Chapter I. The Passive Purification of the Soul as Described by St. John of the Cross

One of the most profound and original parts of the doctrine of St. John of the Cross, his richest contribution to the development of mystical theology and his greatest claim to the title of doctor, is that which deals widi what he calls the passive night of the soul. By following what he says concerning it in the second book of The Dar{ Night, we wish first to show the necessity for such a purificadon, dien to point out the principal features of his psychological description of it, and lastly to try to give a theological explanation of this grievous state by relating it to the supernatural cause which produces it and the end to which it is ordered.

There are several reasons why really interior souls will not find such a knowledge of his doctrine useless. They may not profit from a first superficial reading; but if they reread it more attentively, it will reveal to them the worth of the daily cross which we all must carry and teach them not to confuse our self-made troubles with those of real purifying value. It will make them see, too, the great differences between what beginners suffer in the night of the senses and what the advanced undergo in their preparation for the intimacy of divine union. And so they will come to understand how ridiculous it would be to believe ourselves in the second night when we have hardly entered the first. A meditative reading discloses the distance separating us from the full perfection of Christian life. Only a few attain to it, and they have all passed through the crucible in one way or another. Spiritual pride does much to deceive us into believing that, witiiout having traveled the long hard road, we are ready to reach the summit.

The Holy Ghost has deemed it wise to reveal these things to us in the great Book of Job and in some of the most beautiful verses of the psalms. They give us foreknowledge of the sufferings awaiting us in purgatory, if we fail to profit sufficiently from the crosses sent to us in this life. Finally, this sublime doctrine gives us a deeper understanding of the meaning of the seven last words of Christ on the cross, the best expression of the mystery of redemption and a subject for our daily meditation.

The necessity for the passive purification of the soul

Those who go forward into the illuminative way must undergo the passive night of the soul so that the highest part of the soul, the intellect and the will, may be purified and rid of imperfections.¹ To enter into this way, they have already had to pass through the passive night of the senses for the purging of the lower, sensory part of the soul from the faults of beginners: spiritual greediness, laziness, jealousy, impatience, and spiritual pride. By plunging the soul into aridity, the passive night of the senses has achieved its purgation from sensuality especially, and the soul has begun to live the life of the spirit, receiving a general and obscure mode of con-

THE PASSIVE PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL 99 templating what so attracts it, the infinite goodness of God.

Having passed through this night and left the state of beginners, the soul may spend a long time, even years, exercising itself in the way of proficients. Like someone liberated from rigorous imprisonment, it goes about the tilings of God with much greater freedom and satisfaction of soul and with more inward delight than it ever knew before. 2 This relatively calm period, usually occurring between the two purifications, the first of the senses and the second of the spirit, corresponds, as mentioned before, to the fourth and fifth mansions of St. Teresa. It includes the period of quiet, during which the will is caught by an attraction for God, and the period of simple union, during which God's action becomes strong enough at prayer to captivate not only the will but also the intellect, at times so completely diat die operation of the memory and imagination is momentarily suspended. The imagination and other faculties are no longer bound, as before, by meditation and anxiety of mind, since the soul now finds within itself, without the labor of meditation, a sweet, serene, and loving contemplation. 3 Yet the soul is far from being completely purified since its spiritual powers still want for purgation; and as long as this is so, some disorder will always arise in the lower part of the soul, not completely at peace until after the second night.

Those making progress in the illuminative way still have many imperfections, defects of the old man that remain in the soul like so much rust that only intense fire can remove. In fact, only too often the advanced are still distracted at

3 Ibid. These important texts are quoted again because they are needed to grasp the meaning of what follows.

ioo THE LOVE OF GOD prayer, given to foolishness and natural affections, and to pouring themselves out on external things. At times they are still rude and impatient. Some use spiritual goods with too little detachment and thus expose themselves to greater danger than they met at the start, since excessive attachment to spiritual communications lays them open to the devil, and he delights to take them in with vain visions and false prophecies, making them presume to trust their own imaginings as the voices of God and His saints. 4 In this way he inflates their presumption, fills diem with pride, and leads them to affect the manners of sanctity and to give a display of raptures and other visible signs of apparent holiness. People dedicated to the apostolate manifest the same weakness in a slightly different form. They can, for example, mistake a kind of romantic lyricism for the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost and go far astray in teaching and in directing souls; or diey can apply quite true principles incorrectly; or make false mystics of those whom they would lead to divine union.

In regard to some of the advanced, St. John of die Cross has something further to add: "In some of these souls so many falsehoods and deceits are multiplied and so persistent do they become, that it is very doubtful if such souls will return to the pure road of virtue and true spirituality." The holy doctor says that this subject is inexhaustible, despite the fact that he considers only faults reladve to the interior life. What would it be then if we were also to consider faults that wound charity and even justice in the relations of these souls with others, whether superiors, equals, or inferiors; also, if we took up whatever taints teaching, the apostolate, and the government and direction of souls, if those referred to are engaged in such work?

THE PASSIVE PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL 101 Spiritual pride takes many different forms: jealousy, secret ambidon, intellectual pride, and an autocratic assertion of authority on one hand, and broad-minded and culpable indulgence on the other. For we meet the seven capital sins transposed into the spiritual life, where they work it grave harm.

All this evidences the necessity for the "strong lye" of the night of the soul. Without it the purity necessary for divine union will always be lacking. 5

Therefore, since these proficients are still at a very low stage of progress, and follow their own nature closely in the intercourse and dealings which they have with God, because the gold of their spirit is not yet purified and refined, they still think of God as little children, and speak of God as little children, and feel and experience God as little children, even as St. Paul says, because they have not reached perfection, which is the union of the soul with God. In the state of union, however, they will work great things in the spirit, even as grown men, and their works and faculties will then be divine rather than human. 8

In these words of St. John of the Cross we have a clear statement that the perfection of Christian life is normally of the mystical order, since it presupposes the purification of the senses and of the soul, both passive and distinctly defined mystical states.

Description of the night of the soul

As the night of die senses is marked by privation of sensible consolations, although it consists chiefly in the beginning of an unfelt and wholly spiritual life, the dawning of infused contemplation, so the night of the soul at first seems to mean s Ibid.

I02 THE LOVE OF GOD the loss of what lights the soul had previously received. In reality, what is happening is that a much more intense light has begun to illumine and almost to dazzle the soul in regard to the depths of its own misery and the infinite greatness of

God.

"He [God] strips dieir faculties, affections, and feelings, both spiritual and sensual, both outward and inward, leaving the understanding dark, the will dry, the memory empty, and die affections in the deepest affliction, bitterness and straitness, taking from the soul the pleasure and experience of spiritual blessings which it had aforetime." 7 This is the nakedness or poverty of spirit to which the beatitude refers when it says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." The understanding knows darkness, the will constraint, for it loves and seeks its Lord in anxiety, the memory is anguished because of its inability to recall what it once knew. The soul must go forward in blind faith, the darkness of night for the natural powers. 8 Now we grasp the full meaning of St. Thomas' principle that the object of faith is hidden and unseen and can neither be immediately evident nor be proven to us, no matter how great our faith may be. 9 With increasing experience of this truth, the soul leaves behind the base mode it had of understanding God, the miserable way it used to love Him, and the limited manner it once had of experiencing Him. 10 It cannot be said that the soul discerns nothing in this dark night because, without seeing it, it is drawing nearer and nearer to the infinite greatness and purity of God, which no idea of ours could ever represent. Then by contrast the soul

perceives its own misery much better than ever before. This doctrine throws much light on the life of the Cure of Ars and the inner torments he experienced, since his greatest suffering came from the fact diat he felt himself to be so far from the priesdy ideal. In the obscurity of faith, he saw more and more clearly die greatness of the priestly character and the immense needs of the countless souls that came to him. 11 In such circumstances the soul's pain resembles what weak and unhealthy eyes suffer when looking at an intense light. "When this pure light assails the soul, in order to expel its impurity, the soul feels itself to be so impure and miserable that it believes God to be against it, and diinks that it has set itself up against God. This causes it so much grief and pain (because it now believes diat God has cast it away) that one of the greatest trials which Job felt when God sent him this experience, was as follows, when he said: 'Why hast Thou set me against Thee, so that I am grievous and burdensome tomyself?'" 12

Seeing its own impurity, until now unsuspected, the soul is persuaded that it has lost all piety and is unfit for God or man. It cannot look forward to being any different or to possessing the good diings it once knew and has now lost. In a flood of obscure divine light all its infidelities lie exposed before it, and it sees that by its own power it cannot act

11 'In myself I see nothing but my sins," he said. "Yet God docs not let me see all of them because I would be too tempted to despair. I have no other defense against this temptation than to throw myself down before the tabernacle, a dog at the feet of his master." At another time he said: "There arc, of course, many good and upright priests; but to celebrate Mass a priest should be holy. Only in heaven will the full value of one Mass be known." He suffered much because of his sins and because of his inability to convert more sinners and bring them back to the way of salvation.

I04 THE LOVE OF GOD otherwise. It suffers to find in itself nothing but reasons why God should abandon it, while it yet loves Him with all its strength. It experiences that holy hatred of self spoken of by St. Catherine of Siena, having nothing but contempt for diat self compounded of pride, egoism, and self-love. What St. Augustine had to say about the two cities begins to be realized : from die love of self unto contempt of God arises the city of evil, and from the love of God unto contempt of self, the city of God. 13 Our Savior's words receive strong confirmation: "He that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal." 14 The just man now really begins to love to be forgotten and to be despised by men: amare nesari et pro nihilo reptttari.

At times diis imports such agony that the sufferer would regard it as a relief to be able to die, making us remember the words spoken by the prophet Elias when crushed by the difficulties of his apostolatc: "It is enough for me, take away my soul: for I am no better dian my fathers." 15 The infinite perfection of God, widiout being seen, in some way makes itself felt and becomes like an enormous and invisible burden weighing down the soul. Dominated by this oppression, the soul sees itself as entirely unacquainted with divine favor and believes itself deprived of every support and bereft of all pity. The twenty-first psalm, remembered by Christ on the cross, gives deep expression to this experience: "O God my God, look upon me: why hast Thou forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my sins. O my God, I shall cry by day, and Thou wilt not hear: and by night, and it shall

THE PASSIVE PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL 105 not be reputed as folly in me. But Thou dwellest in the holy place, the praise of Israel. In Thee have our fathers hoped: they have hoped, and Thou hast delivered them. They cried to Thee, and they were saved. . . . But I am a worm, and no man ; the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people. . . . From my mother's womb Thou art my God, depart not from me. For tribulation is very near : for there is none to help me."

Undergoing a similar trial, Job cried out: "Having pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, because the hand of the Lord hath touched me." 16 The soul feels itself languishing and dying by a cruel spiritual death and it must abide in the dark tomb until the coming of the spiritual resurrection for which it hopes. 17 Until that day, it seems to the soul that it has lost every natural and supernatural good, diat prayer itself has become impossible. A deep void cleaves down into the soul, its higher and lower powers are completely impoverished, and it feels the shadow of death over it, experiencing an inner destruction that goes to its very substance. Every remedy appears useless, every hope, lost. If it prays, it does so with such aridity that God seems no longer to hear it. "Yea, and when I cry," says Jeremias, "He hath shut out my prayer." 18

The whole description of the night of the soul can be summed up in the statement that the soul now knows what it never before suspected, die depths of its own misery, and by contrast it has a growing realization of God's infinite greatness, apparently inaccessible for such as itself. Three complementary signs complete the description: they will be

I0 6 THE LOVE OF GOD discussed later. For the present it is enough to say that purgation of soul is usually accompanied by strong temptations against faith— its object seems so distant; against hope- God's help no longer makes itself felt; against charity— the Lord has apparently cruelly deserted the tried man at the very time when his friends have forsaken him or remained at his side only to prove Job's comforters. In comparison to sufferings such as these, the trials of the night of the senses and its concomitant temptations against chastity and patience are of small moment.

On the degree to which the soul will later be raised depends the length and severity of its purgation. However, if such a refining process is to achieve its final end, its severest phase will last for some years. 19 The soul works its way forward through a tunnel of darkness, catching occasional glimpses of daylight. Ordinarily the more intense a purgation is, the shorter it lasts. 20 The description of it given by St. John of the Cross presents it as it takes place in all its intensity and fullness in the saints, as he himself had to undergo it. Often, however, it is found in lower degrees and in less contemplative forms, united to the trials encountered in the apostolate.

St. Gregory spoke of this state in his commentaries on the Book of Job; 21 after him, Hugh of St. Victor 22 and Tauler gave descriptions of it which, though lacking the compass and depth of that given by St. John of the Cross, provided the framework for it. 23 St. Teresa treats of it somewhat at

23 Cf. Tauler, those passages where he speaks of faith denuded of all consolation, naked faith, especially the first sermon for the feast of the Blessed Trinity.

His disciples have made a summary of this doctrine in the Institutions, chap. 12:

length at the beginning of the sixth mansion before taking up the subject of spiritual betrothal, showing at what period she thought this purification generally appears. 24 St. Angela of Foligno, too, has left us a description entirely in accordance with the one given in The Dar{ Night. 26 Lastly, in almost all lives of the saints that make an attempt to unveil the mystery of their inner life, we find similar descriptions in those chapters dealing with their interior suffering and heroic practice of the theological virtues. Again and again we encounter different degrees of what at bottom is always the same purgation of soul, not merely in pure contemplatives, but in active souls like St. Vincent de Paul, too, as we realize when we recall the temptations which he had against faith for almost four years. So terrible were they that he wrote the Credo on a piece of paper and wore it over his heart so that

"Very spiritual people who have arrived at the highest degree of contemplation sometimes feel themselves so overwhelmed by their own inner poverty that they would be willing to suffer any kind of death, no matter how hard or violent, if God so willed, that they might thereby be delivered from their indigence. No spiritual consolation relieves them, and their interior affliction penetrates to the very marrow of their bones . . . making them wither away with grief. . . . They can find no consolation in creatures. . . . God treats His elect in this way . . . often leaving them in such utter want and terrible interior dryness, that they believe themselves to be entirely deprived of grace, of faith, of charity, and of every kind of good." -

24 Sixth Mansion, chap, i : "One of the severe trials of dicsc souls ... is their belief that God permits them to be deceived in punishment for their sins. . . . Especially is this the case when such spiritual dryness ensues that die mind feels as if it never had thought of God nor ever will be able to do so. When men speak of Him, they seem to be talking of some person heard of long ago."

28 "I see myself destitute of everything good, empty of every virtue and grace, and full of many vices and vanities. Hope has left me and mercy has hidden herself. I behold myself as the abode of Satan, his tool, his dupe, his daughter, without uprightness or truth, worthy of the lowest depths of hell fire. ... In soul and body I see nothing but defects: God is shut away and hidden from me; to remember Him serves only to confound me. . . . There are no doors or windows through which to escape. ... In the deep abyss into which I have fallen I find no remedy for all these evils." Le Litre de la Bsc Angele, p. 82; also Boll. Acta sanct., January 4, nos. 39 and 40.

he could put his hand over it and reassure himself that he had not consented to the thoughts that obsessed him. It was by passing through the crucible of this suffering that he was purified and attained to sanctity.

The theological explanation of passive purification: its causes and end

In describing this state, we have just determined where it is found — chiefly in the highest part of the soul, the spiritual powers, and what its essential character is — the deep experimental knowledge of our misery and of God's infinite majesty, together with great spiritual aridity and an earnest desire for perfection. These constitute what can be called the material and formal causes of this state. The proximate efficient cause, as well as the principle and end of this grievous and obscure contemplation remain to be considered.

The causal explanation of the state of purgation given by St. John of the Cross is theological, given in the light of revelation as contained in Scripture and tradition. Theology teaches us that faith is a supernatural gift of God, that the Holy Ghost is within us together with His sevenfold gifts, and from theology we learn also how faith and the gifts attain dieir full growth. The author of The Dar\ Night finds the principle for his explanation in scriptural texts. After noting the chief ones given, we shall go on to discover in what sense he understands them and how his thought conforms completely to what St. Thomas tells us of the purifying role of the gift of understanding.

In the Book of Wisdom it is said of the just: "As gold in the furnace He hath proved them, and as a victim of a holocaust

He hath received them." 26 In the crucible gold is purified of all dross, and holocaustal offerings are entirely consumed by fire for God's honor. The soul of a saint is a sort of spiritual diamond offering no obstacle to divine light, and it takes no ordinary flame to make diamonds out of coal. In his Lamentations, Jeremias says: "From above He hath sent fire into my bones, and hath chastised me." 27 In the light of die fire consuming him the prophet sees clearly both the gravity of Israel's sins and the justice and goodness of the Most High, and he begs God earnesdy for deliverance.

Like gold, the soul is purified by fire; but as the soul must realize its misery and desire to be freed of its dross, the fire purifying it must make God's infinite riches and its own radically opponent poverty more evident to it in the obscurity of faith. Growth in diis knowledge leads to such an ardent love of God that die soul has nothing but contempt for itself. "Who can understand sins? From my secret ones cleanse me, O Lord." 28 "My substance is as nothing before Thee." 29 "The Lord . . . will bring to light the hidden diings of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts." 80 "Enlighten my eyes that I never sleep in death." 81 "O my God, enlighten my darkness." 82 "Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels. Cast me not away from Thy face; and take not Thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation: and strengthen me

*«Wisd. 3:6. "Lam. 1: 13. "Ps. 18: 13. 29 Ps. 38:6. 3 °lCor. 4:5. « Ps. 12: 4. SJ Ps. 17:29.

no THE LOVE OF GOD with a perfect spirit." 33 The soul asks Christ to realize within it His own words, "I am come to cast fire on the earth: and what will I, but that it be kindled ?" 84 Christ answers inwardly by His grace just as if He were saying: "You would not seek Me, if you had not already found Me." The ardent love growing in a purified soul is a fire burning and consuming all that cannot be quickened by divine charity. Often we long for souls to receive light and strength, and in this way our desires for them are wonderfully fulfilled.

St. John of the Cross explains these texts of Scripture just quoted by saying simply: "This dark night is an inflowing of God into the soul, which purges it from its ignorances and imperfections, habitual, natural, and spiritual, and which is called by contemplatives infused contemplation, or mystical theology. Herein God secretly teaches the soul and instructs it in perfection of love, without its doing anything, or understanding of what manner is this infused contemplation." 88

Repeating the comparison made by Hugh of St. Victor, 36 the holy doctor adds:

For the greater clearness of what has been said, and of what has still to be said, it is well to observe at this point that this purgative and loving knowledge or divine light whereof we here speak acts upon the soul which is purged and prepared for perfect union with it in the same way as fire acts upon a log of wood in order to transform it into itself; for material fire, acting upon wood, first of all begins to dry it, by driving out its moisture and causing it to shed the water which it contains within itself. Then it begins to make it black, dark, and unsightly, and even to give forth a bad

odour, and, as it dries it little by little, it brings out and drives away all the dark and unsightly accidents which are contrary to the nature of fire. And, finally, it begins to kindle it externally and give it heat, and at last transforms it into itself and makes it as beautiful as fire. . . .

In this same way we have to philosophize with respect to this divine fire of contemplative love, which, before it unites and transforms the soul in itself, first purges it of all its contrary accidents. It drives out its unsightliness, and makes it black and dark, so that it seems worse than before and more unsightly and abominable than it was wont to be. For diis divine purgation is removing all the evil and vicious humours which the soul has never perceived because they have been so deeply rooted and grounded in it; it has never realized, in fact, that it has had so much evil within itself. But now that they are to be driven forth and annihilated, these humours reveal themselves, and become visible to the soul . . . and, as it sees in itself that which it saw not before, it is clear to it that it is not only unfit for God to see it, but that it deserves His abhorrence and that He does indeed abhor it. 37

This means a purgatory before death, purifying the soul not by material fire but through the spiritual fire of contemplation and of love. St. John of the Cross says that an hour of purgation here being worth many hereafter, a soul so treated in this world either has no need to make expiation in the next life or stays in purgatory only a short time. 38 While on earth we are purified while meriting and growing in charity, whereas after death we are purified widaout meriting, the time of merit being past.

The supernatural light coming from God to the soul at this time is not merely the light of infused faith, although

in THE LOVE OF GOD this surely is deeply at work because the soul lives more and more in the spirit of faith; but the Holy Ghost exercises a further and special influence over it through the gift of understanding, perfectly in harmony with faith. As St. John of the Cross says, the soul, being now united to divine love, no longer loves according to its own lowly nature but with the strength and purity of the Holy Ghost, 39 receiving a new way of looking at things since the light and grace of the Holy Ghost is as different from natural knowledge as the divine is from die human. "For this night is gradually drawing the spirit away from its ordinary and common experience of things and bringing it nearer the divine sense, which is a stranger and an alien to all human ways. It seems now to the soul that it is going forth from its very self, with much affliction." 40

The doctrine of St. John of the Cross seems to be fully in accord with what St. Thomas teaches concerning the gift of understanding as principle of a new penetration and purification. "The stronger the light of the understanding, the further can it penetrate into the heart of things. Now the natural light of our understanding is of finite power; wherefore it can reach to a certain fixed point. Consequently man needs a supernatural light in order to penetrate further still so as to know what it cannot know by its natural light: and this supernatural light which is bestowed on man is called die gift of understanding." 41 What God bestows is called the gift of understanding and not of reason, because what is designated is something higher than reasoning, a kind of

THE PASSIVE PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL n| knowledge as simple and penetrating as a shaft of light. 42 Whereas faith makes us simply hold to revealed truths, this gift helps us to perceive them in some way, keeping us from taking diem for inventions of men or doubting them because of objections from unbelievers. 48 It perfects our first grasp of the truths of faith and disposes us the better to judge them and experience them by the gift of wisdom. 44 It dissipates dullness of mind ; our Lord was thinking of it when He said: Qui potest capere, capiat. Happy are those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, who grasp the spirit beneath the letter, who take hold of the divine reality hidden under figure, symbol, and parable. The gift of understanding is at once contemplative and practical, since it considers eternal truths both in themselves and so far as they are the supreme law of human conduct. 46 It shows us what is blameworthy in ourselves much better than the most careful examination of conscience and reveals the value of our last end with the clarity of a lightning flash. 46

Further, as St. Thomas tells us, the gift of understanding frees our mind of speculative and practical errors and from attachment to sensible imagery. 47 Moreover, together with faith, it serves as the principle of a high degree of contemplation. "The sight of God is twofold. One is perfect, whereby God's essence is seen: the other is imperfect, whereby, though we see not what God is, yet we see what He is not; and whereby, the more perfectly do we know God in this life,

ii 4 THE LOVE OF GOD the more we understand that He surpasses all that the mind comprehends. Each of these visions of God belongs to the gift of understanding; the first, to the gift of understanding in the state of perfection, as possessed in heaven; the second, to the gift of understanding in its state of inchoation, as possessed by wayfarers." 48 In the same article St. Thomas explains how the gift of understanding purifies our hearts and corresponds to the beatitude, "Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God." By it we apprehend more and more clearly that the most highly endowed creature is nothing of itself and that God alone is eternally subsistent being, in whom essence and existence are one and the same. "I am who am." 49

St. Thomas has much the same to say elsewhere when showing that uniform infused contemplation in some way demands the sacrifice of the senses and of discursive reasoning:

In intelligible operations, that which is simply uniform is compared to circular movement. . . . Wherefore Dionysius assigns the circular movement of the angels to the fact that their intuition of God is uniform and unceasing. . . . But on the part of the soul, ere it can arrive at this uniformity, its twofold lack of uniformity needs to be removed. First, that which arises from the variety of external things: this is removed by the soul withdrawing from externals, and so the first thing he mentions regarding the circular movement of the soul is the soul's withdrawal into itself from external objects. Secondly, another lack of uniformity requires to be removed from the soul, and this is owing to the discoursing of reason. This is done by directing all the soul's operations to the simple contemplation of intelligible truth, and this

is indicated by his saying in the second place that the soul's intellectual powers must be uniformly concentrated; in other words, that discoursing must be laid aside and the soul's gaze fixed on the contemplation of the one simple truth. . . . Afterwards these two things being done, he mentions thirdly the uniformity which is like that of the angels, for then all things being laid aside, the soul continues in the contemplation of God alone. 50

This turning of the intellectual powers around their center, closes them, so to say, like the spirals of a conch, so that external things are shut out and they are left open only to a simple and obscure but more and more penetrating intuition of God.

This penetration comes, we see, from the gift of understanding. Its infused and purifying light makes known to us the most hidden recesses of our conscience, the secret intentions of our heart, and, on the other hand, it enables us to go beyond the letter of God's word to reach its spirit, and it makes us see, as we could not see before, that, just as the firmament is far vaster than the stars that map it out for us, so is God above any distinct idea whatever that we can have of Him, even though it is given to us by revelation. The light of the gift of understanding discovers to us that the Deity or inner life of God (what makes God to be God) is above every perfection that is common in an analogous way to Him and to us, that the Deity is greater than being, unity, truth, goodness, intellect, and love.

To grasp the intimate reconciliation of divine immutability and the freedom of the creative act, of inexorable justice and infinite mercy, of sovereign wisdom and of that good pleasure which seems at times arbitrary, we would need to have

„6 THE LOVE OF GOD an immediate apprehension of the Deity itself. 81 All these perfections exist formally and eminently in God and, far from being destroyed by being united in the eminence of the Godhead, they are found there in a pure state, with no trace of imperfection. 52 Whereas the seven colors of the rainbow exist only virtually in white light, the divine perfections exist formally in the eminence of the Deity but according to a transcendent mode inaccessible to us. Deltas est super ens et super unum, as Dionysius says, and Cajetan joyfully repeats. 08 The highest theological speculation accords then with what the mystics tell us of the great darkness that envelops the soul. "What my soul sees," Angela of Foligno says, "cannot be conceived by thought or expressed in words. I see nodiing and I see all; the more the infinite good is beheld in darkness, the more certain it becomes to us and the more it surpasses all things. ... All the graces that have been accorded to me amount to very little in comparison to the infinite good diat I see in the divine darkness." 54

The reason for the darkness and suffering resulting from the infused light of understanding

There are three reasons why the light God sends us seems like darkness and brings so much suffering. They are: the sublimity of God's mysteries, our own impurity, and the

81 Certainly God need not have created. He is not greater for having brought the universe into existence; nevertheless, although His creative act is sovereignly free, it is not contingent and accidental and capable of non-existence. In God all that He is is identified with His absolutely necessary and immutable essence. For us to be able to reconcile His immutability with the freedom of His creative act we would have to see the divine essence such as it is in itself, siculi est.

" God. His Existence and His Nature, 11, 187 ff.

64 Arnaud, Boll. Acta sand., January 4, c.4, nos. 72-76- temptations of the devil. In regard to the first, it comes about precisely because the Deity or inner life of God is infinitely above every sensible image, whether actual or potential. To see the Godhead as It is in Itself, sicuti est, It would have to be presented to us without any intermediary. 65 And the more we understand the incapacity of all created ideas, whether of men or of angels, to reveal the uncreated and infinite light to us, the more inaccessible diis light seems to us. It has, not the infra-intellectual mysteriousness of matter, but the ultra-luminous darkness of supreme truth, of truth too intelligible for us to grasp. Sunlight is darkness for the owl. Its eyes are not strong enough to bear such brightness. Comparably, the intellectual and eternally subsistent brilliance of God is darkness to any created intelligence, whether angelic or human, as long as it is not uplifted and strengthened by the light of glory, as are the elect in the homeland of heaven.

In order to prove the first point, we must here assume a certain doctrine of the philosopher, which says that, the clearer and more manifest are divine things in themselves, the darker and more hidden are they to the soul naturally; just as, the clearer is the light, the more it blinds and darkens the pupil of the owl, and, the more directly we look at the sun, the greater is the darkness which it causes in our visual faculty, overcoming and overwhelming it through its own weakness. In the same way, when this divine light of contemplation assails the soul which is not yet wholly enlightened, it causes spiritual darkness in it . . . not that this is so in fact, but that it is so to our weak understanding, which is blinded and darkened by so vast a light, to which it cannot attain. 58

n8 THE LOVE OF GOD

Now this is a thing that seems incredible, to say that, the brighter and purer is supernatural and divine light, the more it darkens the soul, and that, the less bright and pure is it, the less dark it is to the soul. Yet this may well be understood if we consider what has been proved above by the dictum of the philosopher — namely, that the brighter and the more manifest in themselves are supernatural things the darker are they to the understanding. 57

Our natural knowledge comes, in fact, from sensible things, a mirror through which from below and very imperfectly it reaches purely spiritual realities. For us the statement that "the sun exists" is clearer than that "God is," notwithstanding the fact that God alone is eternally subsistent being itself. Time seems clearer to us than eternity, in spite of the fact that a fleeting moment is in itself less intelligible than the nunc stans, die changeless now, of eternity, in which God possesses all at once, tota stmul, His whole life without beginning or end. The decrees of Providence that we find hardest to understand are the most enlightened in themselves. The Savior's passion, the worst time of darkness and discouragement for the apostles, was Christ's greatest victory over sin and Satan, far greater than His triumph over death by the glorious miracle of the resurrection, itself only a sign of confirmation for the Consummatum est of Good Friday.

The more hidden a revealed mystery is, the more devotion St. Teresa had for it. Her intense charity made her prefer to love and delight in all that is most obscure and mysterious in the faith, whatever transcends all rational evidence and every express formula. So, too, the most brilliant passages in the doctrine of St. Paul, of St. Augustine, and of St. Thomas on the transcendent efficacy of the divine causality working in

THE PASSIVE PURIFICATION OF THE SOUL 119 us both to will and to accomplish 68 will always be enveloped in mystery in this life. A divine obscurity at the opposite pole from incoherence and absurdity enshrouds them. The higher, simpler, and more unalterable supernatural things are, the more obscure they seem to us, since our knowledge is generally drawn from sensible, multiple, composite, and changing things. Now the infused light of understanding belongs to the same order as the supernatural objects which it makes us able to penetrate; like them it seems dark, although we receive from it the spirit of the divine word and enter by it into the supreme simplicity of God.

St. John of the Cross tells us that the divine ray of contemplation transcends the soul's natural powers and thus darkens and deprives it of all natural affections and apprehensions which it apprehended aforetime by means of natural light; and thus it leaves it not only dark, but likewise empty, according to its faculties and desires, both spiritual and natural. And by thus leaving it empty and in darkness, it purges and illumines it with divine spiritual light even when the soul thinks not that it has this light, but believes itself to be in darkness, even as we have said of the ray of light, which, although it be in the midst of the room, yet, if it be pure and meet nothing on its path, is not visible. With regard, however, to this spiritual light by which the soul is assailed, when it has something to strike— that is, when something spiritual presents itself to be understood, however small a speck it be and whether of perfection or imperfection, or whether it be a judgment of the falsehood or the truth of a thing— it then sees and understands much more clearly than before it was in these dark places. 69

St. Thomas makes an analogous observation concerning the

inspiration or illumination coming to us from the angels. 60 A second reason why the divine light seems obscure and sometimes causes much suffering, is the impurity of our own souls. As St. Augustine tells us, the same light that healthy eyes enjoy cannot be borne by those that are unsound. "And when the soul is assailed by this divine light, its pain, which results from its impurity, is immense; because, when this pure light assails the soul, in order to expel its impurity, the soul feels itself to be so impure and miserable that it believes God to be against it, and thinks it has set itself up against God." 61 There are some truths that we do not wish to hear and will not let others tell us. If God efficaciously wills to lead us to perfection, He Himself will come to make us listen to them, even if this causes us terrible suffering.

A third and further cause for suffering springs from temptations arising against faith, hope, and charity. Although making heroic acts of these virtues, acts simple, direct, and often unperceived, the soul wonders whether it may not have consented to temptation ; it becomes so bewildered in its reasoning that it begins to think itself abandoned by God and is unable to feel that it can ever reach Him. 02 The more it loves Him, the more it suffers, knowing the same sort of ebb and flow that the souls in purgatory must bear, for it is carried toward God with the full uprush of its love and then feels

90 He remarks that men are not often conscious of having been enlightened by angels. Ia. q.iii, a.i, ad 311m: "Intellectual operation and enlightenment can be understood in two ways: First, on the part of the object understood; thus whoever understands or is enlightened, knows that he understands or is enlightened, because he knows that the object is made known to him. Secondly, on the part of die principle; and thus it does not follow that whoever understands a truth, knows what the intellect is, which is the principle of the intellectual operation. In like manner, not everyone who is enlightened by an angel, knows that he is enlightened by him."

itself turned back by its well-known wretchedness, fearing much to offend Him whom it would love above all tilings.

As a result of such a purgation the three dieological virtues show marked growth, having been frequently constrained to make heroic acts to overcome temptation and thus taking deep root in the soul and becoming purified of every defect. The gifts accompanying these great virtues also increase proportionately with them. St. John of the Cross gives an excellent description of the state of deliverance of the purified soul when he says: "It has pleasure in nothing and understands nothing in particular, but dwells in emptiness, darkness, and obscurity"; yet, as he goes on to say, "it embraces everything with great adaptability, to the end that those words of St. Paul may be fulfilled in it: having nodiing, and possessing all things. For such poverty of spirit as this would deserve such happiness." 68

The fire of love, . . . like material fire acting upon wood, begins to take hold upon the soul in this night of painful contemplation. . . . This is an enkindling of love in the spirit, where, in the midst of these dark afflictions, the soul feels itself to be keenly and acutely wounded in strong divine love. . . .

And inasmuch as this love is infused, it is passive rather than active, and thus it begets in the soul a strong passion of love . . . and may thus attain to a true fulfillment of the first commandment, which sets aside nothing pertaining to man nor excludes from this love anything that is his, but says: Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul and with all thy strength. 64

For a completely faithful soul the living flame of love is the normal development of charity in this life. In darkness

and suffering, "in this vale of tears," it is the prelude of eternal life. 65 We can understand then how a soul purified in such a meritorious way, passes immediately from eardi to heaven without remaining in purgatory, where merit is no longer possible. 60 Such is the perfect order willed by God. The just who are even more docile in time of trial than in time of consolation and never give up pushing on toward God are ready for the rendezvous fixed by Him for the moment after death. They enter at once into their heavenly home and receive their reward, the very happiness of God; and they find the highest aspirations of our nature fulfilled and exceeded, and also the burning supernatural desires aroused during the night of the soul fully satisfied: "But as for me, I will appear before Thy sight in justice: I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear." 67

•«Cf The Dark Night. Bk. II, chap. 6, at the end. Only through their own fault, by neglecting precious graces, do souls go to purgatory after death; if they had been faithful they would have been purified while meriting in this life according to the order established by divine Providence for completely generous souls.

« In a recent work, Vnidad especifica de la contemplacion crtstiana (a Ctenaa Tomista abstract, 1926), pp. 15-20, Father Ign. G. Menendcz-Rcigada, O P, shows that Christian contemplation is essentially supernatural and infused and, because of that, far superior to acquired contemplation, whether of a philosophical or theological kind. He makes it quite plain that the soul must therefore undergo a passive purification. He says that apparent evidences for supernatural truths resulting either from the sensible symbols used to express them or from wel ordered lines of reasoning employed to interpret them remain in the insufficiently supernaturalized mind as a sort of sediment or dregs. Such evidence is only subjective, for the mysteries of faith arc obscure and inevident. During the passive purification of the soul, the gift of understanding makes us discern this truth more and more clearly, showing us how the object of pure faith is above the light of sensible symbols and human reasoning. It seems to souls purified in this way that they lack faith- but they have lost nothing but its natural bases, certain natural evidences with which their supernatural act of faith has been alloyed. Thus faith is purified of every alloy, of every natural sediment, and it cleaves more and more to the mysteries of faith in their essentially supernatural character, for the wholly pure, entirely supernatural, supra-rational formal motive of divine revelation whereby, with one and the same act, we believe in God revealing and in what He reveals, Credimus Deo el credimus Deum, uno et eodem actu (essentialtter supernatural,). Cf. Ha Ilae, q.2, a. 2, c. et ad mm.

Footnotes

1. The Dark. Night, Bk. I, chap. 14. ↩