This illusionism constitutes a fatal obstacle to our transformation in Christ. One tainted with this disease necessarily lacks true self-knowledge and is unlikely to escape any of the traps set for him by the Enemy. Being more or less unaware of man’s need of redemption, this type of idealist cannot conceivably possess the true readiness to change. Though aspiring to perfection within the limits of his nature, he knows little of the necessity of dying to oneself and being reborn in Christ.

For all his well-intentioned efforts, he abides in a world of illusions; even the incontestably good actions he may accomplish are not free from a certain taint of speciousness, a mark of things ungenuine and inadequate. What warps his virtue is the lack of holy sobriety.

Holy sobriety rejects illusions caused by interpreting natural things as supernatural

Another form of illusionary exaltation consists in the tendency of many of us to misinterpret this or that purely natural and all too human attitude or state of mind as a manifestation of supernatural origin and dignity. This vice mostly betrays itself by a habit of idealising all things, and a mincing aversion to call them by their proper names.

One such person, for instance, will mistake an emotional dullness in him, which may in fact be the consequence of chronic fatigue, for a sign of religious serenity. Another will believe himself devoured with a holy zeal for the House of God, whereas in fact it is a purely natural urge for correcting and admonishing others, a pedantic or governess-like disposition, which prompts him continually to upbraid and to preach to his fellows. Another, again, will misconstrue what is simply his healthy temperament, his vitality, his sanguine vivacity, as an outflow of his imperturbable confidence in God. Even the rash blunder of mistaking one’s purely natural depression for the caligo, the dark night of the mystics, is by no means an unheard of occurrence.

Holy sobriety calls us to blunt truthfulness about our nature

Yet, our transformation in Christ requires precisely that blunt truthfulness which is eager to call everything by its proper name. In order to become a true Christian, I must first say with the honest pagan: “I am a man, and know that nothing human is alien to me.”

We cannot be constituted in a true relationship with God nor dwell in conspectu Dei unless we consider man in his true reality and guard against all illusive interpretations. For whatever is specious and spurious in us cuts us off from objectivity and humility, falsifies our response to values, distracts us from God and thwarts the path of our transformation in Christ.

Holy sobriety remains constantly mindful of our terrestrial status

An ordinary fellow who, aware of how subject he is to material things, preserves his sanity and common sense, is likelier to awake some day to a full supernatural life than is the muddle-headed illusionist of false sublimity who is busy decking human and natural things with pompous but false tags and deceiving himself along with others. Indeed, he who makes a habit of transposing natural things of everyday occurrence into an idiom of faked interiority or solemnity, and thus (deeming himself a saint while in reality his motives are entirely of this earth) leads an existence based on illusions, not only falls short of any progress towards true holiness but actually insults God.