Christian maturity

By Bernhard Häring

Subjects: Vie chrétienne, Christian life, Catholic authors

Description: Christian maturity, as the author defines it, is the radical appreciation of one's own status in the eyes of God; it means that one knows one's dignity and one's freedom as a citizen of God's kingdom and subject of his law of love. In a series of meditations the author shows that acceptance of law, whether civil or ecclesiastical, far from crushing the human spirit, liberates and invigorates it; that the theological virtues strengthen the Christian in his encounter with the trials of daily life; that a common holiness binds together in fellowship all members of the Christian community. He concludes with some practical reflections on the piety of the laity, on marriage as a way of salvation, and on love in the single state.