Chapter I. The Abiding of the Blessed Trinity in Purified Souls and Transforming Union

By way of synthesis, we should now like to show how perfect union with God, prepared for by the passive purifications of the senses and spirit, is the normal result of the mysterious indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in the just. To accomplish this we shall first recall to mind the mystery as understood by St. Thomas and his best commentators; then we shall speak of St. John of the Cross as a great mystical doctor with an exceptional insight into the results which are achieved by our giving ourselves without any reservation to die true interior life.

Following the great spiritual audiors who preceded him and stating their doctrine exactly, St. John of the Cross shows, from the prologue of the Ascent of Mount Carmel up to the last pages of The Spiritual Canticle, that the Christian who gives himself generously to the interior life ami docs not hesitate to follow the royal road of the cross, should reach so close a union with the indwelling Trinity that it merits the name of transforming union. He sees the latter, coming as it does after the passive purification of the theological virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, as the supreme and therefore the rare, although the normal, development of the spiritual life.

The indwelling of the Blessed Trinity: source and end of the spiritual life Holy Scripture often speaks of the general presence of God in all things, which He conserves in existence but tells us just as positively— as was noted earlier 1 — of the special presence of the Blessed Trinity in the just. Christ says: "If anyone love Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him." " Evidently He is not talking here of the general presence of God in everything which He conserves in existence, but of His presence in the just who love Him above all things and keep His word. He accords to them not only the created gift of grace but, as our Lord says, "My Father and I will come to him and will make Our abode with him."

Three verses later, He tells us in the same chapter of St. John's Gospel: "But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all diings and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you." A little earlier, 8 He had already said: "If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever." St. John writes the same thought in his first epistle: "No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abideth in us, and His charity is perfected in us. . . . God is charity: and he that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him." 4 The same doctrine is frequently affirmed by St. Paul, for example, in die Epistle

to the Romans: "And hope confoundeth not: because the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us." 5 "Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ?" 6 "Or know you not, that your members are the temple of die Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?" 7

Earlier we saw how theology gives some understanding of diis mystery. 8 After the discussion of the passive purifications, the meaning and implication of the mystery should be more within our reach, and we may also gain some insight into why the divine indwelling normally results in transforming union.

Theology first shows what this special presence is in the just who have reached the perfect and definitive development of the life of grace, that is, the blessed in heaven. According to divine reveladon, it is certain that every soul in heaven is like a living, spiritual tabernacle. In each the triune God really dwells, is known as He knows Himself, and is loved and glorified eternally. Consummated grace, a participation in the divine nature, acts as the principle from which the light of glory proceeds. Because of it the blessed see the divine essence face to face, better than we see people with whom we converse. They are external to us whereas the beatified behold Him who sustains their natural and divine life in the depths of their own souls.

The life of grace and of charity in this world is basically the same as that in heaven : "If diou didst know the gift of

God," Jesus told the Samaritan woman, "and who He is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of Him, and He would have given thee living water ... a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting." 8 The life of grace is life eternal begun; for sanctifying grace, when definitively developed, consummated, and made inamissable, will be called glory, and will become the radical principle of the beatific vision. As for the charity that we bear within our hearts, it is to last for all eternity. There are indeed two essential differences between a Christian's life on earth and in heaven: in this life we attain to God only in the obscurity of faith and we also run the risk of losing Him; in heaven we shall take hold of Him in the clearness of vision with no fear or possibility of ever losing Him. In spite of these two differences, grace and glory are basically the same life, grace being the seed of glory. We see parallels in nature: basically the same life sleeps in the acorn and thrusts upward later in the vigorous oak; and die same life of reason slumbers in the infant and makes itself actively evident in the grown man.

If, therefore, die Blessed Trinity is present and seen unveiled in die souls of the blessed, it should surely be plain to us that the triune God dwells in the souls of the just here on earth. St. Paul's words glow with light from on high when he says: "The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the Holy Ghost, who is given to us." 10 And so we gain a better understanding of what our Lord means and implies in the words: "If anyone love Me ... We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him."

Theology gives us a more exact knowledge of the nature of this mysterious presence. It is not simply the presence of God through some representation of Him within us. A philosopher not in the state of grace can speculate about God and His attributes, and, according to revelation, the Blessed Trinity dwells not within him. Furthermore, a Christian in the state of mortal sin preserves infused faith and hope, thinks about God supernaturally, and even makes some inefficacious acts of love for God ; yet, according to Scripture, the Blessed Trinity dwells not widiin him. He knows the Blessed Trinity as a distant object imperfectly represented but not really present objectively widiin him. God is within him only as his conserving cause.

Every just soul possesses die special presence of God, a real, objective, and affective presence of the Author of grace. God is within the just man not as some distant object might be represented and loved but as one really present, one known as we know diings by experimental knowledge, as St. Thomas puts it. 11

God is really present in beings inferior to us not as an object of knowledge and of love but only as their conserving cause. For the Christian in the state of mortal sin, He is, so to say, like a distant object of faith and of hope. In the just he dwells really as an object present to them, and capable of being known quasi-experimcntally, of being loved and imperfecdy possessed, sometimes making Himself felt there as the very life of their life. 12

St. Thomas and many other doctors of the Church have dius understood this consoling point of revealed doctrine.

2 o 4 THE LOVE OF GOD

The three divine persons are really and substantially within us as the conserving cause of our natural and supernatural life; and they dwell there besides as die object of loving, quasi-experimental knowledge, most mysterious but very real, and attested to not only by great theologians but by revelation itself.

St. Paul speaks of it to the Romans: "For you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba (Father). For the Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God." 13 In commenting on this Epistle, St. Thomas says that the Holy Ghost gives us this testimony through the supernatural and filial love which He produces in us and which we know experimentally, although we may find it difficult to distinguish between it and a more or less sentimental natural impulse of love sometimes resembling it.

Our Lord Himself has said: "The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, nor knowedi Him; but you shall know Him; because He shall abide with you, and shall be in you." 14 And St. John also tells his disciples, "His unction teacheth you of all things." 18 Lastly, we read in the Apocalypse: "To him that overcometh, I will give the hidden manna, a spiritual nourishment and ... a new name written, which no man knoweth, but he that receiveth it." 16

Scripture plainly speaks in these texts of a quasi-experimental knowledge of God present within us. Such knowl-

edge alone, according to St. Thomas, can offer an explanation of how God, already present in all things as their conserving cause, becomes really present in a new and special manner in the just as a knowable, known, and loved object. Sanctifying grace, charity, and the gift of wisdom make us capable of possessing the Father, die Son, and the Holy Ghost, and, in the darkness of faith, taking a holy joy in Their presence before seeing Them face to face in eternity. 17

According to reveladon it must be so. If in fact the Holy Ghost has been given to us, we have received Him, and in a sense we possess Him and can revel with holy delight in His presence. Likewise the Fadier and the Son have come to us, with grace and charity, to make their abode. So divine revelation itself speaks and we ought now to have a better grasp of its sense and import.

If, by an impossible assumption, God were not already present in a just man as the conserving cause of his natural being, He would become really present in him as the productive and conserving cause of grace and of charity, and resultantly as an object of quasi-experimental knowledge and of the supernatural love of friendship. 18

The loving and quasi-experimental knowledge of God proceeds, St. Thomas says, from the gift of wisdom, the highest of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which makes us judge everything experimentally in relation to God, the author of salvation and our last end. Both theological wisdom and the gift of wisdom judge all tilings in relation to God. But theological wisdom is acquired by study and makes its judgments

18 Earlier in the present work (Vol. [, Part I, chap. 3) we have shown how St. Thomas' doctrine is superior to Vasquez's opinion and to the entirely contrary position of Suarez.

2o6 THE LOVE OF GOD according to reasoning founded on revelation; the gift of wisdom, on the odier hand, makes us judge divine things by a certain connaturality, a sort of supernatural sympathy with them founded on charity. 19 This takes place by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who uses this sympathy aroused by Him to make Himself felt within us. 20 Our interior Master makes us in some way taste the mysteries of salvation, showing us how much they conform, in spite of their obscurity, with our highest aspirations. He even gives us some foresight that just what seems most obscure about them is most divine, the darkness shrouding them coming not from their incoherence or absurdity but from the failure of our weak eyes looking upon so brilliant a light. Under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, a special sympathy is established between this transluminous obscurity and charity, an actual and profound sympadiy that becomes the principle of a lived and living knowledge far superior to reasoning. We can thus in some manner taste the mystery of the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity when it becomes apparent diat it fully conforms to the aspirations of charity awakened in us by God Himself.

However mysterious this knowledge may be, we find analogies to it in the natural order. A pure heart, St. Thomas says, knows as if by instinct what is pure without being taught. A loving son needs no psychological studies to teach him what his mother's ways reveal to him of her heart; and she herself, through her deep sympathy with him and more truly than reasoning could discover to her, knows the heart of her son.

John of St. Thomas brings out another, and striking, analogy. In the natural order, our spiritual soul, without seeing itself as it will see it when separated from the body, at present knows itself experimentally in the acts of which it is the principle, the operations of intellect and will. 21 It requires no reasoning to do this. 22 Thus, in a sense, but in a mysterious manner, the Holy Ghost gives to the just, inspires in the just, a kind of experimental knowledge of God through the supernatural acts of trust and filial love, of which He is the principle. Such knowledge pertains to the gift of wisdom and is far superior to reasoning. God, the author of grace and of salvation, thus becomes more intimate to us than we are to ourselves, inspiring widiin us profound acts that we ourselves could not produce, making Himself felt in some way within us as the life of our life. 23

21 Cf. John of St. Thomas, in lam, q.43, a. 3; also Gardeil, O.P., La structure de I'dme et V expedience mystique, II, 172-79. We must not forget, however, that for St. Thomas the separated soul and the angel do not know themselves experimentally without forming an inner word of themselves, for the separated soul and the angel arc in themselves intelligible in act but not actually known of themselves. God alone is pure act in the order of intelligibility and of being. Cf. Contra Gentes, Ilk. IV, chap. 11. Moreover, in saying this interior word, the soul images the Blessed Trinity: Summa, la, q.93, a. 7, 8. We regret not finding this point of doctrine sufficiently brought out in Father Garden's excellent book from which we have just quoted; in it he has plumbed the depths of so many other aspects of St. Thomas' doctrine.

22 Likewise our intellect without reasoning apprehends or grasps obscurely the substantial and intelligible being of sensible things as soon as our sense of sight has seized their color or our sense of touch has felt their pressure. This is why Aristotle says that the substance of such things, which is not in itself sensible, is sensible per accidens, accidentally so, for it is immediately grasped by, our intellect, without any reasoning, when presented with sensible things. Thus when I see the color of a living face, my intellect perceives its life immediately. Cf. St. Thomas' De anima, Bk. II, lect. 13. Consciousness itself is enough to enable us to perceive of any individual act of our own intellect and will that it is ours; we have no need of reasoning to recognize it as an act of our soul, our person. "Homo percipit se intelligere." Summa, la, q. 87, a. 1.

23 In scholastic terms we would put it this way: Actus amoris filialis est simul id quod cognoscitur et id quo cognoscitur absque discursu Deus habitans et eivificans.

2o8 THE LOVE OF GOD

Let us remember that, in regard to this subject, St. Thomas sneaks of a knowledge not proper but rather quasi-expenmental. Why? Because it is experimental in a sense, having to do widi an object not distant but actually present and attaining to it without reasoning. However, it remains only quasi-experimental, as we have said earlier: * first, because it apprehends God not in an absolutely immediate way, as occurs in the beatific vision, but in the act of filial love which He produces widiin us; and secondly, because we cannot distinguish with complete certitude between supernatural acts of love and the natural impulses of the heart that resemble them; moreover, without a special revelation we cannot be absolutely certain of being in the state of grace.

Here we have the teaching of dieology, and m particular of St. Thomas, on die indwelling of the Blessed Trinity. The three divine persons abide with us permanently Our union with Them endures as long as the state of grace lasts Often, for example during sleep, it resembles the theological virtues when unexercised, being only habitual, a disposition or habit. At other times, on the contrary, it becomes actual through the exercise of the theological virtues and the gifts accompanying them.

Divine union and the higher laws of the order of grace The great mystical doctors, St. John of the Cross particularly, have built their works on the dogma of the indweUing of the Blessed Trinity. The merit of the author of The Dark Night consists in showing clearly how actual initial union,

experienced at times by the just, ought normally to become more intimate, profound, frequent, and almost continual in the true unitive way. The unitive way forms die summit of the interior life in this world, a summit too rarely attained but none the less normal and entered by the saints, after the passive purification of the soul, as the ordinary prelude to eternal life. St. John of the Cross states this truth at the beginning of his works and reaffirms it at the end. 26

Let us look back for a moment over the way to be traveled. The journey described by die saint consists in an ascent toward the summit of perfection. The just man keeps climbing upward toward the peace of divine union by struggling generously against whatever he finds inordinate and disorderly within him.

From the start, the Author of grace dwells in the center of his soul, as in an inner sanctuary; but the soul remains too occupied with outside diings and fails to penetrate into its own depths, which remain as yet hidden to it. From time to time the Holy Ghost breathes into it some thought or impulse of heart, speaking softly in the low tones of friend to friend, and often His voice remains unheard because of a tumult of passions, too natural affections, wounded susceptibilities, and the secret pursuits of pride. To hear the voice of the Holy Ghost, we must keep an interior silence and must merit having His inspirations become less latent, more manifest, luminous, frequent, and urgent.

Exterior mortification of body and senses little by little silences inordinate and violent passions, and a beginning is made on the narrow and ascending path of abnegation. As St. Luke tells us, "And He said to all: If any man will come

2I0 THE LOVE OF GOD after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." 27 The Imitation of Christ frequently speaks of the royal road of the cross, presenting it to us nghtly as nothing extraordinary in itself, like prophetic visions and miracles, but the way that all of us should follow to reach heaven, especially if we would arrive there without passing through purgatory. Yet how few of us actually follow it!

To encourage us on a way so difficult, our Lord accords us sensible graces that make it easier for us to advance but after a time we run the risk of becoming attached to these as an end in themselves, although they are but means. Lest, then, sensible consolations should become an obstacle to our progress, our Lord takes them away from us, He weans us from them, and makes us feel the emptiness of everything created : honor, position, and too human friendships. We begin to see as if experimentally the truth of the words of Scripture: "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity"-cxcept to love and serve God. Infused contemplation has now begun.

At the same time the Lord allows us to be tempted against chastity and patience, virtues grounded in the sensuous appetency; and, as a consequence, we are obliged to react energetically and so strengthen the virtues greatly. Little by little the sense appetite is purified, subjected to the soul, and becomes less and less an obstacle to divine union. But the soul itself requires purification: it understands the letter ot revealed mysteries but must grasp and live by their spirit. It halts at symbols and figures, or again at its own fabrications, reasonings, and too human, limited, and material interpretations of the divine word. It must go farther into the

2' Luke 9: 23- depth of the mysteries of the Incarnation, the Redemption, the Eucharist, grace, and the Blessed Trinity; it must live by them for they must be to the soul the sort of nourishment that bread is to the body.

This necessitates purification of the soul. St. John of the Cross tells us that the infused light of the gift of understanding effects such a purgation, leading us to die heart of the mysteries of salvation, helping us to find the spirit beneath the letter and the wonderful meaning of the redemptive Incarnation, and with it, a better discernment of infinite mercy and infinite justice. The soul comes to know as if experimentally the boundless worth of the sacrifice of the cross and of the Mass, the value of the hidden life and the crosses sent to us by God, the abysmal misery of being lost and, by contrast, the great happiness of returning to God.

The mysteries of faith, in particular the impenetrable mystery of predestination, appear in all their sublimity, and therefore in all their obscurity. Yet the soul in some way ascertains that the obscurity arises not from the unintelligibility of the mystery but from light so strong as to dazzle us. Often temptations against faith also arise and begin their questioning: Is it possible that God loved the world enough to give His own Son for it ? If He really did, could the world be so uncomprehending? Is it possible that after this life there exists an eternity of happiness or of irreparable loss?

In the face of our own misery, temptations against hope also arise, temptations of such a character that we must hope on against all hope. In this hard travailing the virtues of faith and of hope sometimes increase tenfold. We believe more and more for die pure and simple motive that God has

2i2 THE LOVE OF GOD revealed mysteries inaccessible to reason. We hope more and more, unsustained by any human support, with unmixed hope in God's help alone. ■

Something similar takes place in purified charity: we come to love God for Himself alone, and not for the sensible or spiritual consolations that may come to us from Him; we keep on loving Him as generously in times of dryness as we do in times of joy; and in the same way we have charity toward our neighbor when he shows us no gratitude loving him for the pure motive that God loves him, and whatever about him pleases God should please us too We really acquire some understanding of Christ's words: Love one another, as I have loved you. ... By this shall all men know that you arc My disciples, if you have love one for another.

The command to love God and neighbor in God is thus truly fulfilled and the perfection of charity is reached The soul enters into its own center, the inner sanctuary, where, after baptism, the Blessed Trinity abides, as long as we remain in the state of grace. A deep and almost continual actua union with God succeeds what was heretofore simple habitual union. , ,

After this brief summary of matter covered previously, we are now in a better position to answer the important question posed earlier: In the grievous passive purifications is there a law higher than the order of grace at work? It has been sometimes asserted that the passive purifications do not conform to a universal law, but are peculiar only to some individuals, as a result of certain circumstances, like hving a cloistered life, for example, or having a predominantly sensitive temperament. 28 John 13:34-

St. John of the Cross together, we think, with the great masters of die spiritual life, comes to another conclusion. Of course, as has already been conceded, these trials do not always have the acute character described by Tauler or St. John of the Cross. These masters show them to us in the depths reached by contemplative souls called to great heights, and in a number of cases, given to a life of reparation. Certainly in people dedicated to the apostolate, these interior crosses, even if they exist, stand out less strikingly, for they are mixed with the difficulties of the apostolic life. However, in one way or another, must not all pass through die purifying crucible, where together with humdity and patience, fraternal charity shows much growth and points to great love of God ?

We agree that this experience constitutes no general law in the sense that no union with God can be achieved without it. In fact, union with God begins with the passive purification of the senses, well in advance of the purification of the soul, although at that time it has a very imperfect character. However, we hold that not only predominantly sensitive temperaments need purgation of soul but, because it is a question of the spirit, others as well. Those who wish to reason out everydiing, who stop at the letter of supernatural mysteries and fail to enter deeply into their spirit, especially in the case of the mystery of the Cross, obviously have just as real a need for spiritual purification.

Therefore the question is whether Christians must pass through the passive purification of the soul not to arrive at the lower degrees of the unitive life but to reach transforming union, the true, high, and therefore rare, but normal prelude to die beatific vision. The law here is not universal in the sense of being common, of being frequently found

2I4 THE LOVE OF GOD in the concrete; it is universal in the sense of being a higher law, relating to a rarely attained but normal summit We see the normality of this height in the lives of the only really normal people— God's saints.

To arrive at such a summit before death a purification analogous to purgatory would seem necessary. St. Thomas has not treated ex professo either the growth or the full development of the dieological virtues and the gifts in the way he has dealt with dieir nature and properties. However, what he says of the love of enemies, the degrees of humility, and the tribulations of the saints in his commentaries on Job, Isaias, Jeremias, the Psalms, and the Epistles of St. Paul, together with what he teaches concerning the great sufferings ot purgatory, 29 and what we know of his own deep interior life, show that he was not far from what St. Catherine of Siena, 30 Tauler, and St. John of the Cross have expressly told us on the matter.

Transforming union as described by St. John of the Cross St John of the Cross describes transforming union as a state of spiritual perfection, the full flowering of the grace of the virtues and of the gifts. 31 He says that perfect spiritua life consists in the possession of God through die union of

To cf' Thl Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, tr. A. Thorold (Westminster Md, l0V A- Cf Pere Gabriel de Sainte-Madeleine, CD., bunion transformame selon saint Jean de la Croix," Vie Spirituelle, March, 1927, PP- »7 love, 32 and that transforming union is die perfect stage of the spiritual life. 33

In The Spiritual Canticle, speaking of the "inner cellars," he writes:

And we may say that there are seven of these degrees or cellars of love, all of which the soul comes to possess when she possesses in perfection the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, in the manner wherein she is able to receive them. ... It must be known that many souls attain to the first cellars and enter therein, each according to the perfection of love which he possesses, but few in this life attain to this last and innermost perfection, for in this there comes to pass that perfect union with God which they call the Spiritual Marriage. 34

When the soul possesses the full perfection of the gift of wisdom, the highest of the seven gifts received at baptism together with sanctifying grace, it has arrived at the inner sanctuary wherein the Blessed Trinity abides, and union with God no longer remains habitual but becomes actual and in some way transforming. The soul is deified by receiving a perfect participation in the divine nature.

The reason for this is given by St. John of the Cross in a principle stated in the Ascent of Mount Carmcl. He says diat the more purified and detached the soul becomes in living and perfect faith, the more it possesses infused charity, and the more charity it has, the more the Holy Ghost enlightens it and pours out upon it His gifts, in such a way that charity

82 The Living Flame, st. 2, especially the edition with notes by Father Gerardo, 1912, II, 426; Eng. tr. Peers, III, 55, Complete Worlds of St. John of the Cross (London: Burns, Oatcs and Washbourne, 1934).

34 The Spiritual Canticle, st. 26, Gerardo, II, 297; Eng. tr. Peers, III, 329 t is the cause and means of His commumcatton.J St Thomas likewise says that the seven gifts are connected w«* chanty and, as a result, like the infused virtues, grow together w th iChke parts of the same organism, as fingers grow with the h lnThe Linn g Flame of Love St. John of the Cross adds: "And finally, all the movements and operations which the soul had aforetime, and which belonged to the pnnople of its natural life, are now in this umon changed into movements of God. For the soul, like the true daughter of God Z 1 now is, is moved wholly by the Spirit . <* God even as St. Paul says: that they that are moved by the Spmt of God are the sons of God." . He has something similar to say elsewhere m the same work:

We term the deepest centre of a thing the farthest point to which its being and virtue and the force of its operauon and movem en 1 Sn. . . • Accordingly, we shall say that a stone, when it wTthin the earth, is in Us centre, because it is w.thm the sphere Tf ts activity and movement ... but it is not m the deepest part n Lt element . . and when it attains to its centre and there £2£K5 -re power of its own to move farther, we shall

83 £ eente^Sd: and, when the soul has attained to Him according to the whole capacity of its being, and according ofhe force of £ operation, it will have reached the last and deep Itre of the soul - which will be when with all its powers U loves, tS 4m* of m Carmel, * ft chap. 2 9; also Peers, I, 211 ; X* cle, st. 3°-

« The Living Flame, st. a, tr. P^%5«' ^ relation to as The "depth of the soul" is also called the pea K or

THE ABIDING OF THE BLESSED TRINITY 2 i 7 understands, and enjoys God; and as long as it attains not as far as this, although it be in God, ... it is not in the deepest centre, since it is capable of going still farther. Love unites the soul with God, and the more degrees of love the soul has, the more profoundly does it enter into God and the more it is centred in Him. ... If it attain to the last degree, the love of God will succeed in wounding the soul even in its deepest centre— that is, in transforming and enlightening it as regards all the being and power and virtue of the soul, such as it is capable of receiving, until it be brought into such a state that it appears to be God. In this state the soul is like the crystal that is clear and pure; the more degrees of light it receives the greater concentration of light there is in it, and this enlightenment continues to such a degree that at last it attains a point at which the light is centred in it with such abundance that it comes to appear to be wholly light, and cannot be distinguished from the light, for it is enlightened to the greatest possible extent and thus appears to be light itself. 39

We read in The Spiritual Canticle: "And thus I think that this estate is never attained without the soul being confirmed in grace therein." This truth implies a certain participation in the impeccability of the blessed, brought about by God's special protection.* 0

In this state God touches the soul so deeply that the mystics tell us that the divine contact makes an imprint on the very substance of the soul. What are we to understand by this statement in the light of St. Thomas' principles? As has been explained elsewhere, 41 God keeps die substance of the soul sensible things, according to whether they are considered as exterior or as inferior to it.

40 Ibid., st. 22, Peers, II, 308. Cf. Salmanticenses, De gratia, q. no, disp. Ill, dub. xi, no. 259.

41 Perfection chretienne et contemplation, Fr. ed., II, 560.

2X8 in existence by an act identified with His divine essence, the work of creation condnued.* 2 Between the divine essence and the soul there exists a contact not quantitative and spatial, but supra-spatial, spiritual, and absolutely immediate. By tins contact God operates immediately on the souls subs nc although the soul cannot operate immediately on itself, t can acC as a matter of fact, only by its faculties, knowing only by its intellect, loving and willing only by its will.

Further, God, the author of salvation, produces and conserves sanctifying grace in the very essence of the soul. From it the infused virtues and the gifts arise in the faculties He also moves the faculties eidier by proposing an object to them, or by applying them to the exercise of their acts ab intus from within." The divine touch which we are speaking of is a supernatural but deeper motion of this kind, acting on the very center of the will and of the intellect, where the faculties are rooted in the substance of the soul as their source." Closer to the soul than the soul is to itself as the

«Ia, q.8, a. I, 2, 3- «l a , q.54, a.i, 2, 3'. 1-77. »•*> 2 - «*Ia Ilae, q.no, a. 3, 4- union, is the point of origin ot tne m S ner ' h „ wneA , owar d

Louis de Blois says, ibid, in summing *Tg- J^^/by light in com- God in pure love and inundated at the very depth « * / Thcn it prThensible, the eye ^W^e" ^rS-Sdoo of Him and knows by experience that God is infinitely above every P ^ everything thai the UKeJfcctcan comprehend. „ It » -« n . «j „ ^ obscure immensity of the Divinity but lost in ^ Ho , Ghost

John of the Cross also says in the U*,n g J^'senses and to Satan."

is poured out in the substance of the ^^^3*^ loves , joys , with out Does he mean by this that the substance of the soul kno , ^

£ faculties? We see that he docs not rom d, gjjgfj,^ it act 3nd of centre and inmost depth only *e Hoi • Ghatt cap £H ^ ^ operating without the intervention of the senses, 8>t. ,0 conserving cause of its existence, God moves the center of its faculties from within by a spiritual contact, which, despite the obscurity of faith, reveals itself as divine.

This does not mean that the purified soul knows in an immediate and absolute manner its own substance and the sanctifying grace that it possesses, for the soul cannot operate immediately, without the concurrence of its faculties; but now it knows itself through the center of its supernaturalized faculdes. Under die infused light of faith and of the gift of wisdom it has a quasi-experimental knowledge of the sanctifying grace which it possesses by the effect of a filial love more and more clearly disdnguishable from sentimentality. 47 This supernatural love derived from grace and charity acts without reasoning by the infused light of die gift of wisdom and makes manifest to us God Himself present within us, giving us life, leading us to love Him with ever greater purity and strength, stirring up within us the desire to behold Him.

Let us add what The Spiritual Canticle has to tell us about spiritual betrothal: "It is not to be understood that to all such as arrive at this estate He communicates all that is expounded in these two stanzas, nor diat He does so according to one single way and degree of knowledge and feeling. For to some souls He gives more and to others less; to some after one manner and to others after another; though souls be- majority of mystics speak descriptively and not ontologically, like experimental psychologists rather than like metaphysicians who prove that an angel and a soul can act only through their faculties, establishing a real distinction between the soul and its faculties through the formal objects of thc latter. St. Thomas wrote from a metaphysical point of view when he composed his famous articles, ulrum essentia angeli sit sua virtus intellectiva (la. q.54, a. 3); ulrum essentia animae sit ejus potentia (la, q. 77, a. 1). We have in the metaphysical and in the mystical two different but not contradictory viewpoints. < 7 Cf. St. Thomas, in Ep. ad Rom. 8: 16.

longing to either category can be in this estate of the spiritual betrothal. But we set down here the highest that is possible because in this is comprehended all else." 48 The same can be stated of quasi-continual transforming union as of spiritual marriage: it certainly admits of different degrees, including that enjoyed by the Blessed Virgin Mary during her lifetime on earth. Although souls may possess different degrees of transforming union we can truly say of all of them that they have reached their deepest and predestined center in this world.

Thus understood, the transforming union seems like trie normal result of the abiding of the Blessed Trinity in a really purified soul, that is, a soul that has gone through the passive purifications to the end. As St. Thomas shows us, the indwelling of the divine persons requires from the very beginning a certain quasi-experimental knowledge of God, or at least the supernatural capacity for this knowledge through charity and the gift of wisdom. As the soul approaches the end of the passive purifications by the royal road of the cross, it reaches its full and normal development.

Then the soul imitates our Lord perfectly. Throughout His lifetime on earth, because of His fullness of grace, He possessed supreme happiness, perfect peace, and a strong desire for the cross as well, an ardor to accomplish fully His mission as Savior, priest, and victim. Perfect peace remained His even during the Passion and on the cross when He said, "It is consummated Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit." Indeed here was true peace, the tranquillity of order recovered through the reconciliation of sinning humanity with its Creator. Something of the peace of Christ,

THE ABIDING OF THE BLESSED TRINITY 221 of the peace that holds fast even in the midst of adversities, belongs to the soul that has reached the transforming union. Jesus speaks of it in the beatitudes: "Blessed are they that mourn. . . . Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice. . . . Blessed are the peacemakers. . . . Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake" and that, in the very midst of persecution, keep a deep peace not only for themselves but for others, to whom they communicate it, lifting up the hearts of all, even the most discouraged.

The commandment of love finds its complete realization in this life in perfect union with God : "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart" 49 — from the very beginning, the time of sensible consolations, we love God with our whole heart; "and with thy whole soul"— when we are glad to spend ourselves in all kinds of work for our Lord then we love Him with our whole soul; "with all thy strength" — only later, especially during the painful purification of the soul can we be said to love God with all our strength; "and with thy whole mind" — before being purified the soul rarely mounted to the higher part of itself, the spirit, but after it has been purified it becomes established there, a true adorer in spirit and in truth.

The realization of such a union with God means the perfect consummation of the life of grace in this world and serves as a normal prelude to the life of heaven. It disposes souls to receive the beatific vision immediately after death, without passing through purgatory. None of us pass that way but through our own fault, as a result of negligences that could have been avoided by a more generous acceptance of the cross.

Because this union forms a prelude to the life of heaven, it has, St. John of the Cross says, the "savor of eternal life." St. Thomas designates it by the expression "inchoatio vitae aeternae," life eternal begun in the obscurity of faith before opening out into the definitive flowering of vision. Few Christians reach such perfection in this world; yet, because of the first commandment, all of us ought to aspire to a charity increasing day by day and all of us should recall that, as St. John of the Cross has pointed out, in the evening of life we shall be judged by love, on the reality of our love for God and of our neighbor in God. 50

The life of union and the invisible missions of the divine persons

Louis Chardon stands out among Thomistic theologians for die skill with which he has shown how transforming union normally results from the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in a truly purified soul. In La Croix de Jesus he says:

That true friendship which should exist between God and the holy soul is founded on grace. Now it is a law that perfect friendship produces union not merely by affection, but also, so far as possible, 51 real and intimate presence, that there may be a trans- so-rbe whole doctrine of St. John of the Cross is summarized in the beautiful verses which he uses for his commentary in The Living Flame, tr. Peers, III, 18: Oh, living flame of love That tenderly woundest my soul in its deepest centre. Since thou art no longer oppressive, perfect me now if it be thy will, Break the web of this sweet encounter.

Oh, sweet burnl Oh, delectable woundl Oh, soft hand!

Oh, delicate touch That savours of eternal life and pays every debt! In slaying, thou hast changed death into life. »» Even in this life created charity, since it constitutes an affective union, causes at least a desire for real union; on the other hand God, uncreated charity, produces this real union by preserving and increasing the life of grace w.thin us and formation of lover into the beloved, a complete union in which the beloved withholds nothing. Therefore, as the soul advances in God's friendship, grace, the form or, if you will, the cause of this friendship, dominates its essence and powers more and more fully, taking more intimate possession of them. Because of diis, the divine persons have a more perfect presence within the soul. They dwell in souls only by means of grace and its properties and They produce within them effects that reveal to us more the action of God than of creatures.

This transformation reaches a point in some souls where we can hardly discern anything human any more. As a drop of water spilt into a cask of wine is entirely lost by taking on the color, the odor, and the taste of wine; as the glowing iron resembles the fire which penetrates it; and as the air filled with the sun's rays becomes transformed into light and seems to be light itself rather than another element illuminated by it: in like manner souls die a wonderful and mysterious death to all affection and to every human operation and become so perfecdy possessed by the Spirit of God, so united to Him and so deified in Him, that the glorious Trinity lives, operates, and acts in them more really than they do in themselves/' 2

Louis Chardon ded uces three important trudis from the relation of the growth of charity to die divine and invisible missions.

The first is that (having already received the divine missions with the state of grace) souls must make considerable progress in grace to receive them anew. . . . Those who make no advance in the spiritual life fail to dispose themselves to receive the divine persons anew (or to enter into greater intimacy with Them).

bringing us to perform supernatural acts. See Vol. I, Part I, chap. 3, of the present work.

62 La Croix de Jesus, entrcticn 3, chap. 6, at end. (Paris: cd. Lcthicllcux, 1895), 0, 297 ff.

The second truth is that no kind of knowledge of God, however profound, subtle, or clear it may be, can render a soul worthy of these missions It must be rooted in grace ... and in grace that grows, is fruitful, acts with increasing energy, and attains to greater heights of perfection. Savants fail to dispose themselves for these blessed missions when they trouble themselves more about knowing the mystery of the Trinity than of making themselves pleasing to the glorious and triune God, when they possess more curiosity about divinity than attentive and eager love for the divine Being, when, in a word, their charity lags behind their knowledge.

The third truth is that no grace, no knowledge, no perfection of the spiritual (i.e., the supernatural) order can exist without the invisible missions of the divine persons. It is not enough for Paul to plant, for Apollo to water: God must give the increase. ... I dare add that the visible sending of the divine persons (the Incarnation and Pentecost) have effect and application in souls only through the invisible missions It should not astonish us to find Jesus deeming His mother happier for having conceived Him in her spirit than for having conceived and borne Him in her womb. The mystery of the Incarnation gave Him to her but once; the invisible mission gives Him to her again every time the superabundant grace within her increases The first plenitude of grace was given to her at the Immaculate Conception The second came to her with her divine Son, when she became His mother The third descended upon her when the Holy Ghost was given to her visibly in the Cenacle on the day of Pentecost. The first served as a preparation for the second, and the third perfected the other two. 53

Chardon skillfully applies the doctrine of the invisible missions to the spiritual crosses received by advanced souls,

either for their purification or for their participation, with Jesus and Mary, in the work of their neighbor's salvation. 54 He shows that the hardest crosses are reserved for the most perfect, that they bring about great perfection and close union with God, drawing into the soul a new sending of the divine persons.

The original edition contains these words:

Spiritual crosses, being powerful means of purifying the spirit, help to attract a more perfect mission of the divine persons. The more afflicting the cross, the more it severs the soul from other things, and the more perfectly it prepares the soul for an increasingly intimate abiding of the Trinity. Crosses rather than consolations introduce God into the most secret and profound recesses of the soul.

The soul grows from tenderness into strength, leaving aside sensible affections to receive whatever impressions God Himself will make upon it. Lest too frequent consolations interfere with our tending toward Him, God stops up the sweet stream of consolation to make our thirst drive us in search of the source. He keeps back His gifts that He may bestow Himself. . . . Gently He enters our souls and makes Himself master, claiming the attention of all our powers, that they my enjoy die one necessary Good and, as they should, love Him with a love far above the love of all other things, since He is the Creator and they arc His creatures/' 5

How beautifully all this is said! Could we find a more closely knit union of speculative theology and true mysticism ? Could there be a better demonstration that the transforming union alluded to by the saints is the normal result of the

22 6 THE LOVE OF GOD indwelling of the three divine persons in a truly purified soul? 56

Evidence in St. Teresa's writings The account of the transforming union given by St. John of the Cross and Louis Chardon's explanation of it by the progress of grace and the invisible missions of the divine persons are both sublime. St. Teresa's writings in the sevendi mansions belong to the same high level. She remarks that some people in these mansions have an intellectual vision of the Blessed Trinity present within them; but that this insight varies in clarity and occurs intermittently, does not belong to the essence of transforming union, and even seems to have no necessary connection with it, St. John of the Cross contenting himself with describing it as a very high contemplation of the divine perfections.

St. Teresa also observes 07 that when such union has been reached ecstacies generally come to an end, and that what constitutes the bedrock of this most eminent state is nothing miraculous; the higher faculties are passively attracted to their deepest center, where the Blessed Trinity abides. Because of this grace, the soul cannot doubt the presence of the divine persons within itself and is almost never deprived of their companionship. St. Teresa says that the soul recognizes by certain secret aspirations that God is giving it life. 58 Many authors consider the graces of this mansion the equiv-

«« Blessed Grignon dc Montfort leads us to the same conclusion under a different form in his excellent books, La vraie devotion a Marie, tr. Montfort Fathers (Bayshore, N.Y.: 1941), Uttre circulaire atix amis de la Croix (Pans: A. Lc Clcrc, 1845). V Amour de la divine Sagcsse (Paris: Gaumc freres, 1856). The last named work recalls the beautiful pages of Blessed Henry Suso, which are penetrated with the same traditional doctrine just set down here.

67 Interior Castle, Seventh Mansion, chap. 3.

alent of a special revelation making the soul certain of its state of grace and predestination. 59

The effects of the transforming union are those of the fully developed theological virtues and the gifts. The passions hardly trouble at all the souls that possess it; while they experience the actual grace of the transforming union they commit no deliberate venial sin. 00 Outside of these times they may happen to commit some faults, but they quickly make reparation for them. What is striking about them is their self-forgetfulness, dieir great desire to suffer after our Lord's example, and their real joy in persecution. They share in the very strength of Christ and in His boundless love of neighbor; diey practice at the same time seemingly contradictory virtues, justice and mercy, strength and gendeness, the simplicity of the dove and the wisdom of the serpent, uniting die highest possible contempladon with practical common sense about their daily concerns, bearing a marked likeness to Christ. 61 St. Catherine of Siena in her Dialogue 62 gives a like report of this state. Wherever we find it described we see set before us the dispositions of a soul purified and prepared for immediate entrance into heaven after death.

so Cf. Philip of the Blessed Trinity. Theologia mysliea, Proem., a. 8; Scaramelli, Dir. myst., tr. H, c.22, no. 258; Mcynard, O.P., Vie int/rieure. Vol. II. no. 270.

Certain passages from grc3t orthodox mystics arc dius reconciled with what the Council of Trent says, that without a special revelation no one in this life can be sure of being in the state of grace, and with greater reason, of persevering in grace until death. Sess. 6, chap. 9 et 12; can. 13, 14, 16.

80 St. Teresa, op. cit.. Seventh Mansion, chap. 2.

61 Pascal greatly admired the harmony between virtues apparently quite contrary: "I admire an excess of one virtue, like bravery, only if I sec at the same time its opposite virtue, as in the case of Epaminondas, who was extremely brave and extremely benign, for to have one and not the other is not to mount high but to fall low. Greatness is not to be found in reaching one extreme but in touching both extremes at the same time and in fulfilling loo all that lies between them." I'ensees no. 353, ed. E. Brunschvicg.

02 Treatise of Divine Providence, tr. Thorold, pp. 26 ff.