The main aim of the spiritual missionary must be
not in the results of his external and visible activity, but in the invisible
reality of his inner sanctity. Being is more important than doing. Far more
numerous are the amount of men who put greater emphasis on external activities
than in internal attitude; hardly realizing that the internal attitude is far
more important.
Social activity has no autonomous value in
itself, if it does not arises from the mystical attitude of man.
Does not really matters what man does or says -
what really matters is what man is. All his doings can be good and praiseworthy,
but if they are not the natural and spontaneous manifestation of his inner
attitude, they are worthless... they are like many zeros, whose sum or
multiplication will always be equal to zero!
There are on the external activities, when
dissociated from the inner reality, two very serious dangers:
1) - These activities gives to the author a false
sense of security, creating in him a self-sufficiency over the collected
results, preventing him from going beyond what he has already achieved, or
thinks he has achieved. This delusion and self sufficiency are the greatest
spiritual disaster for man externally active and internally passive, because
will direct him to enter into a spiritual stagnation zone. Woe to man fully
satisfied with his external works! The only factor that can prelude his
redemption is a deep dissatisfaction with himself. Incomparably more important
than the glorious doings on the horizontal level is the intensification of his
vertical being. Is worthless the act of doing, saying or
having in the world of quantitative objects, if in the world of
qualitative subject there not exists a deeper self.
2) - The second danger is that this externalized
man judges his influence on others on what he does and says - when it is
impossible to promote the true conversion of another person, if I am not a
genuine and authentic converted, i.e., a man intimately united to God. It is
only my being that can influence the being of others, but if my being is weak, I
cannot give strength to the weak. Only the powerful positive can act on
the negative of others; if I am not 100% positive, by an
intense and profound experience of God, I cannot exert real influence over
others, equally negative. Can my listeners or readers admire and
applaud me; but they did not feel strong enough to leave the nocturnal world of
their moral miseries to enter into the world of daytime virtue and holiness,
because they do not see that world crystalized in me. And even in the best case
that they thought that the divine world is realized on me, they do not would
convert to God, because there are not the appearances which work, but the
reality, a reality that, in this case, would be absent from me. I can say with
great eloquence that the spirit world is grand and beautiful, and my listeners
or readers, at best, will believe in my words - but from believing to being
there is a huge distance. Believing is a distant and vague theory -
being is a close and strong reality. It is very difficult the
transition from believing to being, and if anyone see this
crystalized being in a human person, will not become converted because they do
not see in myself, my conversion.
The converted is one who can truly say: "The
Father and I are one..., no longer I who live but Christ is living in
me."
My words of one not converted, may give light to
listeners or readers; but will lack of strength, which comes not from words, but
from the spiritual reality of the human individual, in which the "Word" was made
flesh and dwells substantially "full of grace and truth."
There is something infinitely more important than
any external work - is the man himself, his full realization in Christ, for
which those works are like means to an end. External activities should never be
anything else but a spontaneous overflow of an inner fullness. If this fullness
does not exist - nothing can overflow! It is like some emptiness camouflaged in
fullness, i.e., a great lie presented as being true?... A fire in a painting
does not provide light or heat - while a smaller portion of real fire can ignite
fires and illuminate entire worlds.
Does not really matters what man says, does or
has - what matters is what he is. What he is refers to the quality of his
intimate SELF - what he says, does or has, refers to the amounts of his external
ego.
Does not really matters what man realizes in the
external world of objects - what matters is what he accomplishes for himself. A
single self-realization overcomes all external realizations.