Book II. Dialogue II: On purity of heart

Q. In what does purity of heart consist, and why is it a disposition necessary to the prayer of recollection ?

A. It lies in having the heart free from all attachments, not only criminal ones but also those which are regarded as innocent, since they give a share to creatures in a heart which is made for God alone. Now how can a heart so shared, nearly always so unequally, succeed in this prayer whatever view we take of it ?¹

This prayer, as we said, is a sweet repose of the heart and mind in God. But if a heart is accustomed to let its thoughts and affections rest on some object which holds it fast, what rest can it find in God until it has destroyed its first attachment in order to carry itself to God, and there to rest as formerly it did in the beloved object which held it ?

It is a taste for God; but if a heart is attached to material goods, the pleasures of the senses, honour, esteem, reputation, etc., how can it have a taste for God until it is purified of all its sensuous, terrestrial or human loves ?

It is a fixed gaze on God; but how can this gaze of pure faith be maintained through the dense clouds of ideas, the sensible images, with which a single attachment fills the mind and the imagination ?

1 See Imitation of Christ, Book III, Ch. V: Of the wonderful effect of Divine Love; Ch. XVI and Ch. XXXI.

It is a recollection in God; but how can we recollect in God our thoughts, our desires and affections, if a single outer object holds them bound and enthralled, or recalls them always to itself by the same charms with which it succeeded in capturing the powers of our soul ?²

It is, finally, an interior silence of respect, admiration and love; but how may we enter and dwell in this profound silence, and ignore the noise and clamour of a thousand urgent desires, of so many anxious hopes, or crippling fears in a heart which is always agitated and sighs without cease for any object rather than God ?

d- But if this prayer exacts so much purity and detachment of the heart, it must be the prayer of the perfect; other forms of prayer have no right to that name, they have only to aspire to it ?

A • Has not the detachment of heart, in which lies its purity, various degrees, as this prayer has also ? To a great detachment of the heart corresponds a greater facility to enter into this prayer; and to a lesser detachment a lesser facility.³

d- Would you kindly give me some application of this principle ?

A. With pleasure: those who by purifying their hearts from every attachment have come to love only

Q. I seem to remember having read on this subject

A. Imagine then a profane lover entirely absorbed whom ? To people who wish to be regarded as interior and spiritual. I would ask these people here, with all due respect to their persons and their ministry, if they think that this love, which is stronger than death and hell, has lost all its strength and its old power; or that there are no longer souls capable of feeling its operations; or that these operations, being less sensible, less perceptible than those of divine love, are therefore less real and true. Let them remember these words of Bossuet: x ‘ During these purely spiritual operations, although our soul seems to vanish and escape from itself, it exercises more than ever its veritable and natural operations. 5 Let them listen to the Venerable Mother de Ghantal; she will teach them that the more profound, delicate and almost imperceptible are these divine operations, the more perfect they are, being more spiritual and detached from the senses. Again, let them hear the Venerable Father Louis Lallemant: he tells us that in this kind of operation what is most perceptible in them is merely, so to speak, the secondary distillation of grace.

{). But, if the degree of facility of entering into this prayer uusally corresponds to the degree of purity of the heart, what must they do who do not possess it ?

A. They must at least have the lowest degree.

&. In what does the last and lowest degree of this purity, this detachment of the heart, consist ?

A. In the sincere desire to attain it, by any means, and particularly by that of this very prayer, of which with this good will they will be able to experience sometimes some fleeting touches during their meditations or reflective readings.

Q. How can they do this ?

A. By ceasing discourse at intervals to attend to the presence of God, as the Bishop of Meaux has already taught, and as we shall explain later in great detail. For in consequence of this good will with which God contents him- 1 Instruction, p. 463.

self in those who at the moment are capable of no more, it often happens that during meditation or other similar and ordinary exercises, God makes himself felt and loved by simple fleeting touches of this holy recollection, and thenceforward all recollection becomes easy.

Q. How can this happen ?

A. Because our hearts are truly made for God; because once we have felt him even for a few moments all else appears unattractive. This imprint of the taste of God in the heart is a charm which makes it turn to God rather like the needle which, once touched by the magnet, turns always towards it. God, said S. Augustine, effects this latter marvel by shedding in the soul of good will celestial delectation, which surpasses all the pleasures of the earth and gives strength to overcome them; Dando menti celestem delectationem qua omnis terrena delectatio superetur.⁴ Now this beginning of purity and detachment in a heart comes to produce in its turn a new attraction or disposition towards holy recollection in prayer, and with what rapidity in the various progresses from one to the other ! I mean in the progress from the purity of heart which facilitates holy recollection to prayer, and in the progress from holy recollection which in its turn facilitates purity and detachment.

Q. Are there many examples of what you say ?

A. I remember hearing several directors say that they had long groaned in secret at the slow advancement of certain souls; but when in their pious exercises God had once made himself felt in them by fleeting touches of this divine recollection, the direction of these persons became very easy and efficacious, and they might be said to have been transformed. Mother de Chantal gives a good example in her own person while still a secular. For having spoken of her change of director to the holy Bishop of Geneva, who from the first knew her attraction and bade her give herself up to it, she exclaimed: x 6 O God ! it seemed to me that from that moment there had happened a holy and complete revolution in my interior.’ 2

Q. Do approved authors agree as to the surprising efficacy of the simple fleeting touches of this prayer ?

A. S. John of the Cross has said so expressly in a hundred places, and assumes it in all his works. The Venerable Father Louis Lallemant and his two famous disciples, Fathers Rigoleuc and Surin, all say in their Lettres spirituelles that they had found persons who, with the aid of the simple touches of this prayer, advanced more in a month than they had done during the ten or fifteen years before.

1 Life, by Maupas, Bishop of Evreux; Part I, Ch. XV, p. 98 a Jesus appeared to the disciples at Emmaus, and at his voice the shadows which darkened their understanding were scattered, and something unknown stirred in them, and they said among themselves: ‘Was not our heart burning within us, whilst he spoke in the way and opened to us the Scriptures ? 5 Like the disciples, we are on a journey; in his love Jesus approaches us, with one ray of light he reveals the truth and draws us to him. Oh, let us say: ‘ Remain with us, O Lord.’

Footnotes

1. ‘ Take care not to attach yourself to anything for fear of becoming the slave of it and losing your soul ’ ( Imitation, II, Ch. I.) ‘ Nothing so clogs and soils the heart of man as an impure love of creatures. (Ibid., V, 8.) ↩

2. Has not S. Augustine said these words: ‘ The senses have their pleasures, shall the spirit be deprived of its own ? ’ An ve.ro habeyit corporis sensus voluptates suos, et animus deseritur a volup- tatibus suis ?... Da amantem, et sentit quod dico, da desiderantem, da esurientem... et fontem aeternae patriae suspirantem, da talem et scit quid dicam. (Homil. t S. Augustine, Fer. IV post Pentecosten). ↩

3. ‘ And unless a man be disentangled from all creatures; he cannot freely make things divine his aim. And this is the reason why there are found so few contemplative men; because there are few who know how to separate themselves wholly from perishing and created things.... Many are found to desire contemplation; but they make it not their aim to practise those things which are required thereunto. It is a great hindrance that we rest in signs and sensible things; and have but little of perfect mortification. I know not what it is, by what spirit we are led, nor what we pretend to who are looked upon as spiritual: that we take so much pains and have so great a solicitude for transitory things, and scarce ever have our senses fully recollected to think of our own inner life. Alas, after a slight recollection we presently break out again; neither do we weigh well our works by a strict examination.... From a pure heart proceeds the fruit of a good life.” ( Imitation, Book III, Ch. XXXI.) p 184 ONPRAYER God, or to love all things for God, enter this prayer of pure love as fish swimming through the water enter their proper element. Those who have less love enter less easily. in S. Francis de Sales some comparisons taken from profane love could you not follow this great saint and use them to explain your idea to me in a clearer and more detailed manner ? in the beauty he idolizes; does he not find in this occupation the sweet repose of his heart ? An inclina- tion as sweet as it is wrong, an unfortunate memory which, allowing him to think only of his idol, seems to absorb all the powers of his soul; with what con- tinuity are his interior regards fixed on the idol of his heart ! and does he not fall sometimes into that pro- found interior silence which suspends all the other feelings so as to leave room only for the transports of his soul ? This is a gross but just image of the truth, of all that happens during that holy recollection and sweet repose of a truly detached soul which is carried away by divine love. But, and this will astonish you, speaking only of a heart thus possessed by profane love, does not one understand all its criminal dispositions and in that connection the mystical terms which I have borrowed to express them ? How then could it happen that when a heart is given up to the holy impressions of divine love, during the prayer of simple presence, thenceforth all the dispositions of this good soul become incomprehensible, and the correct and usual terms in which they are expressed seem too mystical ? And to ↩

4. This is well expressed by the author of the Imitation, who says (Book III, Ch. XXXIV): ‘ Behold my God and my all. What would I have more; and what greater happiness can I desire ? O sweet and savoury word; but to him who loves the Word; not the world nor the things that are in the world. My God and my all. Enough is said to him who understands; and to repeat it often is delightful to him who loves. For when thou art present all things yield delight; but when thou art absent, all things cause loathing. Thou givest tranquillity to the heart and great peace; and festal gladness.... O light eternal, transcending all created lights; send forth thy lightening from above that it may pierce to the most inward parts of my heart. Cleanse, gladden, enlighten and quicken my spirit with its powers; that it may cleave unto thee with ecstasies of joy. Oh when will this blessed and desirable hour come: when thou shalt fill me with thy presence; and be to me all in all. So long as this is not granted me; my joy will not be full.’ ↩