The Necessity of the Interior Life

I chose you and appointed you to
go and bear fruit that will remain…
(John 15:16)

It is not therefore a matter of inventing
a “new programme.”
The programme already exists:
it is the plan found in the Gospel
and in the living Tradition…
it has its centre in Christ himself,
who is to be known, loved and imitated,
so that in him we may live
the life of the Trinity,
and with him transform history
until its fulfilment in the heavenly Jerusalem.
—POPE ST. JOHN PAUL II,
Novo Millennio Inuente, n. 29

 

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Why is it that some Christian souls leave a lasting impression upon those around them, even just by encountering their silent presence, while others who seem gifted, even inspiring… are soon forgotten?

I remember in 2002 when St. John Paul II passed by in his “popemobile” only a few feet away. You could feel the presence of Jesus within him. As I turned and looked into the faces of the grown men beside me, tears streamed down their cheeks. John Paul II’s life deeply impacts me to this day.

Such has often been the case with the Saints, those who entered upon the narrow way of Real Christianity in order to put to death the “old self” so that the life of the Trinity may dwell within them. These are Christians who focused not only on exterior works, but more importantly, their interior life, their relationship with God — something that is vastly neglected by the majority of the Church today. I asked a priest once how much of his seminary training focused on spirituality, the writings of the Saints, etc. His reply: “None of it.” Perhaps, therein lies one of the root causes of the spiritual crises of our times…

You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick nor bind up the injured. You did not bring back the stray or seek the lost but ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and became food for all the wild beasts. (Ezekiel 34:4-5)

 

Fruit That Lasts

The Pharisees were notorious for their external displays of piety. But Jesus lambasted them as hypocrites.

You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth. (Matthew 23:27)

On the other hand, St. James challenged Christians who were overly interiorly focused:

If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? (James 2:15-16)

It’s clear, then, that Real Christianity is a witness of the whole person, a witness that is authentic. 

Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses…. The world calls for and expects from us simplicity of life, the spirit of prayer, charity towards all, especially towards the lowly and the poor, obedience and humility, detachment and self-sacrifice. Without this mark of holiness, our word will have difficulty in touching the heart of modern man. It risks being vain and sterile. —POPE ST. PAUL VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 76

I was working long hours several years ago (like most weeks), but my prayer time was suffering. When it came time to call my spiritual director, he asked, “So, how’s your prayer life?” I responded, “Well, it’s been hit and miss, I’ve been so busy.” To which he flatly replied, “Then you’re wasting my time.”

He took me aback by his bluntness — but then I quickly understood: without a heart that is being cultivated in prayer and the presence of Jesus, what did I expect to produce as fruit in both my family life and apostolate?

Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of “doing for the sake of doing”. We must resist this temptation by trying “to be” before trying “to do”. —POPE ST. JOHN PAUL II, Novo Millennio Inuente, n. 15

One thing is certain: if we do not pray, no one will need us. The world does not need empty souls and hearts. —Fr. Tadeusz Dajczer, The Gift of Faith/Inquiring Faith (Arms of Mary Foundation)


Jesus was clear that not every Christian produces the same fruits; busyness, worldliness, anxiety, temptations, etc. can harden the heart, overcome it with these weeds, and leave it mostly sterile. But the heart that faithfully cultivates a deep relationship with Jesus becomes “rich soil”:

…the seed sown on rich soil is the one who hears the Word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. (Matthew 13:19-23)

To “hear and understand” the Word means to live it. ^[1]cf. James 2:26

John Paul II warned us to guard against…

…a temptation which perennially besets every spiritual journey and pastoral work: that of thinking that the results depend on our ability to act and to plan.

Of course, he says, God asks us to cooperate with grace and invest all our resources of intelligence and energy in serving the cause of the Kingdom. But, he continues…

…it is fatal to forget that “without Christ we can do nothing”(cf. Jn 15:5) …It is prayer which roots us in this truth. It constantly reminds us of the primacy of Christ and, in union with Him, the primacy of the interior life and of holiness. When this principle is not respected, is it any wonder that pastoral plans come to nothing and leave us with a disheartening sense of frustration? —Novo Millennio Inuente, n. 38

How prescient he was as we now observe congregations shrink, youth abandon organized religion,^[2]cf. cnbc.com and churches close across the Western World! How many pastoral plans, youth programmes, and synodal aspirations have come to a miserable end — precisely because those carrying them out lack an interior life?

 

What is the Interior Life?

The ancient Romans never lacked the most brutal of punishments for criminals. Flogging and crucifixion were among their more notorious cruelties. But there is another, perhaps saved for the worst of the worst… that of binding a corpse to the back of a convicted murderer. Under penalty of death, no one was allowed to remove it. And thus, the condemned criminal would eventually become infected and die.^[3]cf. The Old Man; see here and here

It was likely this powerful and haunting image that came to mind when St. Paul wrote:



Put off your old man which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Eph 4:22-24)

Put another way…

…we do not lose heart. Though our outer man is wasting away, our inner man is being renewed every day. (2 Corinthians 4:16)

Taken together, we understand the outer man to be our bodies, which remain subject to passions, aging, privations, etc. The outer man is also what expresses the inner, for Jesus said:

A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil… (Luke 6:45)

What is necessary, then, is for the Christian to “put to death” the old nature and live by the Spirit.^[4]“For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Romans 8:13)

The way of perfection passes by way of the Cross. There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle. Spiritual progress entails the ascesis [self-discipline] and mortification that gradually lead to living in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes. —Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2015

Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you, thousands will be saved. —Seraphim of Sarov

However, the Christian life is not merely renunciation — like Buddhists who practice mortification in order to reach a transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of self. Their goal is to be released from the cycle of reincarnation (Nirvana). The Christian, on the other hand, repents from sin and detaches from idols through suffering precisely to fulfill the inherent desire to know and possess God,^[5]“Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him.” —Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2560 and to realize and possess one’s true self, made in His image. The Buddhist is emptied, and that’s it, while the Christian is filled to overflowing:

Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture says: ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within him.’ (John 7:38)

From within his interior life. Thus, the Christian who not only dies to self but cultivates the inner man, begins to manifest the life of Jesus to others in a witness of spirit and power:

…we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us… always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:7-11)

 

Cultivating the Interior Life

Yes, the Christian dies to self precisely so that the Risen Lord may rise within Him. This is the key to bearing fruit that lasts: reaching that point when we can say with St. Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me…”^[6]Galatians 2:20 But how?

If Baptism conceives Christ within the heart of a newborn Christian, then it remains for that person to “feed” the inner man bringing it “to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”^[7]Ephesians 4:13

Of course, the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.”^[8]‘The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” “The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch.”‘ CCC, n. 1324 But what brings the Christian from the Source to the Summit is the key to the interior life: prayer.

By this, I do not mean rote rattling off of childhood or liturgical prayers. Rather, to begin praying “from the heart.”

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit [the heart] and truth. (John 4:24)

Christian prayer should go further: to the knowledge of the love of the Lord Jesus, to union with Him…  —Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2708

So this isn’t about heaping up prayers to simply “get it done.” This is about falling in love with Jesus, with your God.

I hear many Catholics lament that their pastors don’t preach enough about sin. But what may be even more crucial is that homilists begin to practice and teach how to pray! For prayer is precisely how the Christian “hangs” on the Vine, who is Christ, and learns to hear His Voice, His Will, in order to conquer sin and bear fruit.^[9]Rom 12:2 Prayer is how the “sap of the Holy Spirit” — grace — begins to flow like “living water” in the soul. 

Prayer attends to the grace we need… Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life… —Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2010, 1997

As such,

Prayer is the life of the new heart. —CCC, n.2697

If you’re not praying “in spirit and truth,” then, the new heart given you in Baptism is dying.

So now we have reached the heart of the interior life: it is intimacy with God. This is why the Catechism states so beautifully:

Man, himself created in the “image of God” [is] called to a personal relationship with God… prayer is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit. —Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 299, 2565

“Contemplative prayer in my opinion,” said St. Teresa of Avila, “is nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.”^[10]St. Teresa of Jesus, The Book of Her Life, 8,5 in The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, tr. K. Kavanaugh, OCD, and O. Rodriguez, OCD (Washington DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1976), I,67 In fact, one can attend weekly Mass her whole life, but if she never opens her heart to a living friendship with God, her spiritual life remains stunted; her works, though they may be beneficial, lose spiritual power; she remains, as it were, nourished only by “milk” rather than “solid food… for the mature.”^[11]Hebrews 5:14 Thus, we have to feed the inner man with the Eucharist, the Word of God, and prayer from the heart, which is really just a true exchange of love between you and your Creator.^[12]cf. Matt 22:37

…be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you [may be] rooted and grounded in love… (Ephesians 3:16-17)

 

The Power of the Apostolate

Now we come to the crux, or rather, crisis of our times — the present vacuum of holiness.

The Church needs saints. All are called to holiness, and holy people alone can renew humanity. —POPE JOHN PAUL II, World Youth Day Message for 2005, Vatican City, Aug. 27th, 2004, Zenit

It is not mere card-carrying Catholics who will transform history, but those who are truly close to Jesus:

In those who are close to Me I show My holiness, and before all the people, My glory. (Leviticus 10:3, rNJB)

Hence, the “primacy of the interior life” that St. John Paul II beckoned us to attend to: closeness to Jesus. In this intimacy, we are capable of bearing fruit that will remain because, without Him, we can “do nothing.” Thus…

This is the moment of faith, of prayer, of conversation with God, in order to open our hearts to the tide of grace and allow the word of Christ to pass through us in all its power: Duc in altum! [Put out into the deep!]… allow the Successor of Peter to invite the whole Church to make this act of faith, which expresses itself in a renewed commitment to prayer. —POPE ST. JOHN PAUL II, Novo Millennio Inuente, n. 38

 

Pray always without becoming weary.
(Luke 18:1)

 

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