian. In fact, “The true light of the world offends more men than it attracts; and its divine origin is shown, not in its marked effects on the mass of mankind, but in its surprising power of elevating the moral character where it is received in spirit and in truth.”
What is the foundation of moral character that Christianity elevates? The cardinal virtues—prudence, justice, temperance and fortitude. These are good, but human virtues. They are not explicitly Christian; non-believers can acquire them. But just as “Grace does not destroy nature, but perfects it…” as St. Thomas puts it, so the Gospel transforms our moral character, not by destroying the cardinal virtues but by raising them to a supernatural level.
Newman gets right to the point: “The difference, then, between the extraordinary Christian ‘spirit,’ and human faith and virtue, viewed apart from Christianity, is simply this:—that, while the two are the same in nature, the former is immeasurably higher than the other, more deeply rooted in the mind it inhabits, more consistent, more vigorous, of more intense purity, of more sovereign authority, with greater promise of victory…” Scripture makes clear the difference when it exhorts us to love those who don’t love us back and who cannot repay us, to have a different kind of patience, and a deeper peace, than the world gives. We are enjoined “not to resist evil, but to turn the cheek to the smiter; to forgive from our hearts our brother, though he sin against us unto seventy times seven; to love and bless our enemies; to love without dissimulation; to esteem others better than ourselves; to bear one another’s burdens; to condescend to men of low estate…” and so on.
What stops us from going this far, for settling for human virtue? Psychologist and author M. Scott Peck, in his popular self-help book, The Road Less Traveled, described it this way: “Most people are quite correct when they say they do not want to achieve such a lofty goal or work so hard in life. The majority of patients…will terminate their therapy at some point far short of completely fulfilling their potential…They are content to be ordinary men and women and do not strive to be God.” Peck was not a Christian when he wrote this (though he later became one), but his observation is insightful. We have been called to be like God (not to be Him), and this process is daunting. Jesus said that unless a man renounces himself, takes up his cross and follows our Lord, then he has no part with Jesus. He also claimed that unless a man’s righteousness exceeds a merely outer piety (like the Pharisees), that man will not escape hell. The road is hard, painful and sacrificial.
But what Peck did not understand, and what we often fail to grasp, is that sanctity is not primarily a human endeavor, even though we must correspond to God’s graces. God has called us to become like Christ, to build upon human virtue; how then could he expect us to achieve it on our own strength? Christian writer C.S. Lewis likened the process of sanctification to God building a house: “The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of—throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” In our hearts we know we can’t settle for anything less. Let’s pray for the grace to struggle and the peace to trust in God’s transforming work.
