Chapter III. The Passive Purification of Hope
When faith has undergone its purgation, the passive purification of hope almost always follows immediately, as in the conversion of a sinner an act of hope follows upon an act of faith. The Lord goes back over the same furrow diat He has already plowed, further deepening it. The soul is now convinced that the only reality that matters, the one tiling necessary, is eternal life, but it wonders whether it can ever attain to it.
Hope is an essentially supernatural virtue by which we tend toward God as our supreme beatitude, while relying on His mercy and all-powerful help to bring us to Him. The primary object of hope is the possession of God for all eternity; the formal motive of this theological virtue is God as our helper, Deus auxilians, just as die formal motive of faith is God as the revealer, Veritas prima revelans.
Surely we have hope, for we desire to reach God and to possess Him forever and we often ask for the grace to be saved; but do we not somehow allow our hope to go straggling after temporal goods? These are things which we may deem useful for our salvation but which really are not, human goods which God knows will be harmful for us and prevent our having those greater goods that would come to us through detachment and humility. And is diere no alloy in the motive inspiring our hope? Certainly we hope; but do we not place too much confidence in ourselves, in our knowing how, our energy, our friends, in all the different human helps which we find at hand and which, when taken away, leave us discouraged and at a loss ? 1
God's part in the purgation of hope
To purify our hope, to give us a better understanding of its true object and pure motive, die good God may take away from us all temporal goods that are dear to us: position, apparently deserved honors, influence, and the human help that we can expect of friends. It may be diat, by a special and mysterious dispensation of Providence, superiors who have always shown esteem for us, no longer give any evidence of confidence in us, without, however, being at fault in the matter. At the same time we awaken to our own frailty and powerlessness and the gravity of our sins, and if unlooked-for obstacles rise up before us in our work and we meet stubborn opposition, calumnies, and illness, too, and all the natural props that once sustained us are withdrawn, shall we not still hope against all human hope for the sole and entirely supernatural motive diat God has lost nothing of His infinite power to help us ?
The saints have hoped with hope like this, placing their trust in divine grace, knowing that it is always offered for our salvation, believing firmly that the Lord does not first abandon us. The cry, "Never permit me to be separated from Thee," has gone up continually to God. Secure my hope.
H 6 THE LOVE OF GOD
Grant that I may hope, whatever happens. "In te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in aeternum."1 When Job had been despoiled of everything, he kept on hoping in God, saying, "The Lord gave, and die Lord hath taken away: as it hath pleased die Lord so is it done: blessed be the name of the Lord." 3 St. John the Baptist, having announced the kingdom of God and then seen it set upon by all the powers of the world, never gave up hoping in his prison. The apostles, and all the martyrs, too, had hope in the midst of persecution. Thrown into a dungeon with hardly enough light at any time of the day to say the Divine Office, St. John of the Cross did not relinquish his hope, although he could no longer see anything but obstacles to the work which it was his mission to accomplish.
Those passing through the night of the soul should hope against all hope, too. The supernatural light which God makes use of for dieir purification reveals so clearly the height of the ideal to be attained, the greatness of Christian perfection, that they are convinced diey have done nothing as yet to reach it, and that everything still remains to be done. As the Cure of Ars grew daily more enlightened in regard to the priesthood, his thoughts and feelings were of this kind, for the end to be attained seemed to him to be far, far, from what he was. The glimpses of the ideal which the soul catches in the God-given light accorded to it, make it perceive its own contrasting miseries so well, St. John of the Cross says, that it feels as if it were dying a cruel spiritual death, or as if God had rejected it in abhorrence and flung it into dark-2 ness. 4 It feels itself to be empty and poor, a stranger to grace. 6 Added to all this are memories of happier times for, as a rule, such people have received many consolations from God and have served Him zealously. When they are deprived of happiness and convinced that it will not return, they suffer twice as much because of His remembered bounty. 6
Furthermore, the Lord now allows these souls to be tempted by the devil, who seeks to attack the work of God and of the guardian angels on dieir own ground, trying to close off the approach to divine union, attempting to terrify, disturb, and harass. 7 He tempts souls especially against the mystery of predesdnation, against the righteousness of God's good pleasure, to make them see it as nothing more than an arbitrary caprice on His part. A voice seems to say to them: "If you are predestined, whatever you do you will be saved; if you are not, of what good are your prayers and struggles to make progress?" A wise director will answer to such suggestions: "That is just as silly as if a farmer were to say: 'If Providence has decreed for me to have wheat next summer, what good is it for me to till and sow ? If the harvest is not to be, die work will be so much loss.' Such talk is foolishness, because Providence and predestination have to do not only widi ends, but with the means leading there. Plow and sow if you wish to see the harvest." Sometimes the director can recall St. Catherine of Siena's tit-for-tat answer to the devil: "If I am predestined, what good are your efforts to bring about my ruin ? And if I am not, why give yourself so much
I4 8 THE LOVE OF GOD trouble?" Nevertheless, as St. Teresa remarks, the understanding of anybody so tempted is clouded and incapable of grasping the truth. It believes everything represented by the imagination and whatever foolery is suggested by the devil. 8
The evil voice keeps on: "Perhaps you are predestined but you do not know it. How, then, can you have any sure hope ?" The devil would like to make us believe that the certitude of hope lacks validity because it is not speculative like the certitude of faith, because it does not rest on the very fact of salvation itself. But our salvation is not certain: we can resist God's grace and, as a result, be deprived of other divine helps, perhaps the grace of a good death. Not only is the soul conscious of this fact, but it also believes that it discovers indications to die contrary and fears reprobation. Henry Suso knew fears such as this when die devil would say to him: "Of what use are good works to you, since you are already condemned ? Why do you struggle against the eternal decrees of God ?" 9 Full of compassion, a spiritual director can reply with St. Thomas that hope has not the same kind of certitude as faith. Faith's certitude in revealed mysteries is speculative whereas hope's is practical, a certitude grounded on a tendency infallibly directed toward the end to be attained, a trust in a God infinitely powerful and ready to help, who has given us divine promises of assistance. 10 We must not attempt to search into the unfathomable designs of God, 11 and one of the signs of predestination is found precisely in great interior
8 Interior Castle, Fourth Mansion, chap. I.
"•'Lebcn Seuses," Fr. a., G. Thiriot, O.P. (Paris: Lecoffre, 1899); (Euvres mystiques du B. Henri Suso. "11a Ilac, q.18, a. 4.
11 Cf. The Imitation of Christ, Bk. HI, chap. 58.
trials like these. Whoever bears them in union with our Lord, repeating the seven words which He Himself uttered during His agony, has a certain participation in die redemptive Passion. Evildoers may often, on the contrary, drink iniquity like water and in apparent tranquillity.
Answers of this kind fail to suffice when temptation grows more violent. St. Teresa tells us that during such storms we are incapable of receiving any consolation. 12 From Angela of Foligno we hear die same cry uttered so long ago by Jeremias. She says, "I no longer have any hope," 13 just as he exclaimed: "I am the man that sees my poverty by the rod of His indignation. He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, and not into light. Only against me He hath turned, and turned again His hand all the day. My skin and my flesh He hath made old, He hath broken my bones. He hath built round about me. . . . He hath built against me round about, that I may not get out. . . . Yea, and when I cry and entreat, He hath shut out my prayer. He hath shut up my ways with square stones, ... He hath made me desolate. He hath bent His bow, and set me as a mark for His arrows. . . . He hath filled me with bitterness. . . . And my soul is removed far off from peace, I have forgotten good things. And I said : My end and my hope is perished from the Lord." M
To overcome such temptations we, too, must make the same ardent prayer that the prophet then went on to add: "The mercies of the Lord that we are not consumed : because His commiserations have not failed; . . . therefore will I wait for Him." 15 Lord, the tested soul cries, give me hope,
12 Op. cit., Sixth Mansion, chap. i.
bring my hope back to life. And the soul never utters such a cry in vain. It may not always feel that it has been heard, but it keeps on praying, and that in itself is a sign that God has harkened to it for, without a new actual grace, prayer would not continue to well up from the heart. "You would not be seeking Me, had you not already found Me."
Sometimes temptations redouble, and the soul again cries out with the prophet: "Thou, O Lord, art just, if I plead with Thee, but yet I will speak what is just to Thee: Why doth the way of the wicked prosper: why is it well widi all them diat transgress, and do wickedly ?" 16 "How long, O Lord, shall I cry, and Thou wilt not hear ? Shall I cry out to Thee suffering violence, and Thou wilt not save?" 17 Job in his grief went much farther still: "One thing there is that I have spoken, let Him kill at once, and not laugh at die pains of the innocent. The earth is given into die hand of the wicked." 18 For a little while it may be the soul yields completely to the temptation to murmur. Sometimes even the urge to blasphemy raises its head.
For tins reason we must beg God anew to give us hope in Him, to create within us trust in His mercy: "Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed: save me, and I shall be saved: for Thou art my praise." 19 "Convert us, O Lord, to Thee, and we shall be converted: renew our days, as from the beginning." 20 "Arise, O Lord, help us and redeem us for Thy name's sake." 21 Then, with persevering prayer, heroic hope i« Jer. 12: 1. "Hab. I: I. 18 Job 9: 22-24. "»Jcr. 17=14- 20 Lam. 5:21. "Ps. 43:26.3
mounts higher and higher in die soul like a forgotten leitmotiv, very sweet and very strong, and soon becoming salient until, with a great burst of song, die soul hymns its complete trust and perfect abandonment. "For the Lord will not cast off forever. For if He hath cast off, He will also have mercy, according to the multitude of His mercies." 22 "The Lord killeth and maketh alive, He bringeth down to hell and bringedi back again." 23 "But they that hope in the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall take wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." 24 "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded." 25 The soul has a presentiment of the Savior's answer: "You shall want for help only when I have none to give."
Under the higher illumination of the gift of understanding, the soul discovers, as if at a glance, the infinite superiority of the formal motive of hope: almighty God as our help. What matter all the sorrows, the disillusionments, and contradictions of the world, if I reach the end of my journey to eternity? And what are the helps of men in comparison to those of God who never first abandons us? Permit me not, O Lord, to be separated from Thee. Grant that I may hope in Thee unto the end. In Thy hands my salvation is incomparably more secure than in my own. 26
26 It has sometimes been said that the Thomistic doctrine of grace cannot be reconciled with hope, an objection which is none other than that which presents itself to the mind during the night of the soul. St. Thomas' answer is that die formal motive of our hope cannot be our human effort, as though it were capable of making God's grace efficacious; its formal motive is almighty God as our helper; from Him proceeds intrinsically efficacious grace. Everything that has just been
I52 THE LOVE OF GOD
The first star has already appeared in the night of the soul: God, the First Truth revealing. Now a second star becomes brighter and brighter: God our helper. Beneath Him shine the two great mediators: Christ our Savior and Mary, His Mother and our aid. The soul really knows how powerless all natural energy is to accomplish the least supernatural act and with what truth St. Paul has said: "Not that we are sufficient to think anydiing of ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God." 27 "For it is God who worketh in you, both to will and to accomplish, according to His good said about the passive purification of hope strongly confirms St. Thomas' doctrine, which is exactly in line with St. Paul's and St. Augustine's and has its basis in our Lord's words, "Without Me you can do nothing."
Giving an account of her conversion, St. Teresa relates: "I used to pray to our Lord for help; but, as ii now seems to me, I must have committed the fault of not putting my whole trust in His Majesty, and of not thoroughly distrusting myself. ... I wished to live, but I saw clearly that I was not living . . . there was no one to give me life, and I was not able to take it. He Who could have given it me had good reasons for not coming to my aid, seeing that He had brought me back to Himself so many times, and I as often had left Him.
"It came to pass one day, when I went into the oratory, that I saw a statue which they had put by there ... a representation of Christ most grievously wounded. ... So keenly did I feel the evil return I had made for those wounds, that I thought my heart was breaking . . . and implored Him to strengthen me once for all, so that I might never offend Him any more.
"I had a very great devotion to the glorious Magdalene, and very frequently used to think of her conversion — especially when 1 went to communion. But this last time ... I seem to have made greater progress; for I was now very distrustful of myself, placing all my confidence in God. It seems to me that I said to Him then that I would not rise up till He granted my petition. I do certainly believe that this was of great service to me, because I have grown better ever since." Life, David Lewis, tr. (Westminster, Md.: Newman Book Shop, 1944). PP- 64-66.
Here St. Teresa shows that she finally understood that even our cooperation with grace comes from God; this doctrine, understood as she comprehended it, docs not cause us to cross our arms and rest in quictistic sloth; on the contrary it leads us to give more sustained attention to the divine promptings and to practice greater fidelity. If we demand too little of ourselves, it is because we fail sufficiently to consider the fact that "It is God who worketh in you both to will and to accomplish." "Lord," said St. Augustine, "give what Thou commandest and then command what Thou wilt."
THE PASSIVE PURIFICATION OF HOPE 153 will." 28 The same thought is expressed elsewhere in Scripture: "As the divisions of waters, so the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord; whithersoever He will He shall turn it." 29 "Who hath first given to Him?" 80 "So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." 31 "And there are diversities of operations, but the same God, who worketh all in all." 32 "For in Him we live and move and are." 33 "For of Him and by Him and in Him are all things." 34 The sweet and terrible mystery of predestination is no longer a stumbling block. The soul fully grasps the distance between the perfect holiness of God's good pleasure and the arbitrary nature of caprice and it says with St. Teresa that the harder divine things are to understand, the more devotion it has for them. 35 Their obscurity arises not because of any absurdity or incoherence on their part but because of the feebleness of the eyes that look upon their light.
Satan's part in the purgation of hope
In the twenty-third chapter of the second book of The Dar\ Night, St. John of the Cross makes it quite clear that in the passive purification of hope both the divine illuminating action and die activity of the devil are at work at one and the same time. Satan desires to keep the soul from mak-
I54 THE LOVE OF GOD ing progress, but God shows us how He makes use of His enemy's tempting to serve His own high purposes.
Wherefore, the more spiritual, the more interior, and the more remote from the senses is the communication, the farther does the devil fall short of understanding it.
And thus it is of great importance for the security of the soul that its inward communion with God should be of such a kind that its very sense of the lower part will remain in darkness and be without knowledge of it, and attain not to it . . . let it be a secret between the spirit and God alone.
It is quite true that oftentimes, when these very intimate and secret spiritual communications are present and take place in the soul, although the devil cannot get to know of what kind and manner they are, yet the great repose and silence which some of them cause in the senses and the faculties of the sensual part make it clear to him that they are taking place and that the soul is receiving a certain blessing from them. And then, as he sees that he cannot succeed in thwarting them in the depth of the soul, he does what he can to disturb and disquiet the sensual part, to which he is able to attain— now by means of afflictions, now by terrors and fears, with intent to disquiet and disturb the higher and spiritual part of the soul by this means, with respect to that blessing which it then receives and enjoys. But often, when the communication of such contemplation makes its naked assault upon the soul and exerts its strength upon it, the devil with all his diligence, is unable to disturb it. . . .
At other times, when the spiritual communication is not made in any great measure to the spirit, but the senses have a part therein, the devil more easily succeeds in disturbing the spirit . . . the devil is occasionally able to see certain favours which God is pleased to grant the soul when they are bestowed upon it by the mediation of a good angel . . . partly so that he may do that which he can against them according to the measure of justice . . . in proportion as God is guiding the soul and communing with it, He gives the devil leave to act with it after this manner. . . .
At other times the devil prevails and plunges the soul into a perturbation and horror which is a greater affliction to it than any torment in this life could be. For, as this horrible communication passes direct from spirit to spirit, in something like nakedness and clearly distinguished from all that is corporeal, it is grievous beyond what every sense can feel; and this lasts in the spirit for some time, yet not for long, for otherwise the spirit would be driven forth from the flesh by the vehement communication of the other spirit. Afterwards there remains to it the memory thereof, which is sufficient to cause it great affliction.
All that we have here described comes to pass in the soul passively, without its doing or undoing anything of itself with respect to it. But it must be known in this connection that, when the good angel permits the devil to gain this advantage of assailing the soul with this spiritual horror, he does it to purify the soul and to prepare it by means of this spiritual vigil for some great spiritual favour and festival which he desires to grant it, for he never mortifies save to give life, neither humbles save to exalt, which comes to pass shortly afterwards. Then, according as was the dark and horrible purgation which the soul suffered, so is the fruition now granted it of a wondrous and delectable spiritual contemplation, sometimes so lofty that there is no language to describe it. But the spirit has been greatly refined by the preceding horrors of the evil spirit, in order that it may be able to receive this blessing. 36
Earlier, when speaking of the yearning love which the soul experiences as its purgation progresses, St. John of the Cross says: "For it rises up by night (that is, in this purgative darkness) according to die affections of the will. And with die yearnings and vehemence of the lioness or die she-bear go-
I5 6 THE LOVE OF GOD ing to seek her cubs when they have been taken away from her and she finds them not, does tiiis wounded soul go forth to seek its God. For, being in darkness, it feels itself to be without Him and to be dying of love for Him. And this is diat impatient love wherein the soul cannot long subsist without gaining its desire or dying. Such was Rachel's desire for children when she said to Jacob: Give me children, else I shall die." 37 Suffering like this gives us some idea of what the souls in purgatory endure spiritually when they have reached the end of their purification and ardently desire the vision of God. 38
Pure hope and true abandonment to God's will
Now it becomes strikingly evident how mistaken the quietists are in counseling souls tried in this way and tempted to despair to make a sacrifice of their salvation on the pretext of attaining to pure love, just when they ought, with God's help, to be making heroic acts of hope. 39 Grace does not destroy but really perfects nature. Now man's will being specified by the good, he cannot do otherwise than will his own happiness, his final end. 40 Besides, the virtue of hope, far from being incompatible with perfect charity, draws more and more life from it. By hope we desire God, our supreme good, and subordinate ourselves to Him, instead of subordinating Him to ourselves. 41 By charity we love Him
88 Sec St. Catherine of Genoa on this point.
89 For propositions condemned as contrary to the faith, cf. Dcnzinger. The propositions of Molinos, no. 1232; the propositions of Fenclon, nos. 1334, 1335. 1338.
■">Cf. St. Thomas, la, q.82, a.i; la Ilae, q.5, a. 4, ad Jura and a. 8. « The virtue of hope is connected, in St. Thomas' opinion, with the love of concupiscence, which makes us will our own good, and is inferior to the love for Himself and desire our salvation so that we may glorify Him eternally. Any of us who endure trials of this nature should certainly accept them as long as it pleases God for them to last 42 but this is not making a sacrifice of our salvation. Any such sacrifice would include giving up the pure desire to glorify God eternally — something contrary to the very nature of our will and of charity. 43
The Church answers the counsels of the quietists with the words of the Psalms: "Preserve me, O Lord, for I have put my trust in Thee." 44 "In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped, let me never be confounded." 45 "Behold, God is my savior, I will deal confidently, and will not fear: because the Lord is my of friendship, which makes us will good to God, His glory, the radiation of His goodness in understanding and loving hearts. But we should distinguish between the love of concupiscence for things below us and the love of concupiscence for things above us. If I desire some fruit, I desire it for myself and because of myself, for my own sake, mi/ii et propter me; I subordinate it to myself. Whereas when I desire God, it is indeed for myself that I desire His supreme goodness, but I do not desire it because of myself, for my own sake, propter me; to subordinate it to myself as a means to an end, would be a perversion. God is the supreme good and my last end; by hope and by every act of real virtue I am ordered to Him; by charity I love Him for Himself and desire that for His own sake He be eternally known and loved. On this subject, see Cajctan, in Ham Ilae, q. 17, a. 5, no. 6.
*- On abandonment to the will of God, see the following works: Alexandre Piny, O.P., La plus par/aite del votes interieures, ou la vote d'abandon (t683); De Caussadc, S.J., Self-abandonment to Providence, tr. Thorold (London: Burns, Oatcs, 1933); Lchodcy, O.C.R., Holy Abandonment (Dublin: Gill, 1948). Abandonment to the divine will should tower like a great peak above the two extremes and opposing errors of (1) quicdsm, which denies the necessity of our cooperation and sacrifices all hope; (2) Pelagianism or Scmi-Pclagianism, which so exalts our cooperation as to belitdc God's sovereign dominion and the efficacy of divine grace. The true doctrine of abandonment recognizes that even our cooperation comes from God's grace: "Without Mc you can do nothing." It sustains our hope by telling us that our salvation is incomparably better assured in God's hands than in our own and makes us say always, "Never permit mc to be separated from Thee, O Lord."
43 Cf. Vol. I, chap. 2 of the present work.
strength, and my praise, and He is become my salvation." 49 The purified soul comes at last to sing of God's power: "The right hand of the Lord hath wrought strength. I shall not die, but live: and shall declare the works of the Lord." 47 An act of abandonment is united to its acts of perfect hope and perfect charity. "I love Thee, O my God, more than myself and above all things and I abandon myself to Thee, that Thou mayst give me to love Thee and glorify Thee eternally. My salvation is incomparably more assured in Thy hands than in mine. I adore Thy infinite justice and confide myself to Thy mercy."
In die midst of trials and calumnies saints have spoken these profound words: in the injustice of men we find the justice of God for the purgation of our hidden sins. During His passion our innocent Lord saw better dian anyone else ever has seen how God's justice lies in die injustice of men. That justice weighed upon Him, a victim in our stead, and He adored it with perfect abandonment, the fruit of love for God in this world.
When the great purification of hope has been accomplished, the soul understands the entire meaning and full beauty of the psalm, Confitemini Domino: "Give praise to the Lord, for He is good : for His mercy endureth forever. ... In my trouble I called upon the Lord: and the Lord heard me, and enlarged me. The Lord is my helper. I will not fear what men can do unto me. ... It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to have confidence in man. . . . The Lord is my strength and my praise: and He is become my salvation. ... I shall not die, but five: and shall declare
the works of the Lord." 48 Then indeed the Lord appears as the author of our salvation: "I am, I am the Lord: and there is no savior besides Me." 48 The soul knows as if experimentally that it is made for eternal life; it has a burning desire to possess God, yet God does not show Himself to it; and so begins its final purgation, the purification of charity or of love.
Some penetrating pages on this subject are to be found in La Croix de Jesus, written in 1647 by Louis Chardon, a Dominican. As remarked earlier, 50 the basic idea of this beautiful dogmatic and mystical book is that Christ's fullness of grace produced two great effects within His soul: first, the highest kind of happiness, an unalterable peace, that lasted even during the Passion, and secondly, an ardent desire for the cross as the means of our salvation, a desire which reduced Christ's blessed soul to grief and anguish. Although the second effect seems contrary to die first, it springs from it, just as the charity that drove Christ to save our souls proceeded from His love for the Father. Louis Chardon shows clearly not only how these two effects were reproduced in die souls of die Blessed Mother and the great saints but also how they ought to be found, too, in different degrees, in all members of Christ's mystical body, according to the measure of their union with Him. He shows plainly how Christ is at once die source of grace and the principle of the cross, giving diose intimately united to Him a share in His
60 Vol. I, Part I, chap. 4. Cf. this work, soon to be given another publication by Lcthiclleux, Paris, in its original text. Sec 2me cntretien, "Dcs diverses sortes de consolations ct de desolations par lesquellcs Dicu se communique aux ames saintes."
own deep peace, even when they are enduring those purifying and redemptive sufferings which, through the mystical body, in some way continue His passion until die end of time.
In accordance with these principles we do well frequendy to ask God to make known to us the obstacles that we more or less consciously place in the way of grace. At times souls hear the question: Wilt thou be perfect? They cannot help but answer: "Lord, if it is Thy desire to purify me, then purify me, even if it means diat I must suffer much, even if it means that I must shed my blood for Thee."
Footnotes
Chapter 25 of 37