Of Three Degrees of Perfection Whereby We May Ascend to Great Purity of Intention and Great Love of God

THESE three degrees are gathered from the doctrine of the saints and especially of the glorious St. Bernard. The first is when one intends solely and seeks the glory of God in such sort that, in the things that he does, all his contentment is in God, in fulfilling and doing the will of God, forgetful of all things in the world. St. Bernard says: “Would you know, so far as can be known here on earth, a good sign, whether you love God much and are growing in that love? See whether there is anything outside of God that can afford you consolation and satisfaction.” His words are: “Certainly, so long as I can reap consolation or delight from any extrinsic object whatsoever, I dare not say that our Beloved yet occupies the innermost fold of my affections and most ardent love.” And this is what St. Augustine also says (Confess. x. 29): “He loves Thee less, who along with Thee loves anything that he loves not for Thy sake’—Minus te amat, qui tecum aliquid amat, quod non propter te amat. A singular and excellent love was that of the holy queen, Esther, who in the midst of her pomp and royal splendor could say: Lord, thou knowest that thy handmaid, from the time that she was brought here even to this very day, hath never rejoiced in anything except in thee, Lord God of Abraham (Esther xiv. 18). That is a perfect and singular love.

St. Gregory on the text, Who build themselves solitudes (Job iii. 14), says: “This is to build oneself a solitude, when one is so unseated and detached from all creatures and has lost love and affection for all things of earth in such sort that, though his position sets him in the midst of as many recreations and amusements as the world contains, for all that, he finds himself alone by himself, because those things yield him no contentment nor consolation. Such a man has built a solitude for himself, since all his satisfaction is fixed in God and so he finds no company nor comfort in aught else.”” Even here we find experience of this, when we have a friend in whom all our affection is centered, away from whom, even in a great company of other people, we feel ourselves in a solitude and altogether lonely because it was in him that all one’s delight lay. In like manner, he who has placed all his love and contentment in God and has cast off from him all affection for creatures, though he be much in company and in the midst of all the recreations and amusements in the world, finds himself alone because he has no taste for all that, but only for Him Whom he loves. They who have arrived at this, says St. Gregory, enjoy great quiet and tranquillity of soul; there is nothing to disturb them or give them pain; they are neither troubled with adversity nor vain and petulant in prosperity, since they have no love nor affection for anything in the world, nor fret themselves, nor change as things about them change, nor depend on such things, because they reckon nothing of them. Do you know, says St. Gregory, who has reached this point, or built himself such a solitude? He who said: One thing I have asked of the Lord; this will I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life (Psalm xxvi. 4). And now what is my expectation? Is it not the Lord? (Psalm Xxxviii. 8). This point, also, the holy Abbot Silvanus had reached, of whom we read that, when he came forth from his prayer, the things of earth seemed to him so mean and shrunken that he lifted up his hands and covered his eyes, not to see them, saying to himself: “Shut yourselves, my eyes, shut yourselves, and see not any things of the world, for there is nothing in it worth looking at.” The same we read of our blessed Father Ignatius, that when he raised his heart to God and looked at the sky, he would say: “Ah, how mean is earth when I look at heaven!”

The second degree may be that which the glorious Bernard assigns in his Treatise on the Love of God, when a man not only forgets all outward things, but himself also, not loving himself for himself, but in God and for God and in view of God. We must be so forgetful of ourselves and of all our advancement and interest, and love God so purely and perfectly, that in the good things which we receive at His hands, as well of grace as of glory, all our contentment and rejoicing should be not for our own gooa and advancement, but because therein is fulfilled the will and good pleasure of God. Thus do the blessed in heaven, where they rejoice more in the fulfilment of the will of God than in the greatness of their own glory. They love God with a love so intense and pure, and are so transformed and united with His will, that the glory which they have and the happy lot which has befallen them, they do not cherish so much for the benefit and profit thence ensuing to them, nor for the satisfaction which they receive, as because God is pleased with it, and such is His will. So we should love God, says St. Bernard, as he did who said: Confess to the Lord, because he is good (Psalm exvii. 1). He does not say, because he is good to me, but because he is good. He does not love as that other loved of whom it is said: He will confess to thee, when thou shalt have done him good (Psalm xlviii. 19); but he loves and praises God because He is good in Himself.

The third and last degree of perfection and love of God, says St. Bernard, is this: “When one is so forgetful of self that in what he does he does not look to see, is God pleased with me? but how can I give pleasure and satisfaction to God, and God be pleased, satisfied, and take delight in the work that Iam doing? Thus all that he takes account of is the approval, contentment, and good pleasure of God, not remembering himself, nor setting any more store by himself than if he did not exist and were not in the world at all. This is the purest and most perfect love of God. This love is truly a mountain, a mountain of God, high, fertile, plentiful: mons coagulatus, mons pinguis (Psalm lxvii. 16) ; a thing of great and exquisite perfection, for that is the meaning of “mountain of God,” a thing very grand and excellent.

But who shall be able to ascend this mountain so high? (Psalm xxiii. 3). Who will give me wings as of a dove to fly and rest upon it? (Psalm liv. 7). “Woe is me,” says that glorious saint, “that in this exile I cannot wholly forget myself.” Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from this captivity! (Rom. vii. 24). Lord, I suffer violence, answer for me (Isaias xxxviii. 14). When shall I die, O Lord, to myself, and live for Thee alone! Woe is me that my exile is prolonged! (Psalm cxix. 5). When shall I come and appear before the face of God! (Psalm xli. 3). When shall I be, O Lord, united and transformed into Thee by love, wholly denuded and forgetful of myself and made one spirit with Thee, so that now I love nothing in myself, nor for myself, nor to myself, but all in Thee and for Thee? So St. Bernard tells us: ‘To lose yourself in a manner as though you were not and not to be conscious of yourself at all and to be emptied out of self, as it were reduced to nothingness, that is having your conversation in heaven, and not the affections of earth.” This perfection is of heaven rather than of earth, as the psalmist says: J will enter into the powers of the Lord: Lord, I will be mindful of thy righteousness alone (Psalm Ixx. 16). When the good and faithful servant shall enter into the joy of his Lord and shall be inebriated with the abundance of His love, then we shall be so absorbed and transformed into God as not to remember ourselves. When he shall appear, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (1 John iii. 2). Then shall the creature be in complete accord with its Creator, as the Scripture says: The Lord hath created all things for himself (Prov. xvi. 4). Then we shall love God purely, and not love ourselves for ourselves, nor any other creature except in God. “Our delight will be not so much our desires crowned to the full or the happiness that is fallen to our lot, as the seeing God’s will fulfilled in us and about us” [St. Bernard]. All our joy will be not in our own joy, but in the joy and satisfaction of God. This it is to enter into the joy of the Lord (Matt. xxv. 21).

“O holy and chaste love!” cries St. Bernard: “O sweet and delicious affection! O pure and high-refined intention of the will! All the higher-refined and purer, I say, inasmuch as there is no longer left in it any admixture of anything of our own; all the more delicious and sweeter inasmuch as all that is felt is of God. To be thus affected is to be deified and transformed into God.” We shall be like him, as St. John says. St. Bernard alleges three comparisons to explain how this deification and transformation into God shall be. As a drop of water thrown into a great quantity of wine loses all its properties and qualities and takes the color and taste of the wine; and as iron, kindled and made red-hot in the forge, appears no longer iron, but fire; and as the air, receiving the brightness of the sun, is transformed in a manner into brightness, so that it seems the brightness is all one; so, he says, in our final state of bliss we shall lose all our own tastes, and all that we shall love there shall be God and for God. ‘Otherwise, how shall God be all in all (I Cor. xv. 25), if in man there remains still something of man?’—Alioquin quomodo erit Deus omnia in omnibus, st in homine de homine quidquam supererit? Our own shall have no part there; my glory and my satisfaction will be the satisfaction and glory of God, not my own. Thou art my glory and the lifter up of my head (Psalm iii. 4). Now though we cannot here reach so high, we should make it our endeavor to fix our gaze on this height; for the farther we advance and approach to it, the greater will be our perfection and union with God. And so St. Bernard concludes: “This, eternal Father, is the will of Thy Son in our regard; this His prayer for us to Thee, His God and Father: J will that as I and thou are one, so also they may be one in us (John xvii. 21) ; that is to say, that they love Thee for Thine own sake and themselves only in Thee. This is the end, this the consummation, this is perfection, this peace, this the joy of the Lord, this silence in heaven (Apoc. viii. 1).” This is the end and furthest perfection to which we can attain.

Ewin FOURTH TREATTIS Eid ON UNION AND FRATERNAL CHARITY