And the Christ who gave
himself for his brothers in humanity with an absolute self-abnegation is
the pattern for our action to shape itself on.
All of us, each one of us, can and ought to determine to give as much
of himself as he possibly can--nay, to give more than he can, to exceed
himself, to go beyond himself, to make himself irreplaceable, to give
himself to others in order that he may receive himself back again from
them. And each one in his own civil calling or office. The word office,
_officium_, means obligation, debt, but in the concrete, and that is
what it always ought to mean in practice. We ought not so much to try to
seek that particular calling which we think most fitting and suitable
for ourselves, as to make a calling of that employment in which chance,
Providence, or our own will has placed us.
Perhaps Luther rendered no greater service to Christian civilization
than that of establishing the religious value of the civil occupation,
of shattering the monastic and medieval idea of the religious calling,
an idea involved in the mist of human passions and imaginations and the
cause of terrible life tragedies. If we could but enter into the
cloister and examine the religious vocation of those whom the
self-interest of their parents had forced as children into a novice's
cell and who had suddenly awakened to the life of the world--if indeed
they ever do awake!--or of those whom their own self-delusions had led
into it! Luther saw this life of the cloister at close quarters and
suffered it himself, and therefore he was able to understand and feel
the religious value of the civil calling, to which no man is bound by
perpetual vows.
Pages:
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383