Distinction: Incapacity of Action vs. Incapacity of Becoming

There is a difference between incapacity of action and incapacity of becoming. I have said that incapacity may be juxtaposed with unworthiness, where incapacity refers to action; unworthiness, to being. But incapacity itself may refer either to being or action.

Incapacity of action is more easily illustrated. For example, a plant is in its being incapable of flying like a bird or breathing through water like a fish. It would be absurd to press the point that a plant is at a disadvantage compared to the fish because of this incapacity in its very nature although the point is true. The disadvantage, of course, exists only when comparing the plant with something else that, in its being, may do something.

Incapacity of becoming is related to incapacity of action since both stem from the very nature of a particular being. A plant cannot become, for example, an internal combustion engine. Such a transformation transcends the nature of the plant, and in a certain sense would be a reversion of nature from something vital and organic to something non-living and mechanic. Because of this limitation of the nature of the plant, we shouldn't therefore expect a plant to do anything other than what a plant does, which can be any number of things. Likewise, we shouldn't look to an internal combustion engine to photosynthesize.

Fr. Jordan Aumann on Effective Apostolic Work

The apostolate is a supernaturally vital activity and not a purely mechanical activism or naturally acquired technical skill. This follows from the fact that the value of the external action flows from the inner disposition; the value of good works depends on the charity which prompts those works. Therefore, the Christian apostolate—which is love of neighbour [sic] in action—requires grace and charity in the apostle. It is in this sense that the motu proprio Primo Feliciter (1948) refers to the apostolate of secular institutes: "The exercise of this apostolate in constancy and holiness must derive from such sincerity of mind [N.B.: another translation is "purity of intention"], interior union with God, generous self forgetfulness and courageous self-denial, such love of souls, as to nourish, unceasingly renew and outwardly express the spiritual reality within" [n. 6]. [...]

As supernatural transitive action, the apostolate has as its cause not only the grace and charity of the apostle, but God himself. The apostle of grace, as an instrument, acts under God, His own formation, spiritual and technical, makes him more suited as an instrument; his apostolate the more fruitful. But the primary condition of fruitfulness is submissiveness to God, and this is the reason why the apostle must, in the words of Pius XII, sentire cum Ecclesia ["to think with the Church"]. This primacy of God's causality explains why the apostolic efforts may well produce effects beyond the personal endowments of the apostle. Like all instruments, he achieves a greater effect through his subordination to the principal cause [which is God].

The end or purpose of the apostolate is to bring souls to God. All its endeavours [sic], even when accomplished through temporal, material or profane activities, are pointed towards the supernatural end of salvation and sanctification. Otherwise, there might be good works, service for neighbour, but there is no apostolate. The supernatural end is what gives the service of neighbour its specific character as apostolic action. No field of human endeavour can be excluded as a field of work for apostolic co-operation with Christ. Thus whatever a person does in a conscious manner to contribute directly or indirectly to the redemption of souls, to the rebirth of men in grace, can be called a true apostolate.

Every Christian is bound to be an apostle, because Christ calls all to love of neighbour. But just as some live and manifest their love of God by a predominantly contemplative life, others by one that is predominantly active, so also all men do not engage in the apostolate to the same extent. Hence the distinction is drawn between the direct and the indirect apostolate. The direct includes all those acts whereby a person brings souls to God through an immediate, personal contact—e.g. administering the sacraments [as a priest], preaching or teaching, etc. The indirect apostolate is a supernatural activity directed towards neighbour, but lacking this immediate contact, or being natural activity with simply an apostolic end—e.g. the prayers and sacrifices of contemplatives for others, teaching profane subjects, corporal works of mercy. That all are bound by the precept of charity to at least some sort of indirect apostolate is beyond question; love of neighbour obviously includes this. While some have affirmed an equal obligation with reference to direct apostolate, this seems an exaggeration. [...]

As a form of active life, the apostolate presupposes a threefold preparation or perfection: intellectual, moral and professional or techincal. [...] These predispositions will likewise be supernatural, excepting professional skill, which may be purely natural.

The intellectual formation of an apostle is doctrinal and therefore involves the virtue of faith and the penetration of the truths of faith through theological study, meditation and spiritual reading. The moral formation involves the practice of the moral virtues, especially justice, and the love which inspires the apostolate as well as the ascetical practices which safeguard all the virtues. Nor can one underestimate the importance of the virtue of prudence, which shapes and directs all the moral virtues. It touches the contemplative aspect of life by grasping the universal principles of right action; it extends to the existential order by applying those principles to particular actions. The steps of prudence are to reflect, to judge, to act; but then the experience acquired can foster growth in prudence by a reverse process: act, reflect, judge. Of the remaining moral virtues, fortitude is required to control the emergency or irascible passions; temperance for the control of the concupiscible or pleasure passions. If this control of the sensitive appetite be lacking, the apostle degenerates to a life of the passions, which is not human but animal.

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Source: Fr. Jordan Aumann, "Appendix 7: The Apostolate," in Summa Theologiæ: Volume 46: Action and Contemplation, trans. by Jordan Aumann (Cambridge: Blackfriars, 1966), 120-123.

Fr. Jordan Aumann on Sanctification Through Action

A [...] source of confusion possible is the identification of 'life' with 'action'. The second in ordinary speech almost invariably means transitive action. The first, in turn, suggests vital operations, understood generally as external actions, even if the scholastic definition of life does insist that it is immanent activity. From such usage arise such expressions as 'formation through action' or the 'spirituality of action'. Should 'action' here be understood as exterior activity sufficient to itself as a form of 'life', without an interior source, then we have the 'heresy of action', referred to by Pope Pius XII (Letter to the Superior General of the Jesuits, June 16, 1944; cf. Documentation Catholique XIII, p. 7). Taken in this way, these expressions would even be inaccurate philosophically; external action receives a properly human value from interiority, from the immanent operations of life. On a truly human level the active life can never mean merely the execution of external activity, but necessarily involves the acts of mind and will, immanent activities. [...]

The phrase 'sanctification through action' is apt if certain qualifications are kept in mind. The first, that it be understood in the context of an accurate concept of the virtue of charity. In recent times there has been a tendency to exaggerate the love of neighbour [sic] to the point of an erroneous theology. This is a logical sequel to the identification of life with action, action with transitive action and charity with transitive action. Some have gone so far as to prefer to call charity by the name 'service'. This is to ignore the truth: charity's specifying objective is God himself, it is a theological virtue uniting us to God's lovable goodness in our love of him, self and neighbour.

As a result the 'disinterestedness' of charity is confused. Not all disinterested love of others is charity. Nor is the disinterestedness of charity itself such that it excludes love for God from love of neighbour. The contrary is, of course, true. It is love of God that makes love of neighbour charity at all. Any other concept of love of neighbour would reduce the apostolate to a level of mere philanthropy or social work, and have serious consequences upon the theology of the spiritual life.

The command of charity is that a man must love God with all his heart and soul and strength and his neighbour as himself (Luke 10, 27). Charity's objectives are, then, God, self, neighbour. This is why in repeated papal teaching there has been insistence upon apostolic works being performed with personal sanctification as preparation and source. It is not external activities themselves that sanctify a person, but the intensity of love for God with which they are done. The measure of holiness always remains the intensity of charity. And charity itself is intensified in the sense of being more deeply rooted in the person's will; this comes about through its own immanent activity. An intensification of charity's own immanent activity is not opposed to the work of the active life. Rather it is the indispensable prerequisite. In fact there can only be a true intensification of the love of neighbour, thus of a true apostolate, where there is an intensification of the love of God. The love of God is the motive for the love of neighbour.

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Source: Fr. Jordan Aumann, "Appendix 6: Action and the Interior Life," in Summa Theologiæ: Volume 46: Action and Contemplation, trans. by Jordan Aumann (Cambridge: Blackfriars, 1966), 117-119.