The death of heroes, the recovery of the heroic

Christian Century, Dec 22, 1993 by David Hein

> Evelyn Underhill has said, "To choose Christ means to choose an heroic course." The way of the pilgrim means having "to plod on and on" with the hard and unpromising job, with helping other souls, with forgiving and forgetting, "even when [the individual's] own inner life feels dead and dark." Underhill knew what the heroic entails: "Our souls are not made over to God by one mechanical act of conversion, but by the long, unremitting, courageous effort that conversion brings." The gospel "asks the courage of the wounded, lying apparently deserted, but still a part of that great army." In this sense, we are all at Cantigny.