By DONAL ANTHONY FOLEY
In Silence With God by Benedict Baur (Scepter Publishers, 250 pages, paperback).
In Silence With God by Fr. Benedict Baur was originally published in the 1950s, when Fr. Baur was the archabbot of Beuron abbey in Germany, and begins with him asking the question, “What is the true purpose of our existence, our life as human beings and Christians?” He answers this question by pointing to the witness of the Scriptures, to the one great truth, that our calling and destiny is to “share in the rich beatitude of life in God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”
In short, our destiny lies in being lifted to the level of the divine, so that we can share eternity with our Creator. But this requires that we be raised above our human nature to the supernatural level, something which begins here on Earth, and is exemplified in the lives of the saints, who followed in the footsteps of Christ. And it by doing this in our daily lives we can live as God wants us to live and become perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect.
In order for this to happen, though, in order for us to really live for God, the first step is that we must become “dead to sin,” which means, according to Fr. Baur, “breaking not only with mortal sin, but also with venial sins, all conscious untruth, trespass, and fault.” And even more, if we are to truly live for God, we must do three things: “we must see Him in everything; we must make ourselves dependent on Him, and we must submit everything to Him.”
This means turning our day into an unbroken sacrifice of prayer, praise, and expiation, offering up all that God’s will has imposed on us — everything we do, endure, or suffer. This is because, as the author insists, only true devotion can save the world today, that is, an “earnest striving for perfection, the full realization of living, active Christian virtue — in a word, Christian holiness.”
This holiness, though, requires a process of purification, so that we become “clean of heart.” Because of original sin and our own sins we are inherently selfish, and so our hearts must be purified. Until this is done it is impossible for us to make real spiritual progress.
This requires a “cleansing from sin and conscious untruth, from undesirable habits, from self-seeking, from thinking only in terms of the natural man, from useless preoccupation with worry, [and] faults of character and temperament.”
In particular, we must do everything we can to avoid deliberate venial sin, which leads to spiritual negligence and a weakening of faith, especially when such sins become habitual. As Fr. Baur says, “This should be our program: never consciously and deliberately to commit a premeditated venial sin.” In order to do this, we need to turn to prayer, and also adopt good principles toward our daily duties, including a constant watchfulness over our senses and a spirit of contrition for past sins.
At the same time, we should seek to enliven our faith so that we see everything from a spiritual point of view. Regular sacramental Confession is also important, but most of all, “we must keep our hearts aglow with love for our Lord and Savior. Where love glows, virtue will also flourish, together with a firm resolution to combat venial sins.”
Self-love is the big enemy that we have to fight, and as Fr. Baur says, it is the “fundamental cause of all our sins,” and unless this is eliminated genuine spiritual progress is impossible, since, “only from the ruins of self-love can arise the new man in whom Christ lives and rules.”
In order to do this we must live a life of virtue — that is, we must live Christ’s life with Him, which means overcoming temptations and our imperfections, which mainly arise from a lack of love and zeal, and from “self-love, selfishness and . . . pride.” And we have to do something: It is impossible to stand still in the spiritual life — we either advance or fall back.
It is telling that the author devotes two chapters to the importance of humility in the spiritual life, and likewise two chapters to prayer. Humility is the foundation of a genuinely spiritual life, and it was the particular point Christ emphasized when He said, “Learn of me for I am meek and lowly of heart.” And really, according to Fr. Baur, we need to have a hunger and thirst for humility, since it is a “prerequisite for every true virtue, every perfection,” and without true humility it is very difficult for us to love our neighbor.
Part of becoming humble should be a growing realization on our part of the greatness of God, of His holiness, justice, beneficence and love, to the extent that, through faith, Je becomes everything to us, not merely in a theoretical way, but as part of our practical day to day life.
We can only do this if we are prepared to accept everything God wills to send us, and in particular unpleasant things, such as humiliations, and if our life of prayer is constant and earnest.
And as the world moves ever further away from God, so much the greater is the need for Christians to pray with conviction. As Fr. Baur says, “The only thing that can save us is the mercy of God and His grace, and this can only be attained through prayer,” to the extent that the strength of the Church lies in the prayer of Christians.
Prayer is effective because it is a “surrender to God, and elevation of the soul,” which, “weakens the power of self-love, our passions and evil inclinations” — but we should remember that its ultimate aim is the glorification of God. And the more our prayers are expressive of love for God, the more perfect they are, such that we reach a condition of having a “permanent inner attitude of loving surrender to God, a childlike submission to His divine will and providence in all the affairs of our life.”
Fr. Baur has an interesting chapter entitled “Inwardness” in which he stresses the importance of living a life of “constant gratitude to God, a happy state of trust in God, of incessant living communion with God,” and which he describes as the Apostle Paul’s conception of a truly Christian life. He goes on to say that true inwardness, conscious union with God, is not a matter of thought or mental processes but rather of the will, an attitude of faith inspired trust, in which we seek to avoid anything that can offend God, and seek rather to give Him pleasure by complying with His will.
There are also two chapters on the importance of Holy Mass in the book, as well as chapters on Brotherly Love, Unity with Christ, and doing the Holy Will of God, to round off this volume.
Overall, In Silence With God is a work which needs to be read slowly and carefully. The picture of the Christian life which Fr. Baur presents is somewhat daunting — but likewise the situation of our world, which is, to a large extent is far from God, is something which should concern us all and prompt us to a more serious life of prayer. Anyone who wants to do that will find this book an excellent guide.
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(Donal Anthony Foley is the author of a number of books on Marian Apparitions, and maintains a related website at www.theotokos.org.uk. He has also written two time-travel/adventure books for young people, and the third in the series is due to be published next year — details can be seen at: http://glaston-chronicles.co.uk.)
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