Chapter XVIII: A New Series of Trials which belong to the Unitive Way

No soul can make progress in union with God without becoming daily more and more purified. We have already seen, in speaking of ecstatic union, that the higher the soul rises the less does God spare her. Divine love is in very truth a strong and generous wine, sustaining the soul in heights above herself, but that love ever enforces the law of total self-abnegation. If persons coveting extraordinary favours had for one single day to bear the burden of those who live in closest union with God, they would be speedily divested of their presumption.

In point of fact, at the beginning of the spiritual life God accommodates Himself to the stature of the soul as heretofore both Elias and Eliseus did to the dead children in order to raise them to life; but when she lives the true life, God adapts her to Himself, and then everything in her that is unfit for union must irremissibly disappear.

Simple union has given the soul a first interview, as it were, with God; ecstatic union has enabled her to celebrate very high spiritual betrothal with Him; but she cannot attain transforming union without having by a species of voluntary death immolated her whole being to God. This death is not a physical and natural death, but a moral and mystic death of which we find frequent mention in the writings of the ancient Fathers. In the seventh century St. Maximus says: "When the body dies, it is separated from all the things of earth. In like manner the soul dies when it reaches perfect contemplation and withdraws its thoughts from all the things of this world.”¹ Before him St. Gregory had said: “For what is meant by the grave, save a life of contemplation, which as it were buries those dead to this world inasmuch as it hides them in the interior world away from all earthly desires?”² St. Denis and also Clement of Alexandria speak of this death, and our Lord Himself in the holy Gospel exactly describes it when He says: “Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. . . . He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world keepeth it unto life eternal.”³

In the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers no state is more clearly pointed out to us than is this one. In particular, Job and Jeremias describe in accents of marvellous depth what the soul experiences at the moment of this death which prepares the way for a true resurrection. Now, this death is not accomplished all at once as our natural death is; it is consummated only by a succession of trials which St. Bernard longed to see completed when he cried out: “Would that I might frequently die by this death!”⁴

In the early trials already spoken of, God afflicted the senses in order to purify and elevate them: His object was by the help of grace to bring the sensitive appetite under the dominion of the reason; but here the reason itself has to be brought into subjection to God. Now, there is a far greater distance between

God and the creature than between the superior part of the soul and its inferior part; hence it results that, if in the first trials the natural faculties undergo severe purification, in these final trials the supernatural faculties are in their turn struck that they may receive a more excellent life after having endured a purification so much the more painful as it is more interior.

In vivid language St. Paul describes the terrible probing which precedes the soul's entrance into God's rest: "For the word of God is living and effectual and more piercing than any two-edged sword: and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature invisible in his sight; but all things are naked and open to His eyes, to whom our speech is."⁵ Here we have exactly portrayed the manner in which the death we are speaking of is brought about. God alone acts therein without intermediary. He reaches those secret depths, that centre of the soul where He alone can make His dwelling, and this in order to work therein a purification which is indeed marvellous. Everything in the human mind and heart is there searched with rigorous exactitude.

This death or purification could not be accomplished without suffering, and, as all those who have gone through it confess, no suffering can be compared to it, though it in no way pertains to sensible pain. The cause of this state may be thus explained: a most pure light penetrates the soul to her very depths in order to show her on the one hand her own miseries and on the other the greatness of God; every other reality seems to be in darkest night. For the more clear and evident divine things are in themselves, the more obscure and hidden are they to the soul. Therefore the divine light, bursting upon a soul which is not yet able to bear it, envelops it in appalling spiritual darkness.

That same wisdom, "the Word living and effectual,"⁶ who in glory unceasingly purifies and enlightens the blessed spirits purifies and enlightens in this state the soul also. But that which constitutes the beatitude of spirits already purified is an intolerable suffering for those who are still filled with innumerable miseries. Thus weak eyes suffer extremely from a light which rejoices healthy eyes. "The uncreated beauty," says the great Areopagite, "because it is simple, good and the principle of perfection, is also pure from all vile alloy; nevertheless it communicates its light to men according to the personal dispositions of each and by a divine mystery remakes them according to the model of its sovereign and immutable perfection." This is a very profound remark and one that exactly expresses the nature of the passive purification of the spirit.

The source, then, of the suffering does not come from God, although the light comes from Him, but it is the soul's natural and spiritual infirmity that causes it. The spirit is entirely plunged in the knowledge of her own miseries and evils; the divine light distinctly discovers them to her and persuades her that of herself she is incapable of anything else. She sees herself so impure and so miserable that she thinks that God is rising up against her and she against God: so much so that in order to exercise the virtue of hope she has to make an heroic submission of her judgment. What remains of past lights and joys is now but a torment; for concerning them the memory retains only what God allows it to retain. In some mysterious way the light speaks thus to her: "Under the apple tree I raised thee up: there thy mother was corrupted, there she was defloured that bore thee.”⁷ She then feels all the weight of her sad heritage and no longer knows whether she is worthy of love or of hatred.

Nevertheless, let notice be taken of this fact, which is a certain indication of the passive purification of the spirit: the soul has the certainty that no new fault has by her been committed; in herself she cannot find any evil act, any evil tendency that is not at once disavowed; she knows that God has many times shown her immense love and has given her the assurance of even the fullest pardon; but the new light which oppresses her infirmity so evidently reveals to her her misery, that from these remembrances she is incapable of drawing the least consolation or the least help. It seems to her that she has done nothing well and nothing good; that she is, as it were, full of imperfections and of evil. Yet at the least sign from our Lord she is ready to sacrifice everything, even the very marrow of her being. Nay, it sometimes happens that the soul, seeing herself reduced to so strange a spiritual poverty and given up to so incomprehensible a loneliness in regard of God, experiences a terror full of anguish, for she knows well enough that no created being can come to her aid.

It was by anguish of this kind that, for the space of fifteen years, God purified St. Rose of Lima. In her case, however, there was this special feature, that during all that period, she passed only half the day in profound darkness, whereas during the other half, being in the prayer of ecstasy, she was comforted by the divine light. On the other hand, St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi, during five successive years was subjected to these interior torments. With St. Teresa, these trials were neither so long nor so pronounced, or rather she does not lay so much stress upon them, and perhaps also the experienced theologians who directed her enabled her more rapidly to surmount them by marking out for her a very safe line of conduct.

In short, God tempers these trials; He intersperses them at His good pleasure with the other states, according to the end He has in view, and the position in which He has placed the soul that He is thus trying. We believe that His design is, in a very special way, to strengthen in her the theological virtues and at the same time to purify her spirit. As a matter of fact, faith is exercised with incredible energy, a faith simple, naked, cleansed from all alloy, from all visible help, and firm as a rock. Hope above all is put to the test, for, as we said before, all that the soul so evidently sees, all that her faith shows her, seems to force a conclusion very different from that which the virtue of hope would inspire. But she hopes in some sort, against all hope, because she rests solely upon the promises of our Lord Jesus Christ. She sacrifices her own judgment, she despises the claims and the protestations of even reason itself, in order to cling exclusively to the certainty of the divine promises guaranteed as they are by the omnipotence and the mercy of God.

As for charity, who shall say how pure and how disengaged from self-love this virtue becomes in an atmosphere such as this? With what purity does the soul now desire God's glory, and rejoice in His divine perfections, even when they seem to be armed against her! Love of her neighbour increases singularly and becomes capable of a devotedness like to that of Moses when he besought the Lord to strike him out of the Book of Life rather than reject His people; and to that of St. Paul who wished to be anathema for his brethren.

For this again is another characteristic feature of these trials. The suffering is too deep to embitter the soul, and she remains gentle, humble and pliant; and although she is an object of horror to herself, she is patient with herself and resigned. We must, however, add that these trials unlike the earlier ones, are not a source of danger to the soul, because she is now strong and full of abnegation.

The sacred Canticle in one word describes the trials which even in the very midst of the "enclosed garden," seize upon the Bride. While she contemplates with joy and holy pride the beautiful productions which have sprung up under the divine breathing of the north and of the south wind, under the life-giving rays of the Sun of Justice: "I knew not," she says in all simplicity, "my soul troubled me for the chariots of Aminadab."⁸ These chariots, with their terrible noise, are the temptations and obsessions by which the devil tries to persuade the soul that he has power to snatch her away from her divine Spouse. Indeed when the light of which we have spoken plunges her into darkness and anguish, God permits her to be assailed by divers temptations which sometimes go very far: temptations against faith, fear of damnation, privation of the most legitimate consolations, a most intense and profound feeling of being forsaken by God and of His anger, murmurings, revolts and insurmountable disgust for everything.

St. Paul seems to have had in view this state of trial when he wrote to the Corinthians: "In all things we suffer tribulations, but are not distressed: we are straitened, but are not destitute: we suffer persecution, but are not forsaken: we are cast down but we perish not: always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our bodies. For we who live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake: that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh. So then death worketh in us, but life in you."⁹

This admirable teaching reveals the effects of the passive purification of the spirit, or the mystic death, effects which are of two kinds: some removing the obstacles standing in the way of divine transforming union, and others bearing witness to the union with God which already exists. The Apostle shows clearly that sufferings such as he endures arise from no other cause than a greater intimacy with Jesus crucified. Everywhere he bears about with him the death of Christ; it is this death that works unceasingly in him, and infuses life into all those whose souls have been given to him. Therefore by this mystic death he is associated with our Saviour in the work of redemption.

What is this but the teaching of the great Apostle in that programme of the spiritual life, quoted by us at the very outset: "That being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and length, and height, and depth, to know also the charity of Christ which surpasseth all knowledge."¹⁰ All the saints comprehended this vast mystery of the redemption; not only they understood it in theory, but they experimentally grasped it, and in some sort, as far at least as they were able they compassed it all round. They are, as it were, a chosen set of subordinate redeemers, in whom God, if we may so speak, again crucifies His Son for the salvation of the world, and in them and by them carries on His work.

All this anguish, all these trials and temptations have one end: "For we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as according to His purpose are called to be saints. For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son: that He might be the first born among many brethren."¹¹ Who will care to say that this is not a grand destiny? But at the same time we can quite understand that it must be bought at the cost of a close participation in the sufferings of the Man-God, by a real experience of them, which even makes the soul cry out: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"¹² The Son of God Himself was not satisfied with merely using His divine and His infused science to become acquainted with all that the work of expiation should require from Him, and with the extent of the debt contracted towards the Father in consequence of having taken upon Himself our sins, but "whereas indeed He was the Son of God," says St. Paul, "He learnt obedience by the things which He suffered."¹³ His submission to the will of His heavenly Father was heroic. How then could our submission to it be otherwise? "For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow His steps."¹⁴

Our Lord wishes to draw us into His footsteps, to glory in being able to point exultingly to the holy soul as to a stalwart warrior: "What shalt thou see in the Sulamitess but the companies of camps?"¹⁵ In truth these trials obtain for the soul a complete victory, and for this reason which St. John of the

Cross develops in an admirable manner: "Usually the soul never errs, except under the influence of its desires, or tastes, or reflections, or understanding, or affections, wherein it is generally overabundant or defective, changeable or inconsistent; hence its inclination to that which is not becoming it. Therefore it is evident that in these respects the soul is secure against error, when all these operations and movements have ceased. It is then delivered, not only from itself, but from its other enemies, the world and the devil, who, when the affections and operations of the soul have ceased, cannot assault it by any other way, or by any other means. . . . O spiritual soul, when thou seest thy desire obscured, thy will arid and constrained and thy faculties incapable of any interior act, be not grieved at this, but look upon it rather as a great good, for God is delivering thee from thyself, taking the matter out of thy hands; for however strenuously thou mayest exert thyself, thou wilt never, because of the impurity and torpor of thy faculties, do anything so faultlessly, perfectly and securely as now, when God takes thee by the hand, guides thee safely in thy blindness along a road and to an end thou knowest not, and whither thou couldst never travel guided by thine own eyes and supported by thine own feet."¹⁶ "The Holy Spirit," says Thauler, "does two things in us; He empties us, and then fills the void which He has made. The emptying is the first and principal operation; for the more empty we are, the greater is our capacity for receiving. . . . The water must run out before the fire can enter .... in order that God may enter, the creature must go forth .... the animal soul must disappear that the reasonable soul may develop. When the first preparation is accomplished, the Holy Spirit at once carries out His second operation. He fills the capaciousness of the heart which He has emptied."¹⁷

We might add that when the reasonable soul herself has been touched, when the mystic death is accomplished in her, God gives back to her a higher life which is her real transformation, her last stage before reaching heaven, the true triumph of grace and the consummation of charity, for she then practises the virtues which St. Thomas puts in a category apart: "But certain virtues belong to those who have already become like unto God; they are those which are called virtues of the soul now purified. . . . These virtues are the appanage of the blessed in heaven, or of those who have attained perfection in this life."¹⁸ The Lord then comes, and marvellously enriches the soul, leading her to a real experience of heavenly good things.

We think it right, however, to say one word more concerning a species of trial that may be experienced in affective union, but which, being a means of purification, may also find its place here. This divine operation always precedes the third degree of the Unitive Life. It consists in a very deep and very spiritual wound which divine love inflicts upon the heart, accompanied with so vehement a desire of seeing and possessing God, that, according to St. Teresa, he who has received it suffers a real martyrdom. In fact, a wound inflicted by the sharpest arrow can give but a faint idea of the pain experienced by the soul at the slightest thought of the delays which may still hinder her speedy flight to her Lord.

This wound evidently carries fire and sword into the innermost depths of the soul, and burns out whatever remnant of earth is still left therein. It causes pain so intense, so unspeakable that, if the soul did not restrain herself, she would utter loud cries; the whole system seems to be dislocated, and the burning heat of the soul is so vehement that it seems as if she must needs be consumed by it. The desire of death then becomes so violent that no consideration whatever can moderate it; the soul is as it were deaf to the arguments which might help her to support life, for her will, violently drawn towards the sovereign beauty, seems no longer in a condition to resist this attraction. If all the blessings of earth and of heaven were offered to her she would remain insensible to them, and in the absence of her Lord she experiences so great a sense of loneliness that all created things serve only to render her grief more bitter. She cannot place her rest in any joy; she longs with all her might to see her chains broken at last; and there can be no doubt that in these brief moments her life is in great peril.

The ancient Fathers were well acquainted with this wound of divine love. St. Basil thus explains the desires, the effects and the wonderful impressions to which it gives rise in the soul. "What more admirable," he says, "than the divine beauty? What thought more agreeable or more sweet than that of God's splendour? What desire of the spirit can equal the violence and vehemence of that which God gives to the soul now purified from all vice, and in all truth able to say, 'I am wounded with love.'¹⁹ The eyes of the flesh cannot contemplate this beauty—it is perceived only by the soul and by the spirit. When this beauty touches some holy souls, it at once leaves in them the sting of an intolerable desire, so that wearied with the present life they cry out: 'Woe is me that my sojourning is prolonged!'²⁰ 'When shall I come and appear before the face of God?'²¹ And again: 'To be dissolved and to be with Christ, a thing by far the better.'²² And again: 'My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God.’²³ And again: ‘Now dost Thou dismiss Thy servant, O Lord.’²⁴ This life becomes to them a burden as though it were a prison; in fact, those saints whose souls had been wounded by the desire of God were able only with difficulty to restrain the impetuosity of their transports. Then, wholly given up to this insatiable desire of seeing the divine Beauty, they prayed that they might continue for all eternity in the contemplation of their Lord’s loveliness.”²⁵ St. Ambrose also, in his “Exhortation to Virginity,” mentions this wound of love. St. Augustine, in one of his transports, says of himself: “Thou hast wounded my heart with the arrows of Thy charity; and I carried Thy words as so many darts fixed in my entrails.”²⁶ Finally, the austere St. John Climacus, in the 33rd degree of his “Holy Ladder,” uses this beautiful language: “When one is wounded with the dart of love,” he says, “I sleep because nature obliges me thereto; but my heart watches on account of the fulness of its love. Note, O faithful soul, how after the ferocious beasts—that is, bad desires—have disappeared, the soul like the heart, wounded by the arrow of love, above all other things, desires God and faints away in Him. The intensity and the cause of hunger are not always apparent; but thirst is visible to every eye—it reveals the ardour of love. Therefore one who was on fire with desire of God cried out: ‘My soul hath thirsted after the strong, living God.’²⁷ One of the ordinary effects of holy charity is to absorb certain souls, according to this sentence:²⁸ ‘Thou hast wounded my heart.’”²⁹

We might without any difficulty multiply quotations from these mighty men to whom God revealed all the secrets of holiness. They all disclose the mysterious operations of love, its purifying and sweetly painful action, until its fire has entirely destroyed all that it can consume. God visits the soul; but it is not to heal, it is to wound, to make a void rather than to satisfy. Hence the vigour of divine love seems intolerable, and leaves in the soul inexplicable languishing: "Stay me up with flowers, compass me about with apples: because I languish with love,"³⁰ says the Canticle. The soul cannot find any comfort except in the practice of the most solid and heroic virtues and in the service of her neighbour, if it should please her Lord in the midst of these trials to maintain in her any physical strength. But it is not to leave her thus that God has made this soul pass through the purgatory of love; the end of all these diverse operations is the fulfilling of that desire of the Apostle: "That you may be filled unto all the fulness of God."³¹

Footnotes

1. S. Max., 2 de Carit. 62. ↩

2. Quid enim sepulchri nomine nisi contemplativa vita signatur, quæ nos quasi ab hoc mundo mortuos sepelit? (St. Greg. Moral., lib. VI, xvii.) ↩

3. Nisi granum frumenti cadens in terram mortuum fuerit, ipsum solum manet. . . . Qui amat animam suam, perdet eam; et qui odit animam suam in hoc mundo, in vitam æternam custodit eam (Joann., xii, 24, 25). ↩

4. Utinam hac morte ego frequenter cadam! (S. Bernard, Serm. 52 in Cant.) ↩

5. Vivus est sermo Dei, et efficax, et penetrabilior omni gladio ancipiti; ac pertingens usque ad divisionem animæ et spiritus, compagum quoque ac medullarum, et discretor cogitationum et intentionum cordis. Et non est ulla creatura invisibilis in conspectu ejus; omnia autem nuda et aperta sunt oculis ejus ad quem nobis sermo (Heb., iv, 12, 13). ↩

6. Hier., Cœl., Cap. iii. ↩

7. Sub arbore malo suscitavi te; ibi corrupta est mater tua; ibi violata est genitrix tua (Cant, viii, 5). ↩

8. Nescivi: anima mea conturbavit me, propter quadrigas Aminadab (Cant., vi, 11). ↩

9. In omnibus tribulationem patimur, sed non angustiamur; aporiamur, sed non destituimur; persecutionem patimur, sed non derelinquimur; dejicimur, sed non perimus; semper mortificationem Jesu in corpore nostro circumferentes, ut et vita Jesu manifestetur in corporibus nostris. Semper enim nos, qui vivimus, in mortem tradimur propter Jesum, ut et vita Jesu manifestetur in carne nostra mortali. Ergo mors in nobis operatur, vita autem in vobis (2 Cor., iv, 8-12). ↩

10. In caritate radicati et fundati, ut possitis comprehendere cum omnibus sanctis, quæ sit latitudo, et longitudo, et sublimitas, et profundum: scire etiam supereminentem scientiæ caritatem Christi (Eph., iii, 18, 19). ↩

11. Scimus autem quoniam diligentibus Deum omnia cooperantur in bonum, iis qui secundum propositum vocati sunt sancti. Nam quos præscivit, et prædestinavit conformes fieri imaginis Filii sui, ut sit ipse primogenitus in multis fratribus (Rom. viii, 28, 29). ↩

12. Deus, Deus meus, quare me dereliquisti? (Ps. xxi.) ↩

13. Et quidem cum esset Filius Dei, didicit ex iis quæ passus est obedientiam (Heb. v, 8). ↩

14. In hoc enim vocati estis: quia et Christus passus est pro nobis, vobis relinquens exemplum ut sequamini vestigia ejus (1 Pet. ii, 21). ↩

15. Quid videbis in Sulamite, nisi choros castrorum? (Cant., vii, 1.) ↩

16. The obscure Night, II, xvi, Translat. David Lewis. ↩

17. Thauler, Second Sermon for Pentecost. ↩

18. Quædam vero sunt virtutes jam assequentium divinam similitudinem; quæ vocantur virtutes jam purgati animi . . . virtutes dicimus esse beatorum, vel aliquorum in hac vita perfectissimorum (S. Thom., I, 2 quæst. LXI, art. 5). ↩

19. Vulnerata caritate ego sum (Cant, ii, 5, lxx). ↩

20. Heu mihi quia incolatus meus prolongatus est (Ps., cxix, 5). ↩

21. Quando veniam et apparebo ante faciem Dei? (Ps. xli, 3). ↩

22. Dissolvi et esse cum Christo multo magis melius (Phil., i, 23). ↩

23. Sitivit anima mea ad Deum fortem vivum (Ps., xli, 3). ↩

24. Nunc dimittis servum tuum Domine (Luc., ii, 29). ↩

25. S. Basil., in lib. Regul., fusius tract. inter II. ↩

26. Confess. IX, cap. ii. ↩

27. Sitivit anima mea ad Deum fortem vivum (Ps., xli, 3). ↩

28. Vulnerasti cor meum . . . vulnerasti (Cant., iv, 9). ↩

29. Scala Parad., grad. xxx. ↩

30. Fulcite me floribus, stipate me malis, qui amore langueo (Cant, ii, 5). ↩

31. Ut impleamini in omnem plenitudinem Dei (Eph. iii, 19). ↩