Much emphasis has been placed in recent centuries on the spirituality of asceticism and detachment from earthly things. This emphasis underscores an important part (but only a part) of the Christian position in front of the realities of this life. Sin distorts our perception of reality and leads to delusions about the value for our personality of things in this world. Ascetical work is an effort to correct this distortion, and it therefore presupposes a more fundamental and positive significance of the goodness of things created by God. These goods awaken our human desire, and the human vocation involves a generous affirmation of this created goodness as it truly is—namely, as reflecting the infinite goodness of the Mystery of God who alone can satisfy the human heart. Good things are signs and gifts that educate us on our journey toward God. When experienced with true recognition, these goods—and our desire in relation to them—do not lead us astray off the path toward God. Rather they are constructive particulars that should help to open up and shape the realization of our freedom as we move toward the fulfillment that God has prepared for each of us individually in His eternal Kingdom, through Jesus Christ.
It is necessary to correct disordered desire just as (analogously) it is necessary to correct impaired eyesight: the problem is the impairment, whereas eyesight in itself is good and allows us to see and distinguish things. So also with human desire. Following Christ doesn’t suffocate desire. It frees desire and leads its longings to their true fulfillment.
Pope Benedict frequently took up this theme in his teaching, especially in his profound first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (2006). Here, however, I present a few selections from his catechetical homilies in the final year of his papacy:
“It is possible also in this age, seemingly so blocked to the transcendent dimension, to begin a journey toward the true religious meaning of life, that shows how the gift of faith is not senseless, is not irrational. It would be very useful, to that end, to foster a kind of pedagogy of desire, both for the journey of one who does not yet believe and for the one who has already received the gift of faith.
"It should be a pedagogy that covers at least two aspects. In the first place, to discover or rediscover the taste of the authentic joy of life. Not all satisfactions have the same effect on us: some leave a positive after-taste, able to calm the soul and make us more active and generous. Others, however, after the initial delight, seem to disappoint the expectations that they had awakened and sometimes leave behind them a sense of bitterness, dissatisfaction or emptiness.
"Instilling in someone from a young age the taste for true joy, in every area of life – family, friendship, solidarity with those who suffer, self-renunciation for the sake of the other, love of knowledge, art, the beauty of nature — all this means exercising the inner taste and producing 'antibodies' that can fight the trivialization and the dulling widespread today. Adults too need to rediscover this joy, to desire authenticity, to purify themselves of the mediocrity that might infest them. It will then become easier to drop or reject everything that although attractive proves to be, in fact, insipid, a source of indifference and not of freedom.
"And this will bring out that desire for God of which we are speaking.
“A second aspect that goes hand in hand with the preceding one is never to be content with what you have achieved. It is precisely the truest joy that unleashes in us the healthy restlessness that leads us to be more demanding — to want a higher good, a deeper good — and at the same time to perceive ever more clearly that no finite thing can fill our heart. In this way we will learn to strive, unarmed, for the good that we cannot build or attain by our own power; and we will learn to not be discouraged by the difficulty or the obstacles that come from our sin.
“In this regard, we must not forget that the dynamism of desire is always open to redemption. Even when it strays from the path, when it follows artificial paradises and seems to lose the capacity of yearning for the true good. Even in the abyss of sin, that ember is never fully extinguished in man. It allows him to recognize the true good, to savour it, and thus to start out again on a path of ascent; God, by the gift of his grace, never denies man his help.
“A second aspect that goes hand in hand with the preceding one is never to be content with what you have achieved. It is precisely the truest joy that unleashes in us the healthy restlessness that leads us to be more demanding — to want a higher good, a deeper good — and at the same time to perceive ever more clearly that no finite thing can fill our heart. In this way we will learn to strive, unarmed, for the good that we cannot build or attain by our own power; and we will learn to not be discouraged by the difficulty or the obstacles that come from our sin.
“In this regard, we must not forget that the dynamism of desire is always open to redemption. Even when it strays from the path, when it follows artificial paradises and seems to lose the capacity of yearning for the true good. Even in the abyss of sin, that ember is never fully extinguished in man. It allows him to recognize the true good, to savour it, and thus to start out again on a path of ascent; God, by the gift of his grace, never denies man his help.
"We all, moreover, need to set out on the path of purification and healing of desire. We are pilgrims, heading for the heavenly homeland, toward that full and eternal good that nothing will be able to take away from us. This is not, then, about suffocating the longing that dwells in the heart of man, but about freeing it, so that it can reach its true height.”
~Benedict XVI, General Audience, November 7, 2012
