Book II. Dialogue IX: Advice to those who have made great progress

Q. With what is this advice or enlightenment concerned ?

A. With three things: with new purifications of the heart by new detachments; with new trials which are produced by these new detachments; and finally with the state of souls which have attained to a great purification and therefore to great union with the God of all purity.

Q. Why must there always be new purifications ? Can one not reach a state when there is no further need of them ?

A. It would be an error to think this: the whole time of our pilgrimage is a time of combat and purification; the soul will not be perfect until she is in heaven, or at the end of the journey which is the last moment of our life.

Q. How then do these purifications act that are always increasing ?

A. By new detachments, for the human heart ceaselessly sullies itself by all its attachments apart from God.

Q. But suppose these souls of whom you are now speaking are so detached from all things that they love only God and sigh for him only ?

A. But while loving God, and seeming to desire him alone, may we not still have certain attachments, not gross or very sensible ones, but very delicate and spiritual? For our nature is so universally corrupted that it corrupts everything, even to the most holy things; or rather it corrupts and sullies itself in them by the true attachment of a heart, which, being made only for God, should love only him, or love everything in relation to him.

Q. Would you develop this idea for me ?

A. You must know that the forces of self-love continually reborn within us are such that we have no sooner detached ourselves from a good than we attach ourselves to another with the same ardour; and that without changing our unfortunate character, we for the most part merely change our object, transforming our natural affections, transporting temporal goods into spiritual ones, that we usually love in relation to ourselves more than to God. Now this new attachment is the more harmful in that, since it appears holy and praiseworthy, the heart gives itself up to it without a struggle, without thought and even with an ardour and zeal with which we feel very satisfied, because we regard it as true zeal for our salvation and perfection. Yet this deep and ardent zeal often comes merely from the same background of attachment to holy things that we see in worldly people for profane things. In fact, how many people do we not see who are so attached to their own will in all their pious practices, so jealous for the slightest of their spiritual consolations, either interior or exterior, that if God permits the slightest disturbance of them, they will be as troubled and anxious and grief-stricken and bear the same ill-humour as worldly people do in everything that disturbs their own amusements. In this matter there are other more profound and delicate attachments which produce very bad effects and the relation of which would surprise you.

Q. I beg you, indicate something of them to me at least.

A. As self-love, wherever it enters by a true attachment insinuates subtly all the various movements of its passions; so we see, say the mystics, in many people, spiritual ambition, spiritual avarice, spiritual sensuality, and a thousand other irregular feelings springing from this self-love, which attaches to and appropriates all things; hence its true designation of ‘self-love. 5 Hence the Bishop of Meaux,¹ speaking of spiritual detachment, thoroughly agreed with S. Francis de Sales that c following the advice of the Holy Apostle, as soon as we have put off the garments of the old Adam, we are to put on the habits of the new man, that is to say, of Jesus Christ, for having renounced all—yes, even the affection to virtues, neither desiring, of these or of other things, a larger portion than God’s will intends—we must put on again divers affections, and perhaps the very same which we have renounced and resigned; but we must now put them on again not because they are agreeable, profitable, honourable to us, and proper to content the love we have for ourselves, but because they are agreeable to God, profitable to his honour, and destined to his glory.’ 2²³⁴

Q. How is it then that certain spirituals are scandalized at hearing it said that we must detach ourselves from all spiritual things, from divine things as well as human ?

A. Because they have never read that little book, the Imitation, which says or implies it in a hundred places; 3 there are even several entire chapters on this mystic death, which is nothing else than the total detachment of oneself in order to become attached to God alone by pure faith and pure spirit, loving everything or chiefly in relation to him.

Q. Must we preach to everybody this detachment from all spiritual things ?

A. This detachment should only be preached to the persons we are referring to; people of the world have entirely opposite dispositions in this matter; they well realize, both in the books which speak of it and in sermons in which a few words are spoken of it incidentally, that these words are not for them; the imperfections of those who have such attachments would be true perfection for them; that is why in the thirtyfourth and last article of the Conference of Issy⁵ it is expressly stated that ‘ both beginners and perfect must be led each in his own path by different rules, and that the latter understand more exaltedly and more fundamentally the Christian truths.’ Otherwise this detachment is not in the least indifference to salvation or eternal good, for it consists exactly in detaching oneself so much as is necessary from them in order to love them much more for God and because he wishes it than for us and our own interest.

Q. But does not S. Paul counsel all Christians to sigh perpetually for the most perfect gifts of God, to strive perpetually to acquire all virtues, all sanctity, aspiring always to the high places of this heavenly kingdom ?

If thou shouldest como to be so valiant and long suffering in hope, that when inward consolation is withdrawn thou canst prepare thy heart to suffer still more: and when thou dost not justify thyself as if thou oughtest not to suffer such great things; but aeknowledgest my justice in all my appointments and praisest my holy name; then it is that thou walkest in the true and right way of peace; and mayest hope without any doubt, to see my face again with great joy. And if thou shouldest arrive at an entire contempt of thyself: know that then thou shalt enjoy an abundance of peace as far as is possible in this sojourn on earth.’

A. Doubtless we must do all this, but in God’s way, attaching ourselves to him alone, loving nothing apart from him, but all in him and for him, attributing nothing, either entirely or principally to ourselves; because he wishes and merits that we love him more than all creation, either divine or human, and more than ourselves, without, however, ceasing to love ourselves with a subordinate love.⁶

Q. But is this love, so detached from ourselves, bearing no relation to ourselves, the pure love of the perfect alone ?

A. Yes, when it is c in a certain continuous, habitual and dominating exercise, 5 says Bossuet; but in itself it is the love common to all, for there are no two kinds of love, and the difference is only in degree. Now see where and to what degree this prelate urges us with a view to perfect detachment from all our interests: c The work of perfection, 5 he says, c is to keep ourselves always in movement, so as to attribute (he does not say spiritual goods, the means of salvation, but) our salvation and beatitude to the glory of God. 5 This, he adds, is what he has always taught us in the Instruction sur les etats d'Oraison, guided by the words of S. Paul, 2 who tells us to refer our salvation to the glory of God and to the praise of his grace; that is, by loving our salvation, our beatitude, much more for the glory of God and the praise of his grace, than for the great interest we obtain from it. After such a decision, especially from the soundest possible bishop on the subject of false spirituality, to what good should all Christians who aspire and should aspire to perfection feel themselves justified in attaching themselves ? on what graces, or consolations or favours of God or good works should they justifiably allow themselves to make the least reflection of complacency, the smallest return of self-love ? Since all must necessarily be attributed to God, and we should love all things chiefly in relation to him; for he is absolutely the last end of everything.⁷⁸

Q. But is not this a too exalted, or at least a rather refined, spirituality?

A. Our Bishops think very differently, for they expressly declared in Article XVII, at Issy, 2 that ‘all the reflections we make on our actions and on the gifts we have received, either to gratify our self-love, or to seek human support in it, or merely to occupy ourselves with ourselves, are bad and dangerous reflections, 5 which obviously does not in the least exclude salutary and necessary reflections.

Q. This being so, when God deigns to enlighten particularly the interior persons of whom you speak on such an important and little-known truth, what do they find in their actions, their words, their feelings, their interior acts ?

A. Nothing, they tell us, but an abyss of misery and corruption, which perpetually manifests itself in bad and dangerous returns on themselves, as natural and almost as frequent as breathing. By a divine light God does inside us, says Fr. Surin, what the sun’s rays do outside us, when penetrating the glass of the window they reveal wherever they fall a countless multitude of dancing atoms, which before were not seen. Happy is he whom God deigns to enlighten thus as to the infinite wretchedness of his interior ! How soon will he not be cured of the subtle poison of self-esteem, of secret presumption and secret complacency in himself! What depths of disregard of self and humility will he find in this knowledge from experience of an impenetrable abyss of corruption, that he never thought he bore in his bosom.

Q. What does God do to purify good souls of this unseen mass of corruption and of attachments of selfwill disguised and spiritualized ?

A. After he has made them realize its presence, which is in itself a step towards the cure; after leaving them for some little time to groan under this humiliating burden, which is a step in the cure, he puts them to new and terrible trials, just as we put gold in the crucible to purify it more and more, Tanquam aurum in fornace probavit electos Dominus. He makes them pass, says Scripture, through the water and fire of all kinds of interior tribulations and hardships; so that (say the mystics), as the repetition of these ordeals is the infallible sign of the impurities which still remain in the heart, so the greatness of these trials is the ordinary sign of the great purifications which God wills to effect in the soul, and thus of the eminent degree of union and sanctity to which he wishes to raise her.

Q. How must they bear these new trials in order to get such great fruits from them ?

A. More or less like those of the first kind, with complete abandonment, and no reserve, since it is only reserve with God that stops the current of his grace, and his divine operations; with entire confidence in God alone, for when we go to seek consolation or support elsewhere, this new uprising of self-love prolongs the trials and necessitates further ones.

Q. What is the chief and most obvious effect of these new purifications, effected by the new detachment from all our most disguised and spiritualized interests ?

A. It is the disinterestedness of perfect love, which delivers us from the slavery of self-love, from its unquiet urgings, from its grievous troubles, from its endless fears about everything concerning our greatest interests, the salvation of the soul, advancement, progress, eternal beatitude,⁹ for if we seek thenceforth entirely or chiefly the holy will of God, we nobly abandon all the success of our quest to him. It is only in this total abandonment, says Bossuet, that we find in God complete peace of the heart, and the assurance of salvation; 4 for it is only by putting it into such sure hands that we can have assurance; our will being weakness and inconstancy itself, it is necessary to sink it in that of God himself, for he is firm, unshakable and almighty 5; thus it happens that those souls who have attained this state of abandonment count among the greatest graces of God that of abandoning to him at last all their spiritual and eternal interests as their temporal ones, realizing, they tell us, in what extreme peril their salvation would be if God gave up to them the greater part of its care and success. It is thus infinitely better that they should be in his hands, and that the work of

26 l salvation should depend especially on God, rather than on their miserable will, their feeble liberty, which in themselves cause them to tremble and would give them cause for fear and despair, were they not supported and constantly sustained by firm confidence in the will of God. O God ! how wonderfully harmonious are thy divine perfections, and how in accord with our true interests; for if on the one hand thy sovereignty over all thy creatures necessitates our blind surrender to all thou art pleased to do to us, in time or in eternity, on the other hand thy sovereign goodness makes us find in thee constantly and with holy certainty all that with respect and confidence we were able to abandon completely.

Q. After this heroic renunciation of self and this entire surrender to God, we have surely no more to do than to perfect ourselves in it; for what new renunciation could there be to make ? What other attachment to sacrifice ?

A. The most delicate, the most continual, that which is least recognized and dearest to the heart, still remains; it is what the mystics call the attachment to the proprietary use of the faculties.

Q. First explain to me this mystical phrase, for in all the sciences one invariably begins with an explanation of their special terms.

A. The powers of the soul are merely, as you know, the three talents received from God, mind, understanding and will, to be entirely used for his honour, and in the way which shall please him; attachment to their proprietary use consists in never wishing to use them for God, but always according to our intentions, in subjection to our own will, following our particular inclination, rather than that of God. With these good souls the attachment to the spirit of self-ownership (propriete) consists in never being willing to employ them except in our own way, in accordance with our own taste, though always, no doubt, for God’s sake, rather than in accordance with God’s taste, God’s will. This is, in the case of these good souls, their exercise of the spirit of self-ownership, their real independence even, in their usage of the holiest of their powers already consecrated God in the matter of their actions, but not in the manner of their performance. Now God wants everything, as he merits everything.

Q. Whence could arise such a small reservation in such great sacrifices?

A. We can well understand the principle of it if we know the depths of man’s heart, but we shall never understand the extreme and continual difficulty of this last renunciation without having often attempted it. You must know that self-love fears nothing so much as its complete destruction, and wishes always to live a little for itself, and therefore cuts down as much as possible its sacrifices for God, using continually with him a thousand small reservations in which it can find its food and its life, and finding some personal advantage, or rather some reserves, it can appropriate to itself, while still belonging to God. But divine love, which wishes to reign alone in the human heart, ceaselessly pursues its mortal enemy; thus this jealous Love, not content with having stripped us of all excessive attachment to the use of our own powers by the continual reference it demands, still wishes that the actual manner of attributing all to it should depend only on his divine choice, on his pure spirit and grace, with a continual dependence, not only in the interior acts of our powers but even in the manner of performing those acts; for often God wishes them to be exercised in one fashion and we in another.

Q. What is this fashion and what are these interior acts which God demands from certain souls, and what is that which the remains of their self-love wishes to retain and appropriate?

A. God usually desires in their progress a totally different use of their powers from that of the beginning.

Thus he usually asks them only for simple but real dispositions of the mind and heart to will what he wills and in the manner he wills it. But this remnant of selflove, dissatisfied with the simplicity and unity of these direct acts, extremely, and continually, reluctant to remain in their exercise when they are unseen or very confusedly perceived, wishes always to return to the old practice, with reflective acts, conscious and very sensible, in which it finds some little satisfaction for itself, which is its last resource and of which it wishes never to strip itself, for in it is the last human support that can sustain this little thread of personal and natural life which we should lose so as to live only in Our Lord Jesus Christ, with a new, supernatural and wholly divine life. That is why in Article XVII, already quoted, our Bishops absolutely condemned as c evil and dangerous every reflective act, every return to oneself with which one seeks to gratify self-love or to make onself a human support.¹⁰

Q. Is it possible to know why God usually wills this simplicity of acts for souls ?

A. The first reason given by the mystics is that the most perfect renunciation and entire death to oneself are found in this simplicity of acts; from which also at the very time of prayer,—when the soul is dry and without relish, for at this time one feels merely torn from oneself, finding no longer anything of that which is the tangible life of the mind and the heart,—there springs neither the sweetness of simple recollection nor the consolation of reflective and conscious acts on which one leaned formerly; so rare it is to find souls sufficiently dead to themselves to wish for no other support than God himself, in the darkness and nakedness of faith. The second reason, they continue, is that the less a soul multiplies itself by the multiplicity of reflective acts, and the more, on the other hand, it simplifies itself by the simplicity of direct acts, the less disharmony there is between it and the single and simple being of God to which it should be united. The more it is stripped of all that is sensible ( which state is called the nudity of the spirit and of faith), the more it approaches the pure spirit of God; the more perfect its union with it consequently is, since thenceforth there is less of a barrier between them; and it is at this precise moment that one perfectly understands the whole sense of that mystic sentence in the Imitation: i Forsake all and thou shalt find all.’¹¹ If you have further questions, keep them for the next dialogue, for this one is already too long.

Footnotes

1. Instruction, p. 559. ↩

2. Love of God, Book IX, Ch. XVI. ↩

3. See, among other passages, Book III, Ch. XXV: ↩

4. Think not therefore that thou hast found true peace if thou feelest no burthen,• nor that then all is well, if thou hast to withstand no adversary; nor that thou hast attained to per- fection if all things are done according to thine inclination: neither then think thyself anything great, nor imagine thyself to be especially beloved; if thou experience great devotion and sweetness; for it is not in such things that a true lover of virtue is known; nor does the progress and perfection of man consist in these things. In what then, O Lord ? In offering thyself with thy whole heart to the divine will; in not seeking the things that are thine whether in little or great, in time or in eternity; so that with the same equal countenance thou mayest continue the giving of thanks, both in prosperity and in adversity, by weighing all things in an equal balance. ↩

5. Instruction, p. 344. ↩

6. ‘ Pure love which we might imagine disinterested from our own good can be nothing but illusion. But we can so detach ourselves from ourselves as to love ourselves in God and for God, to attribute to him all our happiness, and desire it for his glory, that is, to honour his magnificence in his own children.’ (Bossuet: Avertissement, IV, p. 234.) ‘ Nothing is pure or perfect, which bears some taint of self-interest.’ (Imitation, Book III, Ch. LXIX.) 8 Ephes. i, 6. ↩

7. • Indifference to salvation is an error of the false mystics. Our Lord Jesus Christ descended from heaven in order to glorify God by the salvation of our souls. When we ask in the Lord’s Prayer for the kingdom of God to come, it is doubtless our salvation also that we have in view. The Psalmist positively declares that he has inclined his heart to perform God’s precepts because of the reward: Propter retributionem.
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8. What does the priest do when every day he offers the divine sacrifice at the altar, if not to ask through the holy victim for the grace of salvation ? Ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salutem. It must not be forgotten that hope is an obligatory theological virtue. Now the object of hope is salvation—when then S. Paul wished to be anathema to his brethren; when S. Teresa tells us that “ souls possessed with love would joyfully suffer complete annihilation if the destruction of their being could contribute to the glory of their immortal Bridegroom ”; these pious sentiments show the ardour of the love which filled these great saints, but with- out prejudice to the hope of salvation which was rooted in the depths of their hearts. The Bishops and Doctors at the Conference of Issy formulated thus their Fifth Proposition: “ All Christians in all states, though not at all moments, are obliged to wish, to desire and to ask explicitly for eternal salvation, as a thing which God wills and wills that we should will for his glory alone.” And their Ninth Proposition declares that: “It is not permitted to a Christian to be indifferent to his salvation, nor to the things related to it: holy Christian indifference concerns the events of this life (except sin) and the dispensation of spiritual consolation or aridity.” ’ (Instruction, Book IX, pp. 338 and 591; Book X, p. 642.) a Instruction, p. 341. ↩

9. Instruction, Book X, § 18, p. 640. ↩

10. Instruction, p. 341. U ↩

11. ‘ Son, thou canst not possess perfect liberty; unless thou wholly deny thyself....For that shall perish utterly; which proceeds not from God. Take this short and perfect word. Forsake all and thou shalt find all: leave thy desires; and thou shalt find rest. Consider this well; and when thou hast put it in practice thou wilt understand all things. Lord, this is not the work of one day, nor child’s play; nay, in this short sentence is included the whole perfection of the religious. Son, thou must not be turned back nor presently cast down when thou hearest what the way of the perfect is; but thou shouldst rather be incited to higher things; or at least sigh after these with an earnest desire. Would it were so with thee and that thou wert come so far that thou wert no longer a lover of thyself; but didst stand wholly at my back, and that of the father whom I have set over thee: then wouldst thou be greatly pleasing to me, and all thy life would pass in joy and peace. Thou hast yet many things to forsake; and unless thou give them up to me without reserve; thou shalt not attain to that which thou demandest. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be made rich; that is heavenly wisdom which treads underfoot all lower things.’ (Imitation, Book III, Ch. XXXII.) ‘ Behold my God and my all. What would I have more: and what greater happiness can I desire ? 0 savoury and sweet 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 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.* (Imitation, Book III, Ch. XXXIV.) ↩