THE NORMAL WAY

Which way is actually the normal way of growing into a childlike relationship with the heavenly Father? The normal way is a childlike relationship with one's natural father. Unless a person has had predisposing experiences on a natural level, it can hardly be expected that the process of life will have a deep foundation, that it will be and remain clear, safe and lasting on the supernatural level.

We need more than an attachment to ideas; we also need an attachment to places and, above all else, to persons. A person can only take roots and grow to spiritual maturity through other persons, through an attachment to other persons. A human being without these manifold roots in the lower order, the natural order, shares the fate of a tree without roots. Such a person is quickly uprooted and fails to grow deeply enough into the higher order, the supernatural order. This is simply normal; exceptions confirm the rule.

As sensory beings we depend upon sensory experiences in the natural order. Our childlike surrender to the divine, fatherly authority quite frequently lacks an instinctive, subconscious depth. Unless we had an experience of a fatherly authority in the natural order, either through our natural father or a so-called substitute father, unless we had a deep experience of childlikeness in the natural order, we will have to expect a terrible tragedy in every respect, not only for the life of the individual person but also for our entire present-day culture.

Experience tells us that countless Catholics are unable to enter into a deep, childlike relationship with the heavenly Father because they lack a foundation in the lower order. For the same reason the Father in heaven becomes more and more unreal for countless people. He is reduced to an abstract idea.

Without transparencies of the heavenly Father we will hardly ever understand correctly the reality, the real existence of the heavenly Father as a person.

The experience of the heavenly Father becomes functional to the extent that children, by experiencing their natural father and mother, have received a sense of belonging and security.

The ideal of education through love is always an organic combination of instinctive, natural and supernatural love. As long as we keep this in mind in its entirety, we may be confident that the people we educate will become genuinely human and genuinely “divine,” that they will become happy as far as this can be accomplished. We should not foster a one-sided, supernaturally oriented education. Catholics should be both earth-bound and heaven-bound. They have a home on this earth, a natural home in the heart of people, but they are also heaven-oriented and live in the heart of God.

Nietzsche points out that we have no “children's lands” because we have no “fatherlands” and no “motherlands.” I will add: We have no “lands of God” because we have no “lands of parents and children.” The generalization implied in this statement is naturally not quite in keeping with reality. It merely indicates the direction in which the respective processes of life are moving in practical life.

In the interest of “lands of God,” it is our primary task to create fatherlands and motherlands. More precisely, the renewal of the family and of family life is the essential task of all present-day pastoral ministry.

If a child has a true, noble natural experience of a father and a mother, the instinctive, subconscious life of the soul is well predisposed. Intellectual knowledge may be valuable and good, but nowadays we cannot value highly enough the significance of influencing and enriching the subconscious, the instinctive life of the soul. When children are truly attached to their father, their heart and mind, even their subconscious life, are permeated with a sense of security; a true experience of a mother adds a sense of belonging.

Fatherly authority gives a firm footing to both the individual person and the community. Fatherly authority is simply presupposed for the healthy development of a child and young person. It gives to the child, girl or boy, an instinctive awareness of authority and, with that, a vital security. It gives a sense of spiritual and vital belonging.

It is not hard for us to understand that, in accordance with the law of the organic transference of emotions, such instinctive security will be transferred to God the Father and instinctive belonging will be transferred to Our Lady and thereby to God the Father. This will even be easier and lead to even greater success if it is possible, at the same time, to enlighten the mind and to complement the experience of natural fatherliness and motherliness with spiritual and enlightened fatherliness and motherliness. Whoever understands these interrelationships, has a whole program of renewal, a comprehensive program of education.

The Father-child-relationship in the natural sphere is an expression of the father-child-relationship in the supernatural sphere. This father-child-relationship in the natural order is also a means to bring about the father-child-relationship in the supernatural order. And, finally, the father-child-relationship in the natural order is a protection and safeguard for the same basic relationship in the supernatural order. If we adhere to this, we have an answer to all the terrible problems besetting people today and robbing them of their inner peace.

We do not deny that the Holy Spirit with his gifts, directly and without secondary causes, can give all that we expect to obtain through the enlightened cooperation of his instruments. We as educators are faced with the question as to whether he wants to do it and whether we may rely on such hopes and, thereby, fall asleep.

Above all, we need a correct view of the basic relationship between a father's structure of being and a mother's structure of being, between a father's authority and a mother's authority. By nature, children grow close to their mothers' heart first. If we have a correct view, we take it for granted that it is a mother's task and duty to lead the children, with great selflessness and devotion, to their father in accordance with the laws of transference of emotions. In this way she places the father in the foreground and makes him the center that upholds all family life. This is in keeping with the sound order of nature which, in our day and age however, is rarely preserved and effective as the norm for people's actions. We should also see and value the supernatural order in this light.

Why will Our Lady lead us to a deep childlikeness toward the Father? It simply is her responsibility as the mother of the family of God; as a mother, she knows that this childlikeness is the key to our true happiness. How does she know that? Because she experienced it, because she knows that a true childlike yes to the wish and will of the Father makes for our greatest happiness and bliss.

The Marian way is not only one of many ways, but the most excellent way leading to childlikeness toward the heavenly Father.

What will become of the countless people who grow up, so to speak, spiritually, intellectually and psychologically without a father? God is the sovereign Lord over the hearts of his own. He uses not only the normal way of drawing them to himself, but quite frequently he must depend - so to speak in human terms - on the law of contrast and make use of it in order to achieve his goal. This means that, to those who are denied a profound natural father experience - and there are legions of such people - he shows his person as characterized in Holy Scripture. The ensuing contrast should illustrate in their minds the divine father image all the more clearly and radiantly. If this can be accomplished, a ray of transfiguration will also be shed upon the distorted natural father image. Nevertheless, experience teaches that usually some degree of inner compulsion, some lack of inner freedom, of spontaneity and originality remains until the end of life, unless a person can make up for the deficient father experience by a substitute father experience in a natural order. Such an experience would have to influence, fill and permeate not only a person's emotional life but even the subconscious life of the soul.

Holy Scripture can lead to contrasting insights as well as to contrasting experiences. The mind assimilates the features of the images of God and Mary as depicted in Scripture and, in this way, gains a comprehensive view of the image of a father and a mother with divine features. Over the years this intellectual view can bring about a supernatural experience of being a child; a supernatural experience of fatherliness and motherliness, even if a person did not have such experiences in the natural home.

An experience of genuine childlikeness in later years, an experience of fatherliness and motherliness, presupposes that God gives me a father, a mother, a substitute father, a substitute mother through whom I may experience everything that, as a child, I was not at all or not sufficiently permitted to experience in my natural family.

The old image of the father must be effaced in such cases not only theoretically but also experientially. If the old, distorted image of the father, from one's childhood is not effaced, the new image cannot fill the heart, it cannot influence and dominate it. It might take years and decades before this work can be completed.

Whoever takes the place of a father and a mother, must be ready for countless crises in the newly accepted child for a great many years. This should not be too hard if the educator is aware of the inner connections. After all, educators are persons who love and never cease loving.

I can also compensate for deficient childlikeness by communicating much with children or with childlike people.

It is possible for me to experience childlikeness experientially through children to whom I may later in life give fatherly or motherly love, be they my own or spiritual children. I then experience two things; namely, creative fatherliness and motherliness awakens in me and reaches into the subconscious life of my soul, and I also experience childlikeness in the other person. This experience might awaken in me a vital desire for childlikeness which can be transferred to the eternal God.

If both things occur, the experience of contrast and the experience of compensating for deficient childlikeness, we might gradually become free like a little bird; we might then sing with joy the song of childlike love and at the same time, be receptive for a deep religious experience.

What can I do in order to give a home - if not a local home then a personal home - to all those God has entrusted to me?

Everyone should find a home in me. In order to make this possible, I myself must have a home in God. If God did not give me a home some time during my development, if I had to renounce a home, I will consume myself all the more selflessly and heroically in order to offer a home to many, many people by my own being, living and loving.