“Wherever I heard from others and saw how they cherished ideas and sought to accomplish them, I was always excited to immediately make the ideas my own. That was an error – a person can only live for one idea, for one ideal. A person who is filled with many ideas will never be able to accomplish anything great … I want to assimilate one good idea… and live it fully…” (Hans Wormer, member of Schoenstatt’s Founding Generation, as quoted in Autumn Storms, 109).
Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? Perhaps you are presented with many great thoughts or options for your life. Maybe you have met a number of people whom you admire and you would like to follow their example. You feel like you want to conquer every virtue. Every vocation speaks to you in some way. Different professions call your attention. Many things – noble things – attract your heart and you seek to embrace everything, all at once!
Yet, together with this urge to embrace the whole world, you also experience your very limited nature. You get overwhelmed. You remain indecisive. You end up accomplishing nothing… Yes, it happens! Because those who focus on everything have, in fact, no focus.
Indeed, we realize that the longer we go on living without a clear goal, the harder it is to find inner peace and to direct our will towards what is good and noble. What can we do when faced with this reality?
Discovering our personal ideal, our personal mission in life, helps us to focus, to “assimilate one good idea and live it fully.”
St. Therese of Lisieux experienced this in her own life. She felt called to do many great things and her heart sought the highest heights. However, it wasn’t until she could focus on one idea that her way to holiness really began. “She also raised the question about the meaning of her life. She finally found the answer: Now I have it; my mission consists in embodying love within the Church. Love is the meaning of my life, that is, heroic love” (J. Kentenich, Game of Love, 60). This realization helped her to put all her strength into achieving her one goal. It didn’t matter what she was doing; in everything she did, she strove to embody that heroic love. It shaped her from within and gave her a clear line for her actions and decisions.
“Those who have worked their way up to a certain height in their constant striving for perfection notice very soon that it is not enough to strive for the common ideals of all of us. A personal ideal that gives our entire life an unerring direction, momentum, and enthusiasm must be added” (J. Kentenich, letter to a sodalist, cf. Autumn Storms, 108).
What is the personal ideal?
Theology tells us that the personal ideal is the expression of our unique self which has been created in the image and likeness of God. In other words, it is our God-given mission as part of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is not a tactic or method of self-realization, but our unique way of being another Christ.
Philosophy tells us that the personal ideal is the expression of God’s thought of us as we have existed in his mind from all eternity. It is not our own creation nor is it wishful thinking or the product of our imagination. It is a thought which God has had of me from all eternity.
Finally, psychology tells us that the personal ideal is the expression of our fundamental disposition. It is the core which unites all the faculties of our being and gives them a clear order and direction. It takes into account our unique personal history, our original character, our predispositions, and the longings of our hearts. It is “like a second nature which is sleeping but immediately becomes active as soon as the corresponding object is brought near” (J. Kentenich, as quoted in Autumn Storms, 110).
My answer of love
As you can see, the personal ideal is more than just our vocation or profession in life. It is also not meant to be a prophetic prediction of our future. We might think: “I believe that in the future God will want me to do this… so it must be my mission in life.” It is a lot more than that! It is the main attitude with which we believe that God wants us to face life. Ultimately, the personal ideal is our very personal and original answer of love to God’s love for us.
“This spiritual attunement, this personal ideal, is exactly that which pulls together all the individual actions in human life toward one central thought and one central attitude. In human life, that is what makes one a total person, a great person, a person of high caliber” (J. Kentenich, letter to a sodalist, as quoted in Autumn Storms, 111).
So, just as it happened with St. Therese, discovering our personal ideal will motivate us from within and will bring our entire personality to a focus. Then, our striving for holiness will gain a clear direction and we will be able to become great personalities even if only within the framework of our small lives!