Then came a turning point. What had drawn me away from faith had not been real reasons against it, but the fact that the reasons for it no longer spoke to me. Faith as a conscious act had grown ever weaker and had finally died out. Still, I think that one’s unconscious relation to the reality of Christ is never entirely sundered. It was also important that I held no grudge against the Church or against any ecclesial personality, and that the hardship of a scrupulous conscience, which was then closely bound up with the Church’s education, had never turned into a rebellion. The religious [dimension] was becoming stronger–now from within. And that led me immediately, as it happened, to draw close to the Christian faith.
I can no longer say which particular deliberations had contributed to this; however, an awareness came over me, which shaped and aligned the whole inner event, and which has remained for me ever since the authentic key to faith. I remember like yesterday the hour when this awareness became decision. It was in my little attic room on Gonsenheimer Strasse. Karl Neundörfer and I had just spoken about the questions that exercised us both, and my last word went: “Everything will come down to the statement: ‘Whoever holds on to his soul will it, but whoever gives it away will gain it’.” My interpretation, based in this translation of Mt. 10:39, says what it all came down to for me. It had gradually become clear to me that a law existed, according to which a person—when he “holds on to his soul,” that is, when he remains in himself and accepts as valid only what immediately illumines him—loses his authenticity. If he wants to arrive at the Truth and in the Truth arrive at his true self, then he must let go of himself. This insight had surely had its precursors, though they escape me now. Upon hearing these words Karl Neundörfer retired to the adjacent room, from which a door opened onto a balcony. I sat in front of my table, and the reflection progressed: “To give my soul away—but to whom? Who is in the position to require it from me? So to require it that, in the requiring, it would not again be I who lay hold of it? Not simply ‘God.’ For whenever a person wants to deal only with God, then he says ‘God’ but means himself. There must also be an objective authority [Instanz], which can draw out my answer from self-assertion’s every refuge and hide-out. But there is only one such entity: the Catholic Church in her authority and concreteness [Präzision]. The question of holding on or letting go is decided ultimately not before God, but before the Church.” It struck me as if I carried everything—literally “everything”, my whole existence—in my hands, in a scale at perfect balance: “I can let it fall to the right or to the left. I can hold on to me soul our give it away…” And then I let the scale sink to the right. The moment was completely calm. There was neither agitation, nor radiance, nor experience of any kind. It was just a completely clear insight: “So it is”—and the imperceptibly gentle movement—“so it should be!” Then I went out to my friend and told him.
This event squares with Guardini’s account of life experiences where one comes up against impasses that do not permit steady progress. And since they exists on different qualitative levels, one cannot advance from one to the other except by a leap with daring.
The Truth Will Make You Free 