The Big Blunder: We are co-heirs with Christ, carelessly spending our inheritance

Book 2, Chapter 1

-Part 7 Continued-

It is by our own fault that we do not possess and enjoy an extraordinary spiritual life filled with the graces and privileges that we by right inherit as princes of the new kingdom.

In this very emphatic section of his book, Father C expresses both the crucial purpose and the essential shortfall or blame associated with his overall topic: That self-abandonment to divine providence is crucial to a spiritual life under God’s care; and that any lack thereunto is essentially an error exclusively on the part of the human person.

For example, nowhere in Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 18) can we detect any blame or want of fatherly love on the part of the father. The son who left is certainly his own cause of his eventual dire predicament as he had carelessly spent his inheritance and came to the point where he envied the pigs their food, which he provided for meager means.

Remember this phrase: “… he carelessly spent his inheritance,” as we shall soon see how applicable this description is of those who live under a thin, unsubstantial film of faith – one J.B. Chautard referred to as “a Christian varnish.” (The Soul of the Apostolate.)

As to fault, Caussade rather plainly says this:

“What are called extraordinary and privileged graces are so called solely because there are few souls worthy enough to receive them. This will be seen clearly on the day of judgment. It will, alas, be seen on that day that it was not in consequence of any reserve on God’s part that the majority of souls were deprived of this divine largesse, but solely through their own fault.” ~Caussade (Page 51, my emphasis.)

This is the same kind of comment that was made later by author G.K. Chesterton, when he said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”

In Caussade’s language we can say that self-abandonment is difficult and, to some extent in each believer, has been left untried. It must not be said of us Christians that we are the keepers of a faith for which we have found no use! And, yet, some of us certainly lean in this direction – some without realizing it. We are carelessly spending our own inheritance in spirit.

If this blunder is indeed this costly in the life of the believer, it is imperative then for us to correct this defect so we might better live with our God without lacking any aspect of the exceptional, amazing life we might have with Him.