Article I. Christian Perfection, or the Beginning of Eternal Life
Can Christian perfection, its nature and conditions, be discussed without in any way lessening its essential sublimity? Is it possible to reach an understanding of the Master’s words: “Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect”? x If we ask the Apostle St. John this question, he will answer us in Christ’s very words, that Christian life, particularly Christian perfection, is the beginning of eternal life.
In the Fourth Gospel, the Savior says on several occasions: “He that believeth in the Son, hath life everlasting.”1 In other words, not only will he have eternal life later on if he per severes; but he who believes has it already in a sense, because the life of grace, even on earth, is the beginning of eternal life, as St. Thomas states repeatedly. 8 As a seed is defined only by the plant that springs from it, or the aurora by the day that it heralds, so we can conceive the life of grace only by con sidering, first of all, the life of glory, of which it is the seed. For the same reason, we cannot determine what Christian per fection is without speaking first of eternal life, of which it is the prelude.
We will consider eternal life in the first part of this article; in the second part we shall see how the life of grace on earth
» Summa, Ha Ilae, q.24, a. 3 ad 211m. “Grace is nothing else but the beginning of glory in us.” C£ la Ilae, q.69, a. 2; De veritate, q. 14, a.2.2
“5 is essentially the same as the life of heaven; the same also through charity, which will never cease. We shall also see how the life of grace differs from that of heaven through faith and hope, which must disappear in order to give way to the positive possession of God by vision.
In the following articles, with St. Thomas as our teacher, we will study what in this life principally constitutes Christian perfection, properly so called; what its relations are with the gifts and the virtues, and with the precepts and counsels. Thus we shall see all that Christian perfection requires.
“Now this is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” 4 St. John explains this passage by saying: “Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him: because we shall see Him as He is.” 5 St. Paul says: “We see now through a glass in a dark manner: but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know even as I am known.” 8 We shall see face to face, that is, immediately, such as He is in Himself, God “who inhabiteth light inaccessible” 7 to all natural, created and creatable knowledge.
The Church teaches us expressly that “the souls of the blessed in heaven have an intuitive and direct vision of the divine essence without the intermediary of any previously known creature. The divine essence manifests itself directly and openly in perfect clarity. The souls of the blessed enjoy it continually and will enjoy it forever. Such is eternal life,” 8 to which the “light of glory” 9 must raise us.
4 John 17:3.
5 See I John 3: 2.
« See I Cor. 13: 12.
7 See I Tim. 6: 16.
8 Denzinger, Enchiridion, no. 530.
0 Ibid., no. 475.
n6 CHRISTIAN PERFECTION
We are therefore called to see God not merely by the reflection of His perfections in material creatures, or by His marvelous radiation in the world of pure spirits, but to see Him without any intermediary, more clearly indeed than we see here on earth the persons with whom we speak; for God, being entirely spiritual, will be intimately present in our intellect, which He will illumine at the same time that He gives it the power to endure His dazzling splendor. 10
Between Him and us there will not be even the intermediary of an idea, for no created idea can represent being as it is in itself, pure, infinitely perfect act, uncreated, eternally subsisted thought, light of life, and source of all truth. 11 And we shall not be able to express our contemplation by any word, even by any interior word. This contemplation, superior to every finite idea, will absorb us in God, and will remain ineffable, just as in this life we lose the gift of speech when the sublime ravishes us. The Deity, such as it is in itself, can be expressed only by the consubstantial Word, which is the uncreated Word, “the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and image of His goodness.” 12
By reason of its object, this face to face vision of God infinitely excels the most sublime philosophy, and also the loftiest natural knowledge of the angels. We are called to see all the divine perfections together, identified in their common source, the Deity; to grasp how the tenderest mercy and the most inflexible justice proceed from one and the same infinitely generous and infinitely holy love, love of the supreme good. This good, wishing to communicate itself as much as possible and possessing an incontestable right to be loved above all, thus wonderfully unites justice and mercy in all the works of God. 18 We are called to see how this love, even in its
10 St. Thomas, la, q.12, a.5.
11 Cf. Ia, q. 12, a. 2.
12 Wis. 7: 26.
is See Ia, q. 21, a.4.
freest good pleasure, is identical with pure wisdom; how in this love there is nothing that is not wise, and in this wisdom nothing that is not converted into love. And we are called to see how this love is identical with the supreme good, loved from all eternity; how divine wisdom is identical with the first truth always known; how all these perfections harmonize and are but one in the very essence of Him who is.
We are called to contemplate the intimate life of God, the Deity itself, absolute purity and sanctity; to lose our gaze in its infinite fecundity, blossoming into the three divine Persons; to see the eternal generation of the Word, "splendor of the Father and figure of His substance"; to gaze in endless rapture upon the ineffable procession of the Holy Ghost, that torrent of spiritual flame, term of the common love of the Father and of the Son, the bond uniting Them eternally in the most absolute diffusion of Themselves.
Who can tell the love and joy that will be born in us of this vision? If we are delighted here below by the reflection of the divine perfections shared by creatures, by the fairy magic of the material world, by the harmony of sounds and colors, by the azure of a cloudless sky above a sunlit sea, which makes us think of the tranquil ocean of being and of the infinite light of divine wisdom; if we are lost in wonderment at the splendors of the world of souls revealed to us by the lives of the saints; what will we feel when we see God, the eternally subsisted flash of wisdom and of love, whence proceeds all the life of creation? We speak of a flash of genius to designate a sudden illumination of the mind. What shall we say of the uncreated light of God? For us it remains hidden only because of ks excessive splendor, as too strong a ray of sunlight seems like darkness to the weak eye of an owl.
The joy born of such a vision will be that of so strong and absolute a love of God that nothing will ever destroy it or even diminish it. This love, necessarily following the beatific vision of God, the sovereign good, will be absolutely spontaneous.
n8 CHRISTIAN PERFECTION but will no longer be free. The infinite Good, by presenting Himself to us in this way, will quench our insatiable thirst for happiness, and will fill and satisfy the capacity of our power to love, “which will necessarily adhere to Him.'’ 14 Our will, by reason of its nature, will turn toward Him with all its inclination and strength. It will no longer have any energy to suspend its act, which will be ravished from it, in a way, by the infinite attraction of God seen face to face. In regard to all finite good, our will remains free; it can even yield or not yield to the attraction and to the law of God as long as we do not see His infinite goodness directly. But when His glory appears to us, our desires will then be gratified and we will no longer be able not to correspond to His love. “I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear.” 15
This love will be composed of admiration, respect, gratitude, and especially friendship, with a simplicity and a depth of intimacy that no human affection can have. It will be a love by which we will rejoice especially that God is God, infinitely holy, just, and merciful; a love by which we will adore all the decrees of His providence in view of His glory, which will radiate in us and through us.
Such must eternal life be in union with all those who died in charity, and particularly with those whom we have loved in the Lord.
Eternal life, therefore, consists in knowing God as He knows Himself, and in loving Him as He loves Himself. But, if we penetrate more deeply into this matter, we see that this divine knowledge and love are possible only if God, so to speak, deifies us in our very soul. In the natural order, man is capable of intellectual knowledge and of an enlightened love superior to sensible love only because he has a spiritual soul. In like manner we will be capable of a divine knowledge and of a supernatural love only if we have received a participation in
14 See la, q.82, a. 2.
1® Ps. 16: 15
“9 the very nature of God, of the Deity; only if our soul, the principle of our intellect and will, has been, in a sense, deified or transformed into God, as iron plunged into the fire is transformed, so to speak, into fire, without ceasing to be iron. The blessed in heaven can share in the essentially divine operations only because they participate in the divine nature, the principle of these operations; only because they have received this nature from God, somewhat as a son on earth receives his nature from his father.
From all eternity God the Father necessarily engenders a Son equal to Himself, the Word. To Him He communicates all His nature, without dividing or multiplying it; He gives Him to be “God of God, light of light.” Out of pure goodness, He has willed to have in time other sons, adopted sons, according to a sonship not only moral and figurative, but very real, which makes us truly participate in the divine nature, in its intimate life. “This sonship by adoption,” says St. Thomas, “is thus really a participated likeness of the eternal sonship of the Word.” 16 St. John exclaims: “Behold what manner of charity the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God.” 17 We are “born of God”; 18 and St. Peter says that we are “partakers of the divine nature.” 19 “Whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of His Son; that He might be the first-born amongst many brethren.” 20
Such is the essence of the glory that God reserves for His children: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love Him.” 21
The elect truly belong to the family of God; they enter
16 See Ilia, q.3, a.8; in In Ep. ad Rom., 8: 29.
17 See I John 3: 1. is John 1: 13.
is See II Pet. 1: 4.
20 Rom. 8: 29.
21 See I Cor. 2: 9.
heaven in the cycle of the Blessed Trinity who dwells in them. The Father engenders His Word in them; the Father and the Son breathe forth love in them. Charity likens them to the Holy Ghost; the beatific vision makes them like the Word, who renders them like the Father of whom He is the image. In each of them the Trinity, known and loved, dwells as in a living tabernacle; and furthermore, they are in the Trinity, at the summit of being, of thought, and of love.
Such is the goal of all Christian life, of all spiritual progress. In it there is no concern for earthly interests, or for the development of our personalities (a poor formula, foolishly repeated by many Christians who forget the true grandeur of their vocation). Revelation tells us we must tend infinitely higher. God has predestined His elect to become conformable to the image of His Son. The world, in its wisdom, rejects this doctrine; its philosophers refuse to listen to it. Then the Lord calls the humble, the poor, the infirm, 22 to share in the riches of His glory: “I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.” 23
How can we attain so lofty an end as eternal life? Spiritual progress can tend to this end only because it presupposes in us the seed of glory, that is, a supernatural life identical in its essence with eternal life. The seed contained in the acorn could not become an oak unless it had the same nature as the oak, unless it contained the same life in a latent state. A child could not become a man unless he had a rational soul, unless reason were slumbering in him. Similarly a Christian on earth could not become one of the blessed in heaven unless he had already received divine life.
22 Luke 14: 2i. “Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant: Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor and the feeble and the blind and the lame.”
23 Matt. 11: 25.
If we wish to understand the nature of the seed contained in the acorn, we must consider this nature in its perfect state in the fully developed oak. In the same way, if we wish to know the life of grace, we must contemplate it in its supreme development; in glory which is its consummation.
Fundamentally the life of grace and the life of glory are the same supernatural life, the same charity, with two diff erences. Here on earth, God is known only in the obscurity of faith, not in the clarity of vision. In addition, we hope to possess God in an inamissible manner; but as long as we are on earth, we can lose Him through our own fault.
In spite of these two differences, it is the same life. Our Lord said to the Samaritan woman: “If thou didst know the gift of God. . . . Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again; but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him, shall not thirst forever. But the water that I will give him, shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.” 24 In the Temple on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus stood and cried in a loud voice: “If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink. He that believeth in Me, as the Scripture saith, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” 26 As St. John adds, He said this of the Spirit, which they should receive who believe in Him. On several occasions Jesus repeats: “He that believeth in the Son, hath life everlasting.” 26 “He that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.” 27 “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say: Behold here, or behold there. For lo, the kingdom of God is within you.” 28 It is hidden in you as the grain of mustard seed; as the leaven that causes the loaf to rise; as the treasure buried in the field.
24 John 4: 10, 13 f.
25 John 7:37.
26 John 3: 36; «:40, 47.
*2 John 6: 55.
28 Luke 17: 20 f.
And how are we to know that we have already received this life which should last forever? St. John expounds the matter for us at length. 29 “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not, abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in himself.” 80 “These things I write to you, that you may know that you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God.” 81
And in truth, Christ said in His sacerdotal prayer: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” 82 Through supernatural faith this knowledge has its beginning; and through living faith, or faith vivified by charity, Christ “dwells in us and we in Him,” 88 a statement that St. John himself explains by saying: “God hath given to us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son, hath life. He that hath not the Son, hath not life,” 84
Since this is true, what does death become for the true Christian? A passage from the supernatural life which is as yet imperfect to the plenitude of this life. In this sense we must understand our Lord’s words: “Amen, amen I say to you: If any man keep My word, he shall not see death forever.” In amazement the Jews answered: “Now we know that Thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and Thou sayest: If any man keep My word, he shall not taste death forever. ... Whom dost Thou make Thyself?” 88 At the
29 This point is well explained in the beautiful exegetical study of Father J. B. Frey, S.Sp., “Le Concept de ‘Vie’ dans S. Jean/’ which appeared in the review Biblica, 1920, pp. 38-58, 213-239.
so See I John 3:14 f.
81 Ibid., 5: 13.
82 John 17:3.
88 John 15: 4; 17: 26.
See I John 5:11 £.
88 John 8:51-53.
tomb of Lazarus, Christ said: “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, although he be dead, shall live. And everyone that liveth and believeth in Me, shall not die forever/* 36 And again to the Jews: “Your fathers did eat manna in the desert and are dead. This is the bread that came down from heaven. . . . He that eateth this bread shall live forever.*’ 37
The liturgy expresses the same thought in the mass for the dead: “For Thy faithful, O Lord, life is changed, not lost.** 38 Sanctifying grace, received in the essence of the soul, is, therefore, by its nature imperishable. It should last forever and blossom into eternal life. 39 Moreover, among the theological virtues is one, charity, which ought not to disappear. “Charity never falleth away,** says St. Paul. . . . “And now there remain faith, hope and charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.** 40 Indeed some saints on earth have a far greater degree of charity than certain of the blessed in heaven, but without having as much continuity in the act ■of love. St. John while on earth had a degree of charity superior to that possessed by the soul of a little child who died immediately after baptism. 41 The gifts of the Holy Ghost also sc John 11: 25 f. See also John 4: 14; 8: 51; 10: 28; 13: 8.
87 John 6: 49, 59.
88 Preface of the mass for the dead.
89 Cf. the Carmelites of the Salamanca School, De gratia, disp. IV, dub. 6, nos. 107, 109; dub. 7, no. 141; Sanctifying grace is the same habitus, which, having received its final perfection, is called glory or grace consummated.
4 ° See I Cor. 13: 8, 13; and St. Thomas, la Ilae, q.67, a.6. Charity differs from faith and hope in that it does not imply any imperfection, and that it can love God either in the obscurity of faith or in the clarity of vision.
41 As the Carmelites of Salamanca show (De caritate, disp. VII, dub. 4, no. 66), theologians commonly admit that the charity of a just man living on earth can equal that of one of the blessed in heaven. The reason for this is that the charity of each of the blessed in heaven has a determined degree beyond which it will never progress. But this degree can be attained and even surpassed by a just soul here on earth. It is certain that the Blessed Virgin, while still on earth, had a charity which far surpassed that of every soul in heaven and that of the angels. But the charity which an adult possesses on earth is always inferior to that which he will have in heaven, where nothing will hinder the impulse of his love. Cf. Ia, q. 117, a. 2 ad 3um.
subsist in heaven. 42 The life of grace is therefore the same as that of the blessed in heaven.
True, we do not attain God in the clarity of vision, yet it is He that our faith attains. The grace of faith makes us adhere to the uncreated, revealing Truth. We believe in God’s word, not in that of St. Peter or of St. Paul, 43 and this word reveals to us “the deep things of God.” 44 Our faith is thus “the substance (or the principle, the seed) of things to be hoped for,” 45 which we shall contemplate in heaven. This faith, in spite of its obscurity, infinitely surpasses the keenest natural intuitions and even the most sublime natural knowledge of the loftiest angel. St. Paul declares: “Though we or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you, besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema.” 48
So long as hope has not given place to the definitive possession of God, the supernatural life of grace and charity can be lost, but solely because we can grow weak and fail to co-operate. Sanctifying grace, considered in itself, and the charity which is in us are of themselves incorruptible, like living water that would always remain pure, unless the vase containing it should happen to break. “For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts. . . . But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency may be of the power of God, and not of us.” 47 We can, alas, lose charity, because of the fickleness of our free will; but, be our weakness what it may, the love of charity considered in itself “is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are fire and flames. Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it.” 48 It is this love which daily snatches souls from the demon, from the se-
*2 Cf. Ia Ilae, q.68, a. 6.
43 See I Thess. 2: 13.
44 See I Cor. 2: 10.
45 Heb. 11:1.
46 Gal. 1:8.
47 See II Cor. 4: 6 f.
48 Cant. 8: 6 f.
ductions of the world; it is this love which has triumphed over persecutions and the most frightful torments. If we allow ourselves to be penetrated by it, we are invincible.
This love of charity is the same as that which subsists in heaven. It presupposes that we are bom “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”; 49 that we are not only the servants of God, but His children and friends according to an adopted sonship, which is as real as grace. But the reality of grace differs from that of the flesh, since grace is given to us to last forever.
We now see clearly why revelation teaches us that the Blessed Trinity dwells in every soul in the state of grace as in a temple where it is known and loved. In heaven the Trinity dwells in the souls of the blessed as in a living tabernacle where it never ceases to be glorified. But since the life of grace and of charity is the same in its essence as that of heaven, we must admit, as revelation teaches us, that even on this earth the Blessed Trinity dwells in just souls: “If anyone love Me,” says Christ, “he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and will make Our abode with him.” 50 “And he that abideth in charity, abideth in God, and God in him.” 51 “Btit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come. He will teach you all truth.” 62 “Know you not,” says St. Paul to the Corinthians, “that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” 58 “Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?” 64 “For you are the temple of the living God.” 85
This indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in us is attributed to the Holy Ghost because charity, which will remain in heaven,
49 John 1: 13.
60 John 14: 23.
61 See I John 4: 16.
62 John 16: 13.
63 See I Cor. 3: 16.
64 Ibid., 6: 19.
66 See II Cor. 6: 16.
likens us more particularly to the Spirit of love; whereas faith, which will be replaced by vision, likens us as yet only imperfectly to the Word, the figure of the Father and splendor of His substance. The Blessed Trinity is none the less entirely in us as the life of our life, the soul of our soul; occasionally it makes itself felt by us especially by the gift of wisdom, 68 and thus prepares us in the obscurity of faith for the life of heaven.
“Eternal life begun,” says Bossuet, 67 “consists in knowing by faith (a tender and affectionate knowledge which inclines the soul to love); 68 and eternal life consummated consists in
56 Cf. St. Thomas, la, q.43, a. 3: "For God is in all things by His essence, power, and presence, according to His one common mode, as the cause existing in the effects which participate in His goodness. Above and beyond this common mode, however, there is one special mode belonging to the rational creature wherein God is said to be present as the object known is in the knower, and the beloved in the lover. And since the rational creature by its own operation of knowledge and love attains to God Himself, according to this special mode, God is said not only to exist in the rational creature, but also to dwell therein as in His own temple. . . . Again, we are said to possess only what we can freely use or enjoy, but to have the power of enjoying the divine Person can only be according to sanctifying grace. Moreover, the Holy Ghost is possessed by man, and dwells within him in the very gift itself of sanctifying grace. Hence the Holy Ghost Himself is given and sent."
I Sent., Dist. XIV, q.2, a. 2 ad 3um: "Any knowledge whatsoever does not suffice to indicate that there is a mission (and indwelling of the Holy Ghost). There must be a knowledge which proceeds from a gift attributed to that person, from a gift which unites us to God according to the mode proper to that person, that is to say, by love. Moreover, this knowledge is quasi-experimental.” It presupposes, then, the presence of God who thus makes Himself felt by us as the principle which vivifies us. This explanation, while allowing the mystery to subsist, is considerably cleared up if we recall that charity is the same virtue in heaven and on earth; in the quality of perfect friendship charity, even on earth, demands real union with God, loved above all. God, who is pure spirit, not being by His nature in one place, is not separated from us by space. He is in us, as in all things, as first preserving cause. For several Thomists, if, by an impossibility, He were not already thus present in us, He would become so by charity. Cf. B. Froget, O.P., De Vhabitation du Saint-Esprit dans les dmes justes, 3d ed., pp. 156-71, and la, q.43, a.3; Ila Ilae, q.27, a.4; see Gonet, Salmanticenses, Billuart. John of St. Thomas has a different opinion about this hypothesis, "by an impossibility" mentioned above. His opinion, however, seems less probable.
57 Meditations sur Vtvangile, Part II, 37th day; In Joan., 17: 3: "Now this is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent."
es Ibid.
seeing openly and face to face. Jesus Christ gives us both the one and the other because He merits this life for us, and is its principle in all the members whom He animates.”
Such is the life of grace and of charity; it is infinitely superior to genius, to the gift of miracles, to the knowledge of the angels. 69 In particular such should be Christian perfection, the true nature and conditions of which we can now more easily determine without lessening them. We have already seen the nature of conformity to the only Son of God, a progressive conformity that should render us like Christ Jesus in His hidden, apostolic, and suffering life, before making us share in His glorious life, the seed of which we already possess: “He that believeth in the Son, hath life everlasting.” 60
We shall now note two important consequences of this doctrine.
i) Since sanctifying grace is the beginning of eternal life, and since every just soul enjoys habitual union with the Blessed Trinity dwelling in it, the mystical union, or the actual, intimate, and almost continual union with God, such as is found here on earth in holy souls, appears as the culminating point on earth of the development of the grace of the virtues and of the gifts, and as the normal, even though rather infrequent, prelude to the life of heaven. 91 This mystical union belongs, in fact, to the order of sanctifying grace; it
*>9 See I Cor. 13: 1 ff.
60 John 3: 36.
si Cf. St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. II, chap. 5: “The greater love is, the more intimate is union; and this means that the conformity of the will with God’s will is more perfect. The will, wholly conformed, realizes in its totality union and the supernatural transformation in God.
“This doctrine makes it clear that if the soul is occupied with creatures or with its faculties, either by attraction or by habitual dispositions, it thereby lacks preparation for such a union. The reason for this is that the soul does not offer itself entirely to God, who wishes its supernatural transformation. It must, therefore, concern itself solely with the rejection of obstacles, natural dissimilarities, in order that God, who already communicated Himself naturally, according to nature, may communicate Himself supernaturally by grace.” This teaching confirms the doctrine which we defended earlier in this work on the relations between ascetical and mystical theology.
proceeds essentially from “the grace of the virtues and of the gifts” and not from graces gratis datae, which are transitory and in a sense exterior (as miracles and prophecy) and which may accompany it. The mystical life is Christian life, which has, so to speak, become conscious of itself. It does not give us the absolute certainty that we are in the state of grace, a certitude which, according to the Council of Trent, would presuppose a special revelation, but as St. Paul says: “The Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God.” 62 He makes us know this, observes St. Thomas, “by the filial love which He produces in us.” 88 2) As the life of grace is essentially ordained to that of glory, the normal, although in fact quite rare, summit of its development should be a very perfect disposition to receive the light of glory immediately after death without passing through purgatory; for it is only through our own fault that we will be detained in that place of expiation, where the soul can no longer merit. Now this very perfect disposition to immediate glorification can be nothing other than an intense charity coupled with the ardent desire of the beatific vision, such as we find them particularly in the transforming union, after the painful passive purifications which have delivered the soul from its blemishes. Since nothing unclean can enter heaven, in principle a soul must undergo these passive purifications at least in a measure before death while meriting and progressing, or after death without meriting or progressing. 84
62 Rom. 8: 16.
68 In Ep . ad Rom. t 8: 16, and la Ilae, q.112, a.5. B. Froget, O.P., De I’habitation du Saint-Esprit dans les dmes justes, p. 183.
64 This does not mean that in fact the transforming union must be reached before death in order to avoid purgatory. Certainly some souls—for example, the souls of children who have died immediately after baptism—go directly to heaven without having attained on earth this degree of intimate union. But here, considering a question of principle rather than of fact, what we mean and will explain farther on, is that the transforming union is the normal prelude of the beatific vision; it is a normal summit. The first of these two words should not make us forget the second; nor the second, the first. Many of those who die immediately after baptism or religious profession are far from being
These consequences, to which we will return, disclose the grandeur of the Christian perfection which can be realized on earth, and they contain the loftiest and most practical teaching.
Footnotes
Chapter 9 of 31