Self-improvement vs the Will of God - Fr Faber

There are two views of growth in grace, the self-improvement view and the will-of-God view. In these views - for what is more operative than a view - is the root of all the error and of all the wisdom of the matter. If a man puts self-improvement before him as the end of life, almost every step that he takes will be wrong. If he works away at himself, as a sculptor finishes off a statue, he will get more out of proportion, and bring out more black marks and gray blotches, the longer he chisels. Not a motive will be right, not an aim true. If he takes up his particular examen and his rule of life, and his periodical penances, as merely medicinal appliances, if he shuts himself up in a reformatory school of his own, if he models his whole spiritual life upon the complacent theory of self-improvement, his asceticism will be nothing better than a systematizing and a glorifying of self-will. Under such auspices he can never be a spiritual man, and he will hardly be a moral man. Yet how common is this miserable view, even among men living right in the heart of a system so intensely supernatural as that of the Catholic Church.

The will-of-God view, on the contrary, refers everything, but diligence and correspondence, to Him. A man follows God's lead, and does .not strike out a road for himself. He models himself in his measure and degree on the imitation of Jesus. He seeks to please God, and acts out of love. His inconsistencies neither astonish nor tease him. An imperfection annoys him, not because it mars the symmetry of his character, but because it grieves the Holy Ghost. Sacraments, and scapulars, and beads and medals, relics and rites, all find their places in his system; and the natural and the supernatural form one whole. God is always pleased when a man seeks humbly, and in appointed ways, to please Him. Hence this man is quieted, cheerful and hopeful with his faults. The gaiety of endless success is in his heart. God is his Father. Whereas the self-improvement man either does not succeed in improving himself, or he does so too slowly, or he loses on one side what he gains on the other, or people will persist in being scandalized at his edifying deportment, for with such men edification is the crown of virtue, and if they do not edify, they have failed. Hence he is unquiet, sulky, and desponding about his faults. The bitterness of endless piecemeal failure is in his heart.

After death we shall have many revelations. I suspect the hiddenness of our spiritual growth here on earth will give rise to some. How surprised many humble spirits will be at the extraordinary beauty of their souls, when death has disengaged them! So much more is always going on than we in the least suspect!

 Growth in Holiness