Are We Called to Spiritual Mastery?

A principal element on our path to calvary is the importance of self-mastery of our behaviors, thoughts, and actions that express a visible contradiction to the message of Christ on the Cross to seek the love of God above all things. The message may sound simple and to the point, but when faced with an obstacle of morality or conscience, the immediate response may not be directed toward the truth, beauty, and goodness. Israel, for example, received multiple opportunities to turn away and renounce their habitual longing for self-worship and nourishment by the world's pleasures instead of seeking a loving relationship with the Father. The result of Israel’s preferred discourse was the fall of Jerusalem under Babylonian captivity as described by the prophet Jeremiah.[1]

Israel’s unwillingness to seek the will of God and instead pursue their self-desires provides an example of the need for self-mastery of our carnal senses and mental and emotional desires. A counter example is the witness of the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who refused to worship the gods of Nebuchadnezzar and stood firm in their faith, not bowing to the demands of the king. Upon witnessing the blessing of the Lord upon Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from being consumed by a fiery furnace, we encounter in the book of Daniel two very distinct acts, one the praise and thanksgiving of God by the young disciples within the midst of the flames, and the conversion of the king upon witnessing both the power of God and the love between God and his children.[2]

An important distinction needs to be made between both examples: the necessity of faith, specifically, the exercise of an active faith centered on a relationship with God, and further, an active and personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In the example from the Prophet Daniel, we vividly witness a resilience of faith necessary to combat sin with moral courage and resiliency. This is where the spiritual embrace of the cardinal virtue of Fortitude should be sought. As the Israelites failed to resist the temptation for lust and power, the virtue of fortitude aspires us to pursue the good in all things and exercise spiritual firmness in difficult situations.[3] The Catechism further describes the virtue of fortitude as a strengthening of the resolve to resist temptations and to overcome obstacles in the moral life. The virtue of fortitude enables one to conquer fear, even fear of death and to face trials and persecutions.[4] Another moral character attributed to the cardinal virtue of fortitude is the willingness to die for a just cause, in the universally understood example of Jesus Christ, the fortitude to die for the salvation of humanity from sin. This last attribute speaks volumes as the foundation of the Church was built upon the paschal mystery of Christ, culminating in his ascension into heaven after his death on the Cross and the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Peter and the Apostles.

Are we called to spiritual self-mastery? The simple answer is yes, made in the image and likeness of God the Father, and by baptism entering his Kingdom, we are intimately called to avoid the spiritual malfeasance of our first parents, Adam and Eve. The trajectory of our spiritual life requires us if we exercise our free will toward the good, to shun all evil. This act of faith is exclaimed in the second-to-last stanza of the “Our Father” of leading us “not into temptation,” which simply means a petition to help us strengthen our spiritual self-mastery to avoid the near occasion of sin.  

The battle between our spirit and flesh is real, and this reality sets the stage for how we either respond to the love of Christ on the Cross or mock it because of our self-love. The premise of any self-examination of conscience is predicated on a desire to SEEK Christ in all we do and hence master our temptations or assent to them and immerse ourselves in a life of self-love, moral debauchery, and spiritual numbness. The journey toward spiritual-mastery is predicated on the development of a willful desire to walk away from the near occasion or inclination of sin, understanding the nature of our concupiscence and seeking refuge in the grace of Jesus Christ, first provided through the institution of the sacraments and culminating in his death and resurrection.

In his great theological work, Theology and Sanity, the great theologian and apologist Frank Sheed (emphasis mine), in his chapter on the habituation of man, says the following, which in my opinion answers the question of why we are called to spiritual self-mastery,

We are existent in a universe: we and it alike are created by God, held in existence from moment to moment by God; we enter life born in Adam and enfolded in the results of his fall: we are meant for a supernatural destiny and can reach it only by entering supernatural destiny and can reach it only by entering s supernatural life through rebirth in Christ our Redeemer: we are fully ourselves, that is, in a condition to be all that we are meant to be and do all that we are meant to do, only as members of the Mystical Body of Christ. These are the inescapable facts about ourselves. To be unaware of any element in them is to falsify everything. Whatever one proposes to do about the facts, there is only ignorance and error, darkness and double darkness, in not seeing them.[5]

The desire for spiritual mastery is a desire not to live in darkness but to see and embrace the light of grace bestowed by Christ through the Cross, which leads to our eternal rest in heaven.