Vigils Reading – Office for the Dead

THE SUPREME RISK

by Gustave Thibon

◊◊◊

The being who runs the least risk is that being who, down here, comes

nearest to nothingness: the one who risks nothing is nothing. The risk is made to

be run: every being carries within itself what it takes to overcome the risks to

which its nature or its vocation exposes it. The greatest risk of all concerns our

highest destiny… The acceptance of death is the only risk which is in any way

proportionate to the supernatural destiny of the soul, and anyone who is not

ready to run it is not truly Christian. Where are we to find the counterpart of

eternal life if not in the total annihilation of temporal life? One sole risk

measures up to the absolute promise of God, and that “sole risk” is to risk what

looks like losing everything.

Everyone’s destiny is governed by our inward response to this question:

which of the two is an illusion, love or death? Those who are Christians bank on

love, and for love they are ready to risk death. They belong among those who,

believing in love, can no longer believe in death. The Christian risk consists in

going all the way in subordinating death to love. Since Calvary, death has given

up working for its own ends: love never gives up stealing its victory from it. The

supreme risk has become the supreme hope.

Everyone exercises discretion according to the nature of their treasure, of

their heart. True discretion has two eyes: one is fixed on the goal to be obtained,

the other on the risk to be run; discretion sees all the way to the end, and for that

reason it can take on the risk. False discretion is, in a sense, one-eyed. Its one

eye is fixed only on the risk, it sees no further than the risk, and for that reason it

refuses to let itself run the risk. Deprived of both the healthy outlook which sees

the goal and of the holy inclination which leads towards it, it no longer has any

desire but at all costs to escape the risk. Those who do this are then given up

either to stagnation or to regression; they no longer dream of anything but shell-

back coverings or protective railings, and life is transformed into a vast

enterprise of “insurance against all risks”.

There is no greater indiscretion than this false discretion. By being over-

anxious to preserve themselves, such people destroy themselves. Those who, in

order to take better care of themselves, confine themselves to their own lower

elements, work for their own ruin, for they are acting against a central demand

of nature and of life, and they compromise beyond repair the inferior good that

they claim to save… For we are not down here to remain on a steady level, and if

we refuse to climb we increase the chance of falling. For the fruitful task of life

and love, false discretion substitutes everywhere the sterile risk of egoism and

death.