The Christian state of life

"The sole purpose of this book is to provide a comprehensive meditation on the foundations and background of St. Ignatius' contemplation on the 'call of Christ', on the answer we must give if we want 'to give great proof of our love' and on the choice explicitly demanded of us: either to follow Christ our Lord to the 'first state of life, which is that of observing the commandments', of which he has given us an example by his obedience to his parents; or to follow him to 'the second state, which is that of evangelical perfection', of which he has given us an example by leaving his family 'to devote himself exclusively to the service of his eternal Father'. And this so that we can 'arrive at perfection' -- which is, of course, the perfection of Christian love -- 'in whatever state or way of life God our Lord may grant us to choose...The goal of our meditation is to understand why this act of choosing a 'state or way of life' 'within our Holy Mother, the hierarchical Church' is possible and necessary in the first place, and why there should be any either-or since both ways are capable of leading us to the same 'perfection of love', just as the same act, viewed from different perspectives, can be either absolute or relative." [Preface].