The milieu of the talk

To think of the maturing processes of our personality it is necessary to fix, first of all, the existential objectives –namely, at long term and even for the whole life- which we propose to ourselves and, therefore, in which sense we look at our evolution.. It is certain that every person, in its genetic patrimony, has a tension towards self-realisation, a term that includes the development of the potentialities that the person feels to possess, as well as the fulfilment of the existential meanings, which every person goes on gradually discovering and treasuring up. This approach is even more marked in the Christian horizon, because the reason of every communication of faith is just that each one “lives and lives fully” (John: 10, 10), where the beatitudes dare even propose a model of happiness and beatitude, which can be experienced already in our historical vicissitude. 

Having kept an account of these data, we can say that maturation is an evolving process, which will end only with death and which –in the different phases of life- through the choices we operate in various socio-cultural circumstances, brings to completion our identity, namely, the deepest and substantially continuous subjective nucleus that signs our existence and, according to the Christian optic, contains the signature God apposed on each human being in calling it to life. In more specifically Christian terms, we can say that the objective of our maturation process is that of realising in history the conditions to answer for our name written in heaven. 

In the psychological models that describe the personality, this identifying nucleus, which supports and binds the somehow defined constant, if not definitive traits, often is called “Self”. This last concept could be represented as the sum of all the potentialities of a person, both at a level of awareness or at that of unawareness, which could become mature in favourable conditions. Among the constant elements that the “self” develops there are:

a) the bodily identity, bound to the knowledge of one’s own body and to the conditions of the environment which we belong to or which belong to us;

b) our social and relational identity, which includes the perceptions on us, which we attribute to others; our social role and the normative as well as the participative models of the environment in which we live; 

c) and finally the spiritual identity, starting from our own  self-awareness  -above all the limit of being creature- and from the opening to others, up to transcendence with all that it implies.

These dimensions in our lived experiences are contemporary, but often non-homogenous, for which we have the existential task of integrating them harmoniously.

Self-knowledge

All the wisdom and spiritual traditions, as well as the contemporary psychological journeys, insist on putting self-knowledge as the starting point of every process of human and spiritual maturation. The dimensions that consent a certain self-knowledge can be synthesised in two points: the first and more immediate is the attention to the reactions of others. These surely reflect, somehow, a perception of how we are and of how we interact, a thing which is almost never deprived of true contents.  The way we receive the reaction of others is fundamental to understand an important part of our identity; namely, whether we place ourselves at the centre of the universe, or “in net” with others. The question “Who am I in this relation, before this comment or attitude?” introduces us more and more into self-knowledge, into the discovery of our true identity, though this always remains, within certain limits, a mystery. Therefore, we are going to see whether we are persons who reject the judgement of others,  considering it  banal, or whether we are always busy looking at others, in the attitude of discovering  their errors and of attributing to them the reasons of our uneasiness or ailments, perhaps to ignore the truth of our personal “Self”, or whether, instead, we are open and ready to accept others and their ways of relating with us, weaving a net of relations which can value each person and answer the social exigencies.

The second –more introspective- relation, which introduces us to our self-knowledge, is the actualisation of our resources and limits, to the end of accepting ourselves as we are: this is the basis of every evolution. I underline the importance of being aware of our capacity, avoiding attitudes of false humility. To acknowledge our own ability implies, in fact, also the related assumption of our responsibility, from which self-esteem is born. To know, in the context, also our own limits, confronting ourselves with them, is an inalienable condition of the truth and pacification of our life. Part of this is the acknowledgement of our emotions, conflicts and all the vital processes that cross us, but which we are unable to dominate or to live serenely.

An uncomfortable self-surgery

There is a painful operation that we call “self-surgery”:  it consists in overcoming and giving up all our illusions. In some moments of our life, the offerings are there, before us (it should be done…you could do…) and the personal projects, sometimes also institutional, are so rich as it is difficult to make a meaningful choice that could be coherent with the project of consecration to the Gospel and it is, instead, very easy to nurture illusions, often of an unknown matrix. The amplification of the institute or the permanence in different houses, our own image, the recognition or non recognition of our role, the easiness with which we consider ourselves competent of various things (“…it is not my job, however I can say…), are some of the most frequent illusions which we can accept, with realism, of having seconded  several times in the course of our life and which we must try of…recognising for what they are –just illusions- whose root, very often, is in our self-acceptance, and the acceptance of the context we live in, perhaps also of the fatigue implied in living authentically the exigency of being  “signs” of the lasting realities, which our consecrated life is ordained to. 

This rough dealing with ourselves is not an end to itself and does not serve as a journey towards some form of sublime maturity: the elaboration of answers to the illusions, instead of creating a free space in our mind, aiming at catching the present we live in, with more participation and joy In fact, if we have tried to overcome gradually our egoistic(or narcissistic) infiltrations and have become capable of re-visit the illusions, we can live the most opportune dimension to reach maturity and express it: the present.

Present: time of flourishing

The present is, in fact, the space in which our identity can really incise and prepare also the future. To live the present indicates the  reality of having fulfilled real priority choices, which translate themselves into the capacity of living our time in a personal way, choosing to invest the energies in those fields that nurture our interior life and support the joy of living, even in the most difficult situations. We can find two important references with this regard. On one side, to know how to determine the privileged times for relations, starting from that with God. By privileged times I mean: the spaces of time which are qualitatively the best, those in which “we produce most”. Therefore, I am not referring to prayer or to communitarian commitments, but to our time of relation with God and with others, which we know to be the best –qualitatively- to express ourselves. The other important reference can be that of living intensely the liturgical year, a time that is not stressed on the social and operative realities, but that leads us back to the constant presence of Jesus Christ in history, proposing to us not only the mysteries of faith but, even more, the human and spiritual qualities, which the succession of the different liturgical “seasons”, time by time, proposes, so that, through a loyal confrontation with them, we may learn how to live our time in its fullness, trying to treasure up the same sentiments of Christ. Here we reach the maturity –though always dynamic and never fulfilled- that gradually modulates the various phases of our life, urging us to that silence and pacification where we succeed to feel the Word without interferences.

Maturity, personality e solidarity

The complexity of today’s conditions may make our journey of authentic self-realisation and, therefore, also the maturation process, more difficult. Often, dragged away by “necessities”, by the lengthy decisional processes of the religious institutions and public entities, we find quite hard to safeguard the spaces in which we may reflect intensely on our process of maturation and on the resolutions it demands in different moments of our life. The risk is that of a deep and hidden dissatisfaction, “drugged” by our pursuing activities for the common “good”, which does not allow us to live the present in full awareness and even too often leads us to states of delusions against life or to regrets, besides leading us to inadequacy as we grow old.  

The above provided suggestions can be of help to get rooted in the trust  that our welcoming the action of the Spirit, who guides our steps along the journey of self-maturation, allows us to become aware  of the value, first of all, of our own life and then of every life. From this awareness derives the discovery that making oneself peacefully available for the creative force (so that it may transform us fully into children of the Father), is a source of serenity and pacification, of trust in the future and in life, from which we learn to appreciate the multiple gifts, expressing themselves –even in our work- through solid, authentic and not imaginary relations. This way of pursuing maturity constitutes the most important message that consecrated life can offer to the society and today’s cultures.

Lucio M. Pinkus
Comunità Santa Maria dei Servi
Via Mantova, 9 – 38062 Arco (Trento)