It is by directing our glance in unquenchable longing upwards to God, by maintaining a permanent attitude of sursum corda throughout the varying actions and situations that constitute our life, that we shall more and more outgrow the limits of earthliness and incorporate ourselves in the world of God. In this manner the supernatural will become, in actual truth, the determining and shaping principle, the forma of our life. “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God: mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth” (Col. 3:1-2).

Holy sobriety avoids an exaggerated estimate of our own experiences

Religious illusionism may also take the form of our persuading ourselves that we are burdened with a heavy cross, which we bear with heroism—whereas in fact we have no opportunity at all to practice such a heroism, for the heavy cross exists only in our imagination.

Suppose someone outspokenly draws our attention to certain defects we possess. Instead of gratefully accepting his criticism, we feel sorely misjudged and consider our endurance of the injustice we have suffered as a heroic sacrifice. We appear to ourselves as an exemplary Christian, a silent martyr who for the sake of Christ’s love refrains from remonstrating against a wrong. Yet, all this is mere illusion: the truth is that we fail to perceive the real invitation of God offered by the criticism, and delight in a lofty pose which lacks any real foundation.

Or again, some slight privation, slighter than those other people suffer a hundred times a day, impresses us as a heavy cross and an occasion for exceptional heroism. Little do we surmise that, as a matter of fact, this semblance of heroism is but the product of a ridiculous self-pampering. No, we wallow in self-pity, and complacently enjoy our power of heroic endurance. We do not apply the same measure when estimating the situation of others.

Instead of reflecting that in fact we are not doing too badly and had better thank God for His bounty, instead of pondering the smallness and insignificance of the burden we feel so irksome when the burden is compared with what others have to bear, we indulge in a heroic posture which is justified by no objective condition and therefore lacks inner truth.

We should keep on our guard against all such illusionism, and always be eager to abide in the truth and to see things as they are. Let us never read into our experiences any artificial profundities; let us not put a supernatural construction on what is simply human nature, and often enough, human frailty. Especially, let us not fall into the habit of assuming, without sufficient factual foundation, that something extraordinary and sublime has happened to us.