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Temptation of Perfection
Dominique Ferry, newly elected to the English NSC, gave up his career as a very successful media executive in Paris over 20 years ago to become a full time member of the Chemin Neuf community. He reflects below on an important insight he received about the spiritual life and the temptation we can have to confuse perfection and holiness.
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On joining the community my wife, Marie Christine and I, did the 30 day retreat of the Ignatian exercises. Through this I discovered in a new way my sinfulness and saw how quick I was to judge and how I was not able to love my wife as she needed to be loved. But I still thought that I could improve. I knew I needed God’s help to do this but I was still unconsciously looking for perfection. After some years we made our life commitment to the community and I was ordained a permanent deacon. It was three years later that I happened to hear a short part of a teaching by Fr Raniero Cantalamessa on the letter to the Romans. In this he said, “although we are dead to sin, if we still bear the fruits of sin in our life it is because we have roots in us where the sap of sin is still alive and is able to travel to the end of the branch. We have to have the courage to cry to the Lord, saying, “Enough, I’ve had enough. Show me that part within me that carries the sap of sin.” This phrase really resonated with me. Despite all my efforts I was in the situation he described and I could see no way out. I decided to go on retreat for a week with Fr Raniero’s book, “Life in Christ”. During this time I felt that I had come to a dead end, spiritually. I was stuck in my sin and there seemed no way forward. I remembered what Fr Raniero had said and I started crying out to Christ, “I’ve had enough of this situation.” How hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God While I was praying I had the word, “How hard it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. Indeed it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.” (Lk 18:24-25). At the same time I got a picture of myself driving a 35 ton lorry, facing one of those round stop Custom signs at the border. On the other side was the kingdom of God. The lorry symbolised the camel and the sign was the needle. I knew there was no way that I could get my 35 ton lorry through it, yet I didn’t want to leave my lorry behind either, because it was part of my very being and I had no idea how I could possibly live without it.
I realised that big lorry was full of everything I had kept for myself from the graces that the Lord had given me. It was my desire to exist on my own, to have recognition for my spiritual achievements. Deep down I realised that I saw myself as the one who had left his job for the Lord, the one who had given up everything for Him, the one who had been ordained, the one who had been able to forgive. There I was congratulating myself on all that I had done for the Lord, as if it was I who had done it, instead of these being graces God had given me. Every single grace that I had received from the Lord – the grace of a happy marriage, of being a father, of community life, I had stolen some of the glory to build up my own ego. I was desperate and I didn’t know what to do. There seemed no way out when every gift of God to me had become an occasion of sin and pride. I realised I could not enter the Kingdom of God with it all, yet I did not know how to live without all my achievements. I was frightened to be vulnerable. I felt like a hermit crab who was being forced to live without any protective shell, frightened that I would be devoured by some predator. I realised this old self was really me and I had to cry out to Jesus to save me. At the same time I knew I had to accept Jesus all over again as my one and only saviour. I had to ask him to nail this old self to the cross with Him. I had to enter into a new life with Him alone. This was a way of life I didn’t know how to live. I turned to Mary and asked her to teach me and I implored Jesus to save me from my sins and my ego. Ongoing conversion needed I began to understand that this decision was not something you just do once, but it is ongoing. I see that when I stop asking Jesus to take with Him my old self and crucify it on the cross, I start to load my lorry again. As Martin Luther says, “Our old self is drowned in the water of baptism, but it knows how to swim.” I have come to realise that this is a whole new way of living and that I will never be able to do without the Lord and his covenant with me. As a Christian my call is to live eternally within the heart of the Trinity. I have to learn how to depend totally on God for everything, to realise that I am not called to live by myself but to exist in Him, so that I can say like St Paul, “I no longer live I, but Christ lives in me.” I have had to accept that the old self will accompany me to my last breath. Yet it is this sinful self that keeps me at the foot of the cross of Jesus and in Him. Now I have begun to recognise those situations in my life that are “danger zones” and I can turn to the Lord for a special nailing of my old self, so I can be protected when the time comes. I also have a new understanding of the sacrament of reconciliation, as a place where I can confess my constant need to be saved from my self and where I can acknowledge my sinful nature and all those situations where I rely on my human skills and use the Lord’s gifts to “be” someone. Thanks be to God I have now been liberated and don’t need to worry anymore about progressing in my spiritual life.
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When
our family joined the Chemin Neuf community I left my job, our house
and our social life. Instead my ambitions were transferred to the spiritual
life, which I saw as an ascending staircase. Progress to me still meant
greater achievement, becoming more experienced and climbing the stairs
to perfection.
