What is Via Vitae?

Via Vitae is Latin for the way of life. One way that early Christians identified themselves was as followers of “the Way” (cf. Acts 9:1-2). While there are several biblical passages that may have served as the inspiration for this label, the likely source is Matthew 7:13-14, where Christ summarizes the Christian life as follows: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

A Brief Background

The way of life (or light or righteousness) as opposed to the way of death (or darkness or unrighteousness) is central to several early compendiums of the Christian life (cf. Didache 1-5, Barnabas 18-21, and Hermas mandate 6). For the first Christians, there was no great divide between doctrine and practice. Indeed, the word orthodoxy can mean both right teaching and right worship.

Throughout the centuries, Christians of every tradition have developed methods and habits of life through spiritual disciplines, such as prayer, fasting, almsgiving, silence, simplicity, and so on, for the sake of putting sin to death in one's soul and actively growing in and embracing charity, the highest form of love.

Traditionally, this was termed asceticism, which comes from the Greek word askesis, meaning training or exercise. Just as an athlete must train her body in order to win a race, so also all human beings must train their souls in order to excel at love. Invariably, beginning with Jesus's Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), the way of life has always been described in ascetic terms, emphasizing right thoughts, feelings, words, and actions and the disciplines necessary (especially prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, among others) to obtain them.

From Mt. Athos to New Jersey

mount-athosToday, it is not uncommon to think of asceticism as the exclusive world of monastics. “What hath Athos to do with New Jersey?” one might ask. Quite a lot, I believe.

In my most recent article at Ethika Politika, “With Love as Our Byword,” I ended by touching on the value of this ascetic tradition of the Church for the common good:

[I]t is only when individuals deny themselves that they make room for others—human community exists only by means of such everyday asceticism. The Gospel simply calls us to make such asceticism an intentional way of life, and to excel at it. As Christians, East and West (and, I will add, Roman Catholic or Protestant), we can work together through a common ethos by which we ascend the ladder of charity, take hold of the treasures of heaven, and serve our neighbors for the common good.

At a basic level, no human community exists apart from some self-limitation of individuals for a common end. People limit their own wills in terms of space, time, even diet, in order to share those things with one another. Certainly, communities that embrace spiritual disciplines such as prayer have a much higher common goal than the average association, but at some level all community requires a little asceticism.

Another Way

Via Vitae seeks to explore this connection between the mystical and the mundane, liturgy and public life, the kingdom of God and the common good. While I value technical discussions of public policy and believe that the work of advocating for civil laws that reflect the law of God constitutes a true vocation, I see a lacuna in our discourse when it comes to the habits necessary to enable persons to live morally in the first place, however just or unjust the law itself may be.

I am reminded of Alexis de Tocqueville's observation regarding the laws of the Puritans in Democracy in America. He says that the austerity and overbearing particularity of their laws “shame the human spirit.” Yet though he observes that “the death penalty was never so common in the laws,” he nonetheless adds, “nor so rarely applied to the guilty.” While their laws may have been absurdly strict and severe (or simply absurd in general), the culture created by their habits of life, founded in their faith, often rendered them mercifully vain.

Perhaps it would be best for us to avoid some of the habits of the Puritans, but the widespread neglect of traditional Christian spiritual practices today is alarming to me. We may toil for public policy, and rightly so, but we cannot expect our culture to change if we are not also able to show them another way to live, the way of life.

Cultivating such authentic love, not only of God but also of one's neighbors, has always been primary to the way of life as opposed to the way of death. Interestingly, this also served as the foundation for one of the earliest Christian political theologies: St. Augustine's City of God. He writes that “two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.”

Nevertheless, as St. Augustine would acknowledge, true Christian asceticism always serves the common good, even while seeking the kingdom of God. I have heard the cliché, “He is so heavenly minded that he is of no earthly good,” and I do not doubt that such a reproach has its place. But the place of Via Vitae, I hope, is to show precisely how being heavenly minded can actually be an “earthly good.”

The Two Ways Today

“Where do wars and fights come from among you?” asks St. James, “Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?” (James 4:1) Conflict in our world, according to St. James, begins with warring desires in our hearts for fleeting pleasures. When we engage all the problems of modern society, whatever they may be—social injustice, abuse, violence, abortion, adultery, pornography, human trafficking, and so on—we must see them not only from a legal perspective but also as the product of human passion and suffering, casualties of the war of the heart. This is the way of death.

Cultivating love for God and our neighbors through asceticism, on the other hand, quiets the storm of passions in our hearts and gives us a peace that is contagious. As the modern Russian saint Seraphim of Sarov commonly taught, “Acquire a peaceful spirit, and around you thousands will be saved.”

Indeed, Christian anthropology affirms that human beings are neither atomistic individuals nor faceless masses but persons in relationships. Our duty to love our neighbors (literally, “those who are near” to us) begins with those we know and come in contact with on a regular basis.

For example, do you want to fight poverty? Who in your communities—whether friends, family, church, or otherwise—are in need? In the spirit of simplicity, do you or anyone in your community have anything that could help them that you could part with? Better yet, do you have the time or resources to give to others not simply to help them once, but to help empower them to stand on their own two feet in the future? In accord with the traditional, ascetic affirmation of the goodness of human labor, can your community help them find a job? Do you have any projects around your home you could pay them to do? More importantly, do you have the self-control and virtue necessary to make such sacrifices, or do you feel your heart within you shrinking back from such a challenge? If the latter, what you need is the way of life. The goal of Via Vitae is to explore the ways in which such otherworldly living can transform our hearts and communities for the life of the world.

Travelers Wanted

Traveling the way of life takes daily work, sometimes even breath by breath. As Christ himself describes it, “narrow is the gate and difficult is the way.” But there is an important catch: the burden is light. Our culture desperately needs people willing to deny themselves daily, take up their crosses, and follow Jesus Christ. Will you walk down that road? Will you follow Christ, even to Golgotha, knowing that the end, paradoxically, is true life and light and joy? I hope so.

And if it so happens that something here or along the journey catches you, and you are able contribute some insight from your study and experience for the common good, then I want to add your voice to the conversation. Via Vitae needs writers who are able carefully and intelligently to engage the social issues of our day from a lived experience of the Christian ascetic, spiritual, and liturgical tradition. Submissions from all traditions are welcome, though subject to editorial discretion.

Ethika Politika submission guidelines and policies, as well as contacts, can be found here.

Stay tuned to Via Vitae for more travel diaries, guidebooks, and reports along the way of life.

Dylan Pahman

Contributing Editor

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