Chapter XVI: Of the Unitive Life

CHARITY is the perfection of Christianity, the end to which all God's Commandments, all the Gospel counsels, all spiritual exercises and all favours in contemplation tend: "For the end of the Commandments is charity from a pure heart and a good conscience and an unfeigned faith."¹ Now the last work of perfect charity, is to unite us so closely to God, that we become but one spirit with Him: "He who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit."² For though the three theological virtues unite us to God, nevertheless, to charity, the most excellent of the three, belongs the honour of perfecting the union prepared by faith and hope, according to that beautiful sentence of St. Augustine: "The house of God is founded by faith, built up by hope and perfected by charity."³

If, however, it is true to say that all who have charity enjoy in a certain way union with God, and that hence their actions are meritorious; still we must acknowledge that charity has divers degrees and that it is not perfect in all the just. The first effect of charity is to withdraw man from sin; the second degree consists in a certain strengthening against sin, in consequence of sustained efforts in seeking after good and in the practice of virtue; finally, perfect charity is that which reigns in the soul when all trace of sin is effaced, both as to the guilt and the penalty, when consequently there is no longer any clinging even to venial sin, and when virtue if occasion so require, is resolutely practised to even an heroic degree. This perfect charity is that which establishes the soul in the Unitive Life: then there remains no obstacle between God and the soul which loves: "He that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him."⁴ Or as the sacred Canticle renders it: "My Beloved to me, and I to Him."⁵

Our ancient Fathers were well acquainted with this state; with tears they begged of God to bestow that grace upon them, and made every effort not to put any obstacle in the way. Cassian's testimony on this subject is very telling. "As long as we are doing penance," he says, "and are tormented with the recollection of our sins, the fire which burns our conscience must be extinguished by the torrent of our tears. But when, having persevered a long time in humility and contrition of heart, the thought of sin has been effaced; when the thorn which was wounding the soul has been removed by the grace and mercy of God, then we must hope that pardon has been granted to us, and that we are entirely purified from our sins. We cannot, however, obtain of God this freedom otherwise than by destroying all our old passions and becoming truly clean of heart, for this grace is not granted to the cowardly and negligent who make no efforts over themselves."⁶

St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians, in which he paints so complete a picture of the soul's onward course to God, prays that all those whom he has brought forth in Christ may be rooted and founded in charity.⁷ By using the two words—rooted and founded—the Apostle clearly shows that he thirsts to see in these souls not merely the weak and fluctuating charity of beginners, but that of the perfect, and the sequel of his discourse proves this most evidently.

In truth, the triumph of grace is complete in this degree only, because in it union is achieved. It is scarcely necessary to point out here that, in this stage, when we speak of union of the soul with God, we are no longer considering that substantial union, whereby God is present to every creature, and without which all that is would cease to exist; but rather, a union with God and a transformation into God by love: a union so real, a transformation so true, that in the impossible hypothesis that God were not in the soul by His essence, presence and power, He would nevertheless be there in virtue of this new title. Then the soul possesses Him by knowledge and by love. This latter union can be effected only when there is a likeness of love between the Creator and the creature; and it is consummated when the two wills, that of the soul and that of God, become uniform, that is to say, when there is in the one nothing that is displeasing to the other. Now, as we said in the beginning, it is not sufficient to eliminate from our acts what is repugnant to God, but we must also eliminate from the impulses of the soul whatever is displeasing to Him; we must avoid not only voluntary imperfect acts, but get rid of even bad tendencies, so as to have command over the first movements. And when everything in the soul has become conformed to the will of God, no further obstacle remains to its perfect transformation.

Isaias in these beautiful and triumphant words well expressed the intimacy of divine union: "Thou shalt no more be called Forsaken; and thy land shall no more be called Desolate; but thou shalt be called My pleasure in her, and thy land inhabited. Because the Lord hath been well pleased with thee; and thy land shall be inhabited.”⁸ The Lord who dwells in the soul makes all things germinate therein, both flowers and fruits; and the creature then feels in herself what a living earth would feel on some glad spring day when all vegetation is thrilling with life, and the flowers in bloom are yielding their sweet fragrance.

Moreover the soul sees accomplished in herself that which our Lord commanded us unceasingly to pray for, namely, that His will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is a petition astounding indeed if we seriously reflect upon it; a petition which reveals to us how fully the treasures of God are within our reach, even in this valley of tears, when we on our part consent to carry to their farthest limits the practical consequences of our regeneration. Then indeed new relations are formed between God and the soul, relations which He Himself thus describes: “Whosoever shall do the will of My Father that is in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.”⁹

Our Lord enumerates here, and no doubt designedly, only the bonds formed by blood, not by alliance, as though He would prove that the spirit of adoption does a real work in us and not something that is fictitious. This union is not only real, but even more true than that of the flesh. It is for this very reason, so full of divine delicacy that in the Canticle of Canticles the bride is always named “Sister”;¹⁰ God having wished to show thereby that, even before the union, the soul is raised by the Holy Spirit to a kind of equality, and that her Baptism has made her "a partaker of the divine nature."¹¹ There are of course divers degrees in this relationship, for the soul is more or less closely united to God according to the measure of her conformity to the divine will: the sister and the brother are certainly less close than the mother. This truth was recognised by the ancient Fathers, and we find St. Gregory the Great saying: "He who by believing is the brother or sister of Christ, becomes by preaching, His mother if, by his word, the love of God is generated in the hearts of others."¹²

Union with God, the fruit and term of charity, is then not only a most excellent good, but also an end to which all Christians should strive to tend. But does this imply that all can reach it by the same means? This is a point that is of the greatest importance for us to examine.

In the Church there are two ways whereby the Christian may attain perfection, which consists in union, transformation and likeness to God by perfect charity. These two ways differ in their means, but the union resulting from them is identical; perfection gained by either of these two ways produces in us the same reality of devotion, the same effects. On the one side and on the other these are a great interior calm, a kind of stability in good, an angelic purity of mind and heart, a generous contempt of earthly things, a universal stilling of the passions, the practice of eminent virtue, an uninterrupted desire of pleasing God and of imitating our Lord Jesus Christ, an entire submission to the divine Will, and the exercise of works of mercy to our neighbour. Finally, by the one way and the other, when charity is the same, man is established in an equal degree of merit and of holiness.

After saying these few words about the sameness of the end to which these two ways of the Unitive Life lead, we must of necessity determine what are the characteristics proper to each, in what they are different from each other, and what is their respective value.

The first of these ways is the way of action, the common and ordinary way. With only the ordinary helps of grace it can lead all men to perfection. Our Lord is exhorting to this kind of perfection when He says: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect."¹³ And St. Peter in his Epistles says: "But according to Him that hath called you, who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy, because it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy."¹⁴ In many other passages of the sacred Scripture we find mention of this call to the perfection of Christianity and to holiness as set forth in the Gospel, and this it is that opens to us the Unitive Life.

The saints also have proved that the active or ordinary way suffices to bring the soul to perfect charity. We will quote St. Teresa who on this subject has some important remarks: "Every Christian may, with the help of grace, reach divine union, provided he strive with all his power to renounce his own will and to cleave to the will of God. Oh, how many say and believe that they are in these dispositions! and for my part, all that I can say is, if they really are, they have obtained from God all they could desire. They need no longer trouble themselves about the delicious union of which I spoke before, for what is best in it is that it proceeds from the one of which I am now speaking, and it is even impossible to attain the former, if the latter is not already possessed, I mean to say, this entire submission of our will to the will of God. . . . In this union of pure conformity to the will of God, it is not necessary that the powers be suspended. God is all-powerful, and He has a thousand ways of enriching souls and of leading them into these mansions without taking them by that short way of which I have spoken, I mean to say, without raising them to that intimate union with Him, whence after a few moments, they come forth quite transformed. But take notice, my daughters, that in every case the mystic worm must die, and that in this union of pure conformity to the divine Will it will have a harder death. . . .

"This is the union which I have desired all my life long, and which I have always asked of our Lord. It is the one easiest to distinguish, and it is the most secure. But alas! how few attain to it, and how souls deceive themselves in thinking that they have done everything when they avoid offending God, and live in the religious state! . . . God asks only two things: one, that we love Him, and the other, that we love our neighbour. We must then work at this; by faithfully accomplishing these two things, we shall do the will of God and shall be united to Him. . . . The most certain sign whereby we can know whether we are faithfully practising them, is in my opinion, to have a sincere and true love of our neighbour. For we cannot know for certain how far our love of God goes, although there may be great indications by which we might judge of it: but we see much more clearly in what regards the love of our neighbour. . . . It behoves us then very much to consider well what is the disposition of our soul, and what is our exterior conduct in regard of our neighbour. If all is perfect in one and in the other, then we may be in all security; for, considering the depravity of our nature, we could never perfectly love our neighbour if there were not in us a great love of God."¹⁵

Nothing could be added to teaching so excellent, so just and so practical. However, we will observe in passing that union with God by the infused way derives all its excellence from that same end which is reached by the ordinary way, "since," says St. Teresa, "what is best in this union is that it proceeds from the one of which I am now speaking." 'And indeed union with God cannot be real unless there is conformity to the Divine Will. St. Bernard also admirably discriminates between these two ways: "Active charity is commanded unto merit: affective charity is given in reward."¹⁶ The excellence of the ordinary way of reaching union with God consists in its being sure, free from illusions and always within our reach; and also in the fact that by it we may, without ambition, desire to attain perfect charity; without danger strive to acquire it; and without rashness or presumption unceasingly ask it of God.

Nevertheless, we have here but one side of the truth. It is of great importance that we should see both sides in order to form a correct judgment of the unitive life. There can be no doubt that in many passages of the Scriptures we are encouraged and even commanded to seek after perfect charity, and that nowhere is heaven promised in any exclusive way to the contemplative life as St. Gregory has already said: "Without the contemplative life they who neglect not to do the works that lie in their power can enter into the heavenly country; but without the active they cannot enter, if they neglect to do the good which they can do."¹⁷ However, though the second way is not in its essential point better than the other, which is the perfection of charity, yet our Lord Jesus Christ having pronounced sentence in its favour, it must have its prerogative. Plainly, in that Gospel text which confers upon it a real claim to nobility, our divine Lord attributes its excellence not only to the end which is the unitive life, but also to the means, since He speaks clearly of Mary's choice. This choice can refer only to the exercises of the contemplative life, which alone are within our human reach; then our Lord seems to encourage this choice when He says: "It shall not be taken from her." Might we not enlarge upon these words by saying that those who shall have voluntarily and generously embraced the exercises of the contemplative life, and who shall at the same time have neglected nothing which secures conformity to God's will in us, will obtain from His gratuitous goodness all the good things which they might have lawfully desired in choosing Mary's part? It is, therefore, conformable to the Gospel teaching to assert that in two souls in which the perfection of charity is equal, the one that attains union by the mystic way has some advantages.

The first of these is that the soul, in a more elevated way, knows and possesses God. The understanding and the will produce their more noble acts in a manner that is not the ordinary one, by a special action of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, so that the soul seems freed not only from earthly things but even from earthly images. The union is more intimate, more sweet, more full of joy, although it is not more meritorious. The second advantage is that God gives therein to the human soul a foretaste, as it were, of beatitude, and a kind of experience of the good things to come.

But if, in order to clear our ideas, it is necessary thus to discriminate between the two ways leading to union with God, we own that it is very rare and, in practice, even impossible to admit, that souls whose fidelity to God has reached even to perfect conformity with the divine Will should be deprived of all the graces of the other (mystic) way. We believe that such a supposition cannot possibly be realized. As a fact, the two ways mingle; and if the way of conformity to the Divine Will seems to be the special way of a soul rather than the mystic way, it is as equally inadmissible to suppose that souls can arrive at divine union by action only, as it is to think that they can reach it solely by contemplation, without joining to contemplation the practice of virtue. As soon as charity has reached certain proportions in the soul, it obtains for her special and infused graces.

Error frequently arises from the fact that, in the contemplative life, every infused grace is taken for a grace of union, an assumption which is a grave illusion, too often causing souls to be accredited with perfection who have not yet reached it; to avoid this illusion great care must be taken to have proof that the effects of perfect charity are in the soul, before concluding in favour of her entrance into the unitive life. In the Gospel our Lord says clearly: "Not every one that saith to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to Me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and cast out devils in Thy name, and done many miracles in Thy name? And then will I profess unto them: I never knew you: depart from Me, you that work iniquity."¹⁸

So then these "many" had received most real favours, graces gratuitously given; but they had not yet attained union with God, since perfect conformity to the Will of the heavenly Father, which is always indicated by the generous practice of virtue, was wanting. Among the fruits of contemplation the grace of union is something so elevated, and it so profoundly changes the human soul that this favour is to be recognised principally by its effects. St. Denis, in two passages which we will give in succession, seems to have described a grace of this kind. "For," he says, "as ignorance and error create division, in like manner spiritual light, when it appears, brings back and unites into one compact whole the things that it reaches; it perfects them, turns them towards the Being who truly is, corrects their vain opinions, recalls their manifold views, or rather their capricious imaginations, into a knowledge which is one, true, pure and simple, and fills them with a light which is unity, and which produces unity."¹⁹ Here there is question of God's action upon the understanding, but afterwards he speaks of the same divine action upon the will.

"Divine love ravishes out of themselves those who are possessed by it, to such a degree that they belong no more to themselves, but rather to the object loved. This is seen in superiors who devote themselves to the government of inferiors; in equals who live in mutual regard one for another; in inferiors who abandon themselves to the direction of those above them. Hence the great Paul, inebriated with holy love, cried out in an ecstatic transport: 'I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.'"²⁰

Evidently there is here question of a divine operation which does not merely touch the human soul, like many very real and very supernatural favours of contemplation, but rather of a grace which deeply penetrates it, renews it, rectifies it, corrects it, and may go so far as entirely to transform it.

Error on this point is often met with in those who have the guidance of others, and it is a great danger. For if a grace of union be supposed to exist where it really does not, too much will be required from the soul that is thought to have received it, and she will fall into discouragement, for she can take steps proportionate only to her stature. Or perhaps the very nature of the graces which she has received will be called into doubt, under pretext that the soul has not at once obtained holiness and perfection. We must always bear in mind that there is a gradation in the favours bestowed in contemplation, and that each produces effects corresponding to its degree and elevation. Now graces of union are of the highest kind, and ordinarily suppose a long succession of graces and a faithful cooperation with these graces.

When the soul is admitted into the Unitive Life by the contemplative way, it is generally easier to verify that fact than if she reached it by the ordinary way of the insensible growth of charity. First, because the divine working changes the soul at once, and so she is more easily made aware of the renovation—of the renewing of her youth—which is the first effect of the divine contact. Just as a person coming suddenly out of darkness into full daylight perceives the contrast better than another, who reaches midday by the imperceptible advance of the sun. Secondly, because the union which is brought about by the contemplative way has in it something that comes nigh to eternal things, not only as to its essence, which is perfect charity, but as to its mode—a special light engendering a sweetness and a beatitude which in no way increase the merit but which render the union more perceptible and more easy to recognise.

Still the Unitive Life is but a stage in our pilgrimage, in via, consequently it is not a final end for the human soul, and can always be more and more developed. Even perfect charity has innumerable degrees, and the apostle ardently desires that it should unceasingly grow in us even unto the day of eternity: “But doing the truth in charity we may in all things grow up in Him who is the head, even Christ.”²¹ In this world the perfection of charity is not a fixed and absolutely permanent state; it is a continuous desire of attaining, and not a tranquil rest in the good already attained, as we learn from many passages of St. Paul's Epistles. "Brethren," he says, "I do not count myself to have apprehended. But one thing I do; forgetting the things that are behind, and stretching forth myself to those things that are before, I press towards the mark, to the prize of the supernatural vocation of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded."²² To be able thus ever to advance constitutes at once both the privilege and the inferiority of the present life.

Experience has shown that union with God has three degrees, which are sufficiently distinct in their effects to be easily recognised; simple union, ecstatic or affective union, and transforming or perfect union. These three kinds of union belong to the last three "Mansions" of the "Interior Castle"; they have been so well described by St. Teresa that nothing further remains to be said about them. To close our subject here we will merely add a word upon simple union and its characteristics. This order of graces is distinguished from lower ones by several marked differences.

The soul then feels and tastes God within her own self, whereas before she felt Him near her. The ordinary exercise of her faculties is suspended for a time more or less long, but without any suspension of the external senses. The true and deep sense which she has of God's presence is so vivid that it is not only under the shadows of faith that she knows that God is present within her, but by a most sweet experience. Often this sentiment is accompanied by an impression of renovation, such as would be the actual feeling of the effect of a plenary indulgence. A distance henceforth lies between this new life and the old life; God has bestowed upon the soul a general and entire pardon, and has even given her habits conformable to her state.

Nature has received a deathblow, from which it will not recover; for although these favours are delicate, they cannot be lost without grave infidelities, and they are by their very nature so deep and powerful that it is not easy to destroy their effect.

Nevertheless, though this simple union with God is very intimate, it is not stable but transitory, as to the sentiment which it produces. St. Teresa is of opinion that it never lasts much longer than half an hour, and we must on the subject believe her experience. This short space suffices to give the soul a pliancy unknown to her before, which pliancy the sacred Canticle thus expresses: "My soul melted, when my Beloved spoke."²³ Sometimes the feeling of devotion awakened in the soul is of such a nature that tears flow from the eyes without her being conscious of it. St. Catharine of Sienna speaks of this kind of tears in her Dialogue: "If the soul, while advancing in the knowledge of self, perfectly despises and hates herself; if she thus gains a true knowledge and an ardent love of my goodness, she begins to unite and conform her will to mine, and to feel interiorly the joy of love and compassion for her neighbour. Immediately the eye, wishing to satisfy the heart, pours out tears excited by charity towards me and love of her neighbour."²⁴

Finally, little by little the virtues shine forth in all her acts. The soul is full of courage, is patient and persevering, zealous for God's interests, having a great desire at her own cost to assist her neighbour.

These effects are not found in all in the same degree, but they must always exist in some measure before the union can be verified. It happens sometimes that the soul, having received this grace, perceives all at once within herself a return, as it were, of her old struggles; but this movement is of short duration, and does not occasion much danger. The evil nature has received the deathblow; it will infallibly succumb, and these violent crises are but the convulsions of an agony which leads to the new life.

The soul thus prevented by grace should be particularly vigilant in maintaining in the least detail great conformity to the will of God. She has for this a special strength; she ought never, even in desire, wittingly to incline to any imperfection whatsoever; for as God can admit of none, there would arise from this inclination a deep divergency from Him, a kind of rupture between the soul and Him. We say designedly that the soul should not wittingly consent to any imperfection, for she will often by surprise fall into imperfections and venial sins without being able entirely to escape them, such is the condition of our poor nature. Therefore, though the soul which has resolutely entered the Unitive Life, has passed through the greatest dangers of the spiritual life, she ought not to relax her vigilance, but ever to bear in mind those words of the wise man: "He that contemneth small things shall fall by little and little."²⁵ What would be unnoticed in others, what would in former times have been unnoticed in herself, would now imperil the treasure which she possesses and which she might lose by any voluntary infidelity: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency may be of the power of God, and not of us."²⁶ The more closely certain gifts resemble angelic gifts the greater risk there is of all at once losing them. In this respect the example of Moses²⁷ is very startling; for having a second time struck the rock, instead of following step by step the order of God, he was not allowed to enter the Promised Land. Nevertheless, this disobedience was not of such a nature as to deprive him of God's friendship. In like manner the soul that fails in watchful delicacy may, without losing entirely her intimacy with God, at least risk her entrance into the Promised Land, that is to say, her admission to that happy state of transforming union, in which, according to the words of St. Paul, she is replenished with the very fulness of God.

This vigilance, however, does not make the soul restless, nor pusillanimous, nor timid, which fact is an evident sign that she is guided by the Holy Spirit. Her way is love, she acts by love only, according to that sentence of the beloved disciple: "He that feareth is not perfected in charity."²⁸

A soul that has attained the Unitive Life possesses a very special power of intercession, the whole secret of which power lies in her perfect conformity to the will of God: "Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if a man be a server of God and doth His will, him He heareth."²⁹ The very remarkable example related by St. Gregory the Great with regard to St. Scholastica, shows this very clearly: "By a most just judgment," says the holy Doctor, "she could do more who loved more."³⁰

At that moment the will of the graceful dove of Cassino was more conformed to the will of God than was that of the illustrious Patriarch Benedict; and thus she gained the victory over him. Even in the highest and most strongly marked Unitive Life, the union is not always equally intense and actual; and without ceasing to be solidly established in it, the soul may then receive from God graces of a lower order. Her state as to its essence and merit continues to be that of union; she receives, nevertheless, favours which seem to belong to an inferior order. The glorious dove Scholastica hastened her flight, having already caught a glimpse of the ark opening to receive her, and of the hand of the divine Noah stretched forth to bring her in without delay. St. Benedict, as to his state, was at that time equally great, but his actual union with God was less intense than that of his sister.

Footnotes

1. Finis autem præcepti est caritas de corde puro, et conscientia bona, et fide non ficta (1 Tim., 1, 5). ↩

2. Quid adhæret Domino unus spiritus est (1 Cor., vi, 17). ↩

3. Domus Dei credendo fundatur, sperando erigitur, amando perficitur (St. Aug. Serm. xxii, in Verb. Dom.). ↩

4. Qui manet in caritate, in Deo manet, et Deus in eo (1 Joann., iv, 16). ↩

5. Dilectus meus mihi, et ego illi (Can., ii, 16). ↩

6. Cassian, Coll, xx, cap. vii. ↩

7. In caritate radicati et fundati (Eph. iii, 12). ↩

8. Non vocaberis ultra derelicta, et terra tua non vocabitur amplius desolata; sed vocaberis voluntas mea in ea, et terra tua inhabitata; quia complacuit Domino in te, et terra tua inhabitabitur (Isa., lxii, 4). ↩

9. Quicumque fecerit voluntatem Patris mei, qui in coelis est, ipse meus frater, et soror, et mater est (Matth., xii, 50; Marc., iii, 35). ↩

10. Cant, v, 1. ↩

11. 2 Peter i, 4. ↩

12. Qui Christi frater et soror est credendo, mater efficitur prædicando, si per ejus vocem amor Domini in proximi mente generatur (S. Gre. Homil. III in Evangl.) ↩

13. Estote ergo perfecti, sicut et Pater vester coelestis perfectus est (Matt., v, 48). ↩

14. Sed secundum eum, qui vocavit vos, sanctum, et ipsi in omni conversatione sancti sitis, quoniam scriptum est: Sancti eritis, quoniam ego sanctus sum (1 Peter i, 15, 16). ↩

15. The Interior Castle, 5th Mansion, iii. ↩

16. Caritas in opere mandatur ad meritum: caritas in affectu datur in præmium (S. Bern. Serm. L in Cant.) ↩

17. Sine contemplativa vita possunt intrare ad coelestem patriam, qui bona qua; possunt operari non neqliqunt: sine activa autem intrare non possunt, si negligunt bona operari quæ possunt (S. Greg. Homil. iii in Ezech.) ↩

18. Non omnis qui dicit mihi: Domine, Domine, intrabit in regnum cœlorum; sed qui facit voluntatem Patris mei qui in cœlis est, ipse intrabit in regnum cœlorum. Multi dicent mihi in illa die: Domine, Domine, nonne in nomine tuo prophetavimus, et in nomine tuo dæmonia ejecimus, et in nomine tuo virtutes multas fecimus? Et tunc confitebor illis: quia numquam novi vos, discedite a me, qui operamini iniquitatem (Matth., vii, 21-23). ↩

19. Of the Divine Names, iv, n. 6. ↩

20. Of the Divine Names, iv, n. 13. ↩

21. Veritatem autem facientes in caritate, crescamus in illo per omnia, qui est caput, Christus (Eph. iv, 15). ↩

22. Fratres, ego me non arbitror comprehendisse. Unum autem, quæ quidem retro sunt obliviscens, ad ea vero quæ sunt priora extendens meipsum, ad destinatum persequor, ad bravium supernæ vocationis Dei in Christo Jesu. Quicumque ergo perfecti sumus, hoc sentiamus (Phil, iii, 13-15). ↩

23. Cant. v, 6. ↩

24. Dialogue ix, 6. ↩

25. Qui spernit modica paulatim decidet (Eccli xix, 1). ↩

26. Habemus autem thesaurum istum in vasis fictilibus, ut sublimitas sit virtutis Dei et non ex nobis (2 Cor., iv, 7). ↩

27. Num., xx, 12. ↩

28. Qui timet non est perfectus in caritate (1 Joann., iv, 18). ↩

29. Scimus autem quia peccatores Deus non audit, sed si quis Dei cultor est et voluntatem ejus facit, hunc exaudit (Joann., ix, 31). ↩

30. Justo valde judicio, illa plus potuit, quæ amplius amavit (2 Dialog., xxx). ↩