Lest You Remain

for my part do not consider myself to have taken possession. Just one thing: for- getting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus. Let us, then who are “perfectly mature” adopt this attitude. And if you have a different attitude, this too God will reveal to you. Only, with regard to what we have attained, continue on the same course. Wrong Conduct and Our Goal. Join with others i being imitators of me, broth- ers, and observe those who thus conduct themselves according to the model you have in us. for many, as I have often told you and now tell you even in tears, conduct them- selves as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself. Church’s Documents (RD, 9) The Economy of Redemption 9. Through your profession, the way of the evangelical counsels opens up before each one of you. In the Gospel there are many exhortations that go beyond the measure of the commandment, indicating not only what is “necessary” but what is “better.” Thus, for example, the exhortation not to judge, (42) to lend “expecting nothing in return,” (43) to comply with all the requests and desires of our neighbor, (44) to invite the poor to a meal, (45) to pardon always(46) and many other invita- tions. If, in accordance with Tradition, the profession of the evangelical counsels has concentrated on the three points of chastity, poverty and obedience, this usage seems to emphasize sufficiently clearly their importance as key elements and in a certain sense as a “summing up” of the entire economy of salvation. Everything in the Gospel that is a counsel enters indirectly into the program of that way to which Christ calls when He says: “Follow me.” But chastity, poverty and obedience give to this way a particular Christocentric characteristic and imprint upon it a specific sign of the economy of the Redemption. Essential to this “economy” is the transformation of the entire cosmos through the heart of man, from within: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. . . and will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.”(47) This transformation takes place in step with that love, which Christ’s call infuses in the depth of the individ- ual-that love which constitutes the very substance of consecration: a man or Program of Vigils 35