No longer do we judge things from different points of view, from that of our temporal interests, for example, or of the interests of others, or of our consideration for public opinion, and in addition to these, from that of our consideration for God’s will, as though all these points of view were on a level with each other. One supreme point of view governs our entire life and in subordination to that point of view all else is judged and settled. It is the principle of conduct enjoined by these words of the Lord: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33).

The life of a man who, after having found Christ, gives all he has for the one costly pearl (as did the merchant in the Gospel) becomes simple in the highest and most proper sense of the word. It becomes unified instead of being divided in the sense in which St. Paul says of a man who marries, divisus est. Nor, because of that, will his life decrease in its depth of meaning or wealth of substance; rather it will become deep, substantial, and differentiated in a measure inaccessible to those who are lost in the multicolored variety of terrestrial goods, and who, like Faust, again and again engage in fresh pursuits.

This is immediately evident as regards the aspect of depth. For the height of the value we are genuinely experiencing (be it in a direct sense or by implication, as a background to our primary object) determines the depth of our response. A life entirely consecrated to God, the summumbonum, is necessarily deeper than one given over to earthly goods.

True simplicity engenders abundance

But the consonance between simplicity and abundance, too, will become intelligible if we remind ourselves that by simplicity is meant the unity of a life anchored in God, who encloses all plenitude of being. Even within the limits of the natural sphere, a life filled by one high vocation is richer and more differentiated than the life of a person whose energies are frittered away on many peripheral things. A great love not only informs a person’s life in greater depth but lends it a far greater abundance than a multitude of superficial love relationships.

The old wisdom still holds which sets multum (much) higher than multa (many things). How much truer is this of unity centered on God, who not only contains per eminentiam all fullness of being but is the Cause and the End of all created things.

The light of Christ simplifies all things