You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.
–C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (Harcourt Brace, 1956), p.228, quoted by yours truly in yesterday’s Adult Sunday school
Love it. The tremendous effort that a C.S. Lewis used to keep the Lord out, was reluctantly relenquished and replaced by a liberation. I have to feel that all the while during his struggles, C.S. Lewis like myself and countless others, was being compelled to enter into something that takes a great effort to keep out.
A splendid reminder that our ‘enemies’ (those who malign and attack Christian [or orthodox Christian] belief) are much closer to becoming our brothers and sisters in the faith than we generally dare imagine. Thanks for posting this.
Just about everything Lewis wrote repays re-reading and re-re-reading. I think I have read this quote seveal times but found new things today – thank you, Kendall.
I wish our Christian communicators today would come close to Lewis in his imagination, sheer cultural depth, and facility with words.
(Of course, he was an Ulsterman, so that explains a lot …)
Wow! Thanks, Kendall.