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The Re-Formation of the Soul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

Conrad Pepler O.P.
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One of the most fundamental ideas in the understanding of the ascent of the Christian towards God is that of transformation into Christ. But it is a difficult idea to grasp. So easily transformation-the taking on of a new form-slips into an identification which would be a type of pantheism. Otherwise it remains as a mere simile, suggesting that the lover of Christ becomes like Christ, simply because he performs the same sort of actions.

Another way of stating the same difficulty is to be found in the discussion concerning the nature of the unity of the Mystical Body. What sort of unity characterises the one Body of Christ on Earth? A formal unity? That would identify all the members with the head and they would lose their own personalities. Or is it simply a final unity arising from the fact that all are aiming at the same final point of beatitude? Such a union would differ in little or nothing from the union of human society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 5 , Issue 50 , August 1950 , pp. 63 - 71
Copyright
Copyright © 1950 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 Galatians 4, 19. Hilton's Scale is primarily concerned with the reforming of the soul into the image of Christ. Cf. i, 92. p. 171 et passim.

2 i, 55. p. 101. Cf. the following chapter where Hilton discloses the nature and evil of pride

3 This short, treatise on Temptation in The Scule. cc. 37-40 of Ihe first book. is full of practical wisdom. It should be read in conjunction with the Aneren Ritcle(cf Life Of The Spirit, August, 1947. p. 55.)

4 One Prayer. J. P. de Canssade, S.J. (Burns Oates, 1931) p. xvii.

5 Hilton seems to have a curiously limited view of the dictum 'outside the Church no salvation'; for anyone who is not bapatised is not only outside the grace of Christ's passion, but also everything that springs in any way from original sin becomes actual sin in him. As the pagan does not believe in the passion of Christ he cannot be saved by it. Comp. i, 56, p. 105, and ii. 3, p. 181.

6 This raises a question which Hilton does not seem to have faced: Baptise itself makes the sonl absolutely ready for heaven and yet the reformation is so far only in faith and not in feeling and the soul remains apt to sin, Compare ii, 6, with ii. 8.