At lunch my mom happened to say that she always felt that her fondest desire was to know herself the way God knows her. I've sometimes had a similar idea: I don't want to be a Pinnochio but a "real boy."
For Rieff, God knows each of us personally, in our uniqueness, in who we really are, in our "ideal." That "ideal" we ourselves can know through the "intense practice of faith, as free men - free to 'take the shape of Christ' (Galatians 4:19)."
In other words, we "live" to the extent we are given the grace to know our ideal, our godly, self. "To recognize such a person is to be indebted to him for his existence, for his presence in one's self. . ." and to recognize the one to whom we should more like. "Thus there can be no charisma of perception without guilt." Charisma, p. 36.
"But to make this ideal character takes relentless practice, through the charisms, and moreover, through each examining 'his own conduct for himself.' [Gal. 6:4] Ibid. at p.83.
Through this "intense practice of faith," this "relentless practice" through charisms and examination of conscience, we are inducted into the person God sees in us.
In this practice, we are guided to avoid "the kind of behavior that belongs to the lower nature," [Gal. 5:20]; but if we persevere, we garner "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control." Gal. 5:22. These are the goodly qualities of the godly person God knows in us.
Can there be an apter struggle in life? And isn't the outcome worth the extraordinary energies we put into it?
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