The Jesuit Order is one of the most influential Catholic orders of religious vocations in the world. They are known for many charisms—one, however, best summarizes A.G. Sertillanges’s commentary on the intellectual life—“Finding God in All Things.” Although Sertillanges was not a Jesuit (he was a Dominican), his The Intellectual Life surely overflows with encouragement for alertness to God’s beautiful creation, goodness, and truth.
Beginning chapter three, Sertillanges reaffirms that “the intellectual life” is a vocation—a calling from God to direct one’s life. And yet, he directly applies this vocation in context of another vocation—Christian Marriage. Among his many assertions concerning the married life, Sertillanges includes, “[a wife] can produce much by helping her husband produce…consoling him for his disappointments… soothing his sorrows… being his sweet reward after his labors” (Sertillanges 45). The wife ought to support the husband in his vocation, for that is her vocation in the marital relationship. Living in a Christo-centric relationship reveals God’s true presence.
Another way that Sertillanges offers the intellectual worker a glimpse into God’s presence includes Solitude. “Solitude enables you to make contact with yourself, a necessity if you want to realize yourself—not to repeat like a parrot a few acquired formulas, but to be the prophet of the God within you who speaks a unique language to each man” (Sertillanges 50). Certainly, Sertillanges suggests that within this prayer-state God grants the intellectual true inspiration. Sertillanges warns, however, “By carrying the cult of silence too far, one would reach the silence of death” (Sertillanges 63). For, a body motionless too long gets atrophy—in the same sense, silence and solitude must be balanced with intellectual work. Ultimately, articulates Sertillanges, the Truth (found in Jesus Christ) must be the intellectual’s final goal or end.
Because truth must be the goal of the intellectual, he must keep every eye out in observance for truth. Interestingly enough, the truth is everywhere—as long as one keeps looking.
Truth is commoner than articles of furniture. It cries out in the streets and does not turn its back on us when we turn our backs on it. Ideas emerge from facts; they also emerge from conversations, chance occurrences, theatres, visits, strolls, the most ordinary books. Everything holds treasures, because everything is in everything, and a few laws of life and of nature govern the rest. (Sertillanges 73).
What a better exemplification of “Finding God in All Things!” The alertness of truth must be the greatest attribute of the intellectual—for without alertness, the intellectual falls into a mind of a “commonplace man” (cf. Sertillanges 74).
Rich Mullins, a notable Christian musician, once said that he first invited Christ into his life at the age of four by singing, “Into my heart, into my heart, come Lord Jesus, into my heart.” In a similar way, Sertillanges alludes to the importance of inviting Christ into the intellectual’s life. “Children are taught ‘to give their hearts to God’; the intellectual, a child in that respect, must in addition give his heart to the truth” (Sertillanges 88). Throughout chapters three, four, and five, Sertillanges gives examples of how to allow God into the intellectual’s life: The Mass (cf. 90), Prayer (cf. 89), and studying Theology (cf. 110).
Sertillanges finishes by asserting that studying Theology supersedes all other fields of study, because it is from Theology that all other subjects flow. “The sciences and philosophy without theology discrown themselves more lamentably, since the crown they repudiate is a heavenly one” (Sertillanges 107). Historically, great thinkers like Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, and Leibnitz were “renaissance men” because they broadened their field of study, or as Sertillanges would describe, a “Comparative study” (Sertillanges 102)— linking their studies to general philosophy and theology. For, “Theology has inserted a divine graft into the tree of knowledge, thanks to which this tree can bear fruits that are not its own” (Sertillanges 110). Overall, all other subjects, fields, and areas of study serve the purpose of supporting Theology—the study of God and His presence in man’s life.
In recognizing the truth of one’s life, the intellectual will surely “Find God in All Things.” The intellectual must remember this important maxim provided by Sertillanges—“The half-informed man is not the man who knows only half of things, but the man who only half knows things” (Sertillanges 122).
