The aim of our transformation in Christ itself compels us to accord an adequate place in our lives to our contemplative attention to the high created values which put us in a kind of contact with God and exercise an irreplaceable formative effect upon our being. Hence, we should recognize that the world of created things is not merely a training ground for ascetical mortification; that, provided we give them the right response according to the will of God, the created goods are only also bearers of a positive mission in the service of our eternal end.

We should realize the purifying and elevating effect that emanates from all high beauty; how, by virtue of its sheer quality, it transmits to us an aspect of the Divine, and how it tends to divert our minds from everything sinful or paltry, if only we yield to its suggestion of ascent, and grow fully aware of its meaning and nobility. No less is it in the nature of a great and deep love in Christ Jesus to liberate us, to loosen the bonds of our attachment to trivial goods, and to guide us towards God. We should perceive the enduring sursum corda that emanates from it, and the way it makes us grow in true simplicity.

In all these marvellous goods we should discern the call of God, nor ever resist the upward drift they tend to communicate to us. We must keep alive in us a general readiness to follow every call of God as contained in these gifts, and cultivate a conscious attention to their logos as an essential aspect of our striving for perfection. In this respect, again, the words remain true: “Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Ps. 94:8).

In moral actions, transformation cannot be our motive

Moral actions and good works, in their turn, equally exercise a transforming effect upon our habitual being. Here, however, our transformation must not be present to our minds even in the sense of a thematic overtone, as is legitimate in the case of our contemplative attitudes. Moral actions as such, including acts of abstaining from sin, great as their indirect significance is for our transformation, must never be performed with this aim in view.