Article IV. What Infused Contemplation Does Not Essentially Require

The different definitions of infused contemplation given by theologians agree on one fundamental point. Infused con templation, they say, is, above reasoning and in the obscurity of faith, a simple and loving knowledge of God, which cannot be obtained by our personal activity aided by grace, but rather demands a manifest, special illumination and inspira tion of the Holy Ghost.¹ When it lasts for a certain time, this

84 The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. II, chaps. 7, 8.

85 Cf. St. Thomas, Ha Ilae, q. 184, a. 3. The doctrine taught in this article is forgotten and misunderstood by many great modern theologians.

8Q The Way of Perfection, chap. 21.

contemplation is a state of passive prayer. Theologians generally agree on this fundamental point. We believe it is the true definition, which retains what is essential in the descriptions given by the most accepted mystics. To understand this definition well, we will show first what infused contemplation does not require. Once the ground has been cleared, we shall more easily see what really constitutes it, by seeking the principle from which contemplation proceeds.

There have been theologians who thought that more dis tinctive marks should be added to the definition we have just given. Some have declared that infused contemplation is given suddenly, unexpectedly, without preparation on our part, and that it is accompanied by an absolute impossibility of discursive reasoning.² Others, confusing it with certain accidental and concomitant phenomena, have seen in it a gratuitous grace (gratis data), an extraordinary gift such as prophecy. 8 According to others, it would require infused ideas similar to those of the angels and would make us see God not in an image, but as He is in Himself. 4 Some have even added that infused contemplation is not a meritorious act. 5 These

^Farges, Les phdnomenes mystiques, 1921, pp. 76, 86, 94, 98, 108, 114.

5 Bossuet, Instruction sur les etats d’oraison, Bk. VII: “The mystical state is like prophecy, or the gift of tongues or of miracles. It resembles the kind of grace which is called a grace freely bestowed, gratia gratis data. ... If we must be more explicit, we shall say that the mystical state, consisting principally in something that God operates in us, without us, and in which consequently³ confusions may be easily dispelled by an examination of St. Teresa’s descriptions, quoted in the preceding article. It is a simple matter to show that the definition which we have given fully suffices without the addition of other ideas.

1. Infused contemplation is not always given suddenly, unexpectedly, like rain falling from heaven. More often than not, it is granted after a certain preparation, when the soul is already recollected. Thus, according to St. Teresa (The Interior Castle, fourth mansion), the prayer of quiet is a “supernatural” prayer which we are incapable of procuring for ourselves by our own efforts. But she says that the soul prepares itself to receive this prayer by pious thoughts, by labor of the understanding, as one turns a noria (water wheel) in order to draw water. 6 On this point, it is well also to consult St. John of the Cross. 7

2. Infused contemplation is not necessarily accompanied by an absolute impossibility to discourse or to reason, which would come from the suspension of the imagination. It is possible for this ligature not to exist, since according to the saints there are often distractions in the supernatural prayer of quiet. They also say that some souls, which are in this state, are wrong in leaving it by being willing to discourse too much.

3. Another error is to hold that infused contemplation is diot a meritorious act. Although we cannot have it at will like an act of faith, we can freely consent to be moved in this way by the Holy Ghost. Consequently the act is vital and free, without in itself being deliberate and the fruit of our personal there is not and cannot be any merit.” This is a surprising confusion in so great a soul; it is one which led him to state in the same work (Bk. IX) that St. Francis de Sales had not experienced quiet. St. Jane de Chantal says the contrary in her Riponses (2d ed., 1665), pp. 508 ff. It is true that later on in his last work, in his letters of direction and pious treatises, after having examined the question more thoroughly, Bossuet spoke of contemplation and the prayer of the simple presence of God as St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa did. Cf. p. 230 note 31.

6 Life, chap. 14.

7 The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. II, chap. 12.

effort. In the same way a good student, attentive to the doctrine proposed by his teacher, is passive while receiving it, for he could not have discovered it himself; but he receives it voluntarily and with facility. In infused contemplation the soul exercises this docility toward God; this docility is free and also meritorious because it proceeds from charity, the source of all merit.

4. Neither the consciousness of being in the state of grace nor a sense of delight is necessary* to infused contemplation, since neither this consciousness nor this joy is found in the periods called the passive night of the senses and of the soul; yet these periods are a mystical state. As we shall see later, in the night of the senses the gift of knowledge dominates by showing us especially the vanity of created things; 8 and in the night of the soul the gift of understanding 9 manifests less the goodness of God than His infinite majesty, and by contrast our own wretchedness. Sweetness and peace, the fruit of the gift of wisdom, are experienced especially between the two nights, and much more strongly after the second. Although great consolations are to be found in the mystical life, there are also terrible interior trials lasting for months and years.

5. For the same reason the feeling of the presence of God is not essential to the mystical state. This feeling does not exist at all in the night of the spirit, during which the soul thinks it is rejected by God, and seems almost to despair of its salvation. Nevertheless the soul still possesses the loving and profound knowledge of God’s infinite grandeur but is as it were crushed by it. “Then,” says St. John of the Cross, purifying “contemplation consists in feeling oneself deprived of God, chastised, repulsed by Him.” 10 If anyone were to admit that the essence of the mystical state is the feeling of God’s

8 Summa, Ha Ilae, q.9, a.4.

9 Ibid., q.8, a. 7.

10 The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. II, chap. 6.

presence, he would be led to maintain, with a recent author, that the mystical state does not exist in the periods of desolation through which contemplatives pass. This view is utterly opposed to the entire doctrine set forth by St. John of the Cross in The Dark Night of the Soul on the infused, purifying light which gives an impression of great darkness to the soul, which is still too weak to bear it. This teaching is founded on the description given to us by the most accepted mystics. We will now devote our attention to considerations of a more abstract order.

6. Infused contemplation is certainly not a grace gratis data , bestowed especially in view of the sanctification of others, like prophecy or the gift of tongues, because contemplation is directly ordained to personal sanctification, and more often than not is known only to the person receiving it and to his confessor. Joseph of the Holy Ghost, C.D., is therefore quite right in saying that he cannot comprehend why Anthony of the Annunciation, C.D., in contradiction to tradition, placed infused contemplation among the graces gratis datae and insisted that it should not be asked of God, except with the reservations with which one may ask for the grace of miracles and the gift of prophecy. 11

7. Infused contemplation does not require infused ideas like those of the angels. Infused ideas may indeed be found in certain mystical states as a concomitant phenomenon, for example, in intellectual visions and certain revelations. But prophecy itself, according to St. Thomas, 12 does not generally require these infused ideas; it suffices to have an infused light, which is quite a different thing, and a new co-ordination of acquired ideas. We would be greatly in error if we confounded the impressio specierum with the impressio luminis; the material element of knowledge (species or ideas) would no longer be distinguished from the formal element (the light

11 Joseph of the Holy Ghost, C.D., Curstis theol . myst.-scol, (17*1), Vol. II, Praedicabile II, disp. XI, q.2, pp. 224, 236.

12 Summa, Ha Ilae, q. 173, a.2.

which elevates the intellect and gives it the strength to perceive and to judge). 18

Moreover, if mystical contemplation required infused species of angelic order, it would ordinarily require no cooperation on the part of the imagination. If this were true, all who are in the mystical state, even simply in quiet, would operate without the assistance of the brain, and sleep itself would offer no obstacle. They would contemplate even while asleep. Experience proves that this is true only in very special and truly extraordinary states. 14 According to St. Thomas, who follows Dionysius and St. Albert the Great in this matter, there is in infused contemplation (setting aside certain very superior intellectual visions) a certain almost imperceptible contribution on the part of the imagination; although the soul does not pay attention to images, they are not excluded. 15 In the same way, in the ordinary course of life we use a pen to write, without observing its form; when we read we see letters, but are attentive only to their meaning. A theologian, speculating on the Deity, superior to being, to unity, to the good, has only a verbal image, the word “Deity,” to which he does not give any heed. At other times we may start with the image of a body so as to come to the idea of the incorporeal. St. Thomas clearly states 16 that infused contemplation is more perfect in proportion as it is freed from sensible images.

18 Ibid.

1* Saudreau, £tat mystique, 2d ed., p. 356.

18 St. Thomas, Ila Ilae, q.180, a.5 ad 211m; De veritate, q.18, a.5. In this article St. Thomas shows that in the state of innocence, Adam, to whom he nevertheless attributes a very lofty mystical contemplation, did not know the angels by their very essence, in a purely spiritual manner; for he did not obtain natural knowledge and supernatural knowledge without sensible images, except perhaps in extraordinary raptures. Man, in his present state, does not know things in fact without a certain contribution on the part of the imagination, and grace perfects the intellect without changing the mode of knowing. St. Thomas cites in support of this doctrine the following quotation from Dionysius, who nevertheless had the loftiest conception of infused contemplation (De coelesti hierar., chap. 1): “quod impossibile est nobis aliter lucere divinum radium, nisi varietate sacrorum velaminum circumvelatum.” Cf. also De veritate, q. 13, a. 1.

i« Stimma, Ila Ilae, q. 15, a.3.

Often it suffices to have the impression of a light in the imagination, or on the contrary, in the period called the dark night, the impression of darkness; or again a very confused impression suggestive of life. In any case, infused ideas, similiar to thosesof the angels, are not at all necessary, although they may sometimes be granted in exceptional favors. 17

8 ) Notwithstanding what has recently been written, 18 it is even truer that infused contemplation does not require an immediate perception of God, which would make us know Him as He is. This immediate perception of God does not exist, in fact, in the great anxieties of the passive nights of the senses and of the soul, which are, nevertheless, mystical states and are accompanied by infused contemplation. Does this perception exist in the other phases of the mystical ascent? Nothing permits such an affirmation; on the contrary, everything leads us to think that it is impossible. The texts of St. Thomas, on which this theory claims to be based, cannot have the meaning attributed to them. 19 One writer asserts: “It is sufficient (in mystical contemplation) to know God as He shows Himself, partially, in order to know Him as He is.” 20 God, however, being incapable of division, cannot show Himself partially in such a way that He would make Himself seen as He is. The divine attributes exist in Him formaliter eminenter, and they are only virtually distinct, because they are really identical in the eminence of the Deity. Consequently nobody can see one of them as it is, without seeing the others and without seeing the Deity itself, which, as Dionysius says,

17 This is the common teaching. Cf. Vallgornera, Theol. mpt. S. Thomae, I, 450; Philip of the Blessed Trinity and Anthony of the Holy Ghost.

• is Farges, Les phdnomdnes mystiques, p. 97: “To sum up; God, the supernatural agent, is immediately perceived in His action received in the soul (infused idea), as the material agent is directly perceived in its action on the external senses, quasi species ( impressa) rei visae ”

19 Cf. op. cit., p. 98. A text is cited from the Contra Gentiles , Bk. Ill, chap. 54. But St. Thomas is there speaking of the light of glory necessary for the beatific vision, and not of an infused idea which would render possible an immediate perception of God inferior to this vision. The difference is a notable one.

20 Farges, Les phenomenes mystiques, p. 98.

is super ens et super unum. St. Thomas states explicitly and proves that no vision inferior to the beatific vision can make us know God as He is in Himself; no created, infused idea can manifest just as He is, Him who is being itself, who is eternally subsistent intellection itself. 21 In theology the expression sicuti est has a formal meaning which is fulfilled only in the beatific vision. 22 Neither angels before receiving the light of glory nor Adam before his sin, knew God as He is. St. Thomas is explicit on this point. 28 He says as clearly as possible: “The vision of the blessed in heaven differs from that of creatures still in the state of trial, not as seeing more perfectly and seeing less perfectly, but as seeing and not seeing. Consequently neither Adam nor the angels in the state of trial saw the divine essence.” 24

If St. Paul, while on earth, received the beatific vision in a transitory manner when he was ravished to the third heaven, as St. Augustine and St. Thomas think he did, he certainly enjoyed an altogether extraordinary grace far above the highest mystical state described by St. Teresa. 25

According to Farges, 26 the immediate perception of God, which would be essential to mystical contemplation, is none other than that which the angels naturally possess according to St. Thomas. But St. Thomas teaches that this natural knowledge, which an angel has of God, is not immediate. He

21 See la, q.12, a. 2.

22 The Council of Vienne condemned this error of the Beghards: “The soul does not need the light of glory in order to see God and to enjoy Him.’*

23 See la, q.56, a.3; q.94, a. 1; Ha Ilae, q.5, a. 1; De veritate, q. 18, a.i.

24 De veritate. loc. cit.

25 Even in such extraordinary graces as intellectual visions of the Blessed Trinity, of which St. Teresa speaks, intuition remains negative, per viam negatio?iis, as St. Thomas teaches, De veritate, q. 10, a. 11 ad i4um: “. . . de visione intellectual^ qua sancti divinam veritatem in contemplatione intuentur; non quidem sciendo de ea quid est sed magis quid non est.” In an intellectual vision of the Blessed Trinity, a vision of angelic order or by means of infused ideas, the soul sees, especially in regard to the divine essence of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, what they are not, rather than what they are. This vision is very superior to theological speculation, but it does not take away faith; it does not give the intrinsic evidence of the mystery, evidence which is given only by the light of glory.

26 Op. cit., pp. 99, 108.

does not say, 2T as some authors claim he does, that it excludes the species expressa or verbum mentis, but that it is not obtained through the mirror of creatures exterior to the angels. The difference is considerable. St. Thomas says: “The angel knows God naturally, in so far as he is himself (by his angelic nature) a similitude of God; but he does not see the divine essence, for no created similitude can represent it. Moreover, this angelic knowledge is related rather to specular knowledge, for the nature of the angel is like a mirror reflecting the image of God.”

If, as has been said, 28 the immediate intuition of God, essential to mystical contemplation, “is at one and the same time the natural gift of the angels and the supernatural gift of contemplative mystics,” it would follow that mystical contemplation would be in an order immensely inferior to that of sanctifying grace and of the theological virtues. It would not be a participation in the divine nature and life, but only a participation in the angelic life; there is a great abyss between these two. And contemplation would not attain to more than the natural knowledge of God which the devil preserves, for the fallen angel retains the integrity of his natural knowledge. 29 On the contrary, it is absolutely certain that infused contemplation, like sanctifying grace or the grace of the virtues and of the gifts, is essentially supernatural (quoad substantiam), as well in the angels in the state of trial as in man. By this very fact, contemplation is infinitely superior to the natural knowledge of the greatest human geniuses, and also to the natural knowledge of the highest angel, and even of creatable angels.

Evidently this theory of mystical contemplation, which seems greatly to elevate it by making it an extraordinary, angelic thing, generally inaccessible to interior souls, lowers it exceedingly by identifying it with the natural knowledge

27 See la, q.56, a.3.

28 Farges, loc. cit,

20 See la, q.64, a.i.

which the devil preserves. 30 This point of view springs from the confusion, which we have pointed out several times, between the essential (quoad substantiam) supematuralness of the grace of the virtues and of the gifts, and the modal (quoad modum) supernaturalness of miracles, prophecy, and other extraordinary facts of the same class. The difference is considerable: the resurrection of a dead person supematurally restores natural life, which is infinitely inferior to that of grace; the life restored is not essentially supernatural, but only so by the mode of its production (quoad modum). Likewise, if the natural knowledge of the angels is communicated to man by infused ideas, it is supernatural for man by the manner of its production (quoad modum), but not essentially so. Hence it remains infinitely inferior to the order of grace, and it could become increasingly perfect in its order so The reader will not be astonished that, from this point of view, Bishop Farges declares that the unitive way branches in two different directions: the ordinary or active way, and the extraordinary or passive way (op. cit., p. 18). To support this statement, he appeals to an isolated text from St. Teresa’s writings, the meaning of which should be determined by comparison with many other very important texts commonly quoted in favor of the contrary thesis.

The principal reason, he tells us (op. cit., p. 275), why, according to St. Teresa, many souls do not pass beyond quiet, is that God does not call them higher. ... St. Teresa, on the contrary, expresses this opinion (fifth mansion, chap. 1): “There are many called, few chosen. . . . Let us beg the Lord to grant us His grace in order that we may not be frustrated by our own fault: let us ask Him to show the way and give us the strength to dig continually until we find this hidden treasure.” Cf. St. Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God, Bk. XII, chap. 11.

Bishop Farges also appeals (p. 127) to the authority of Father Vallgornera, O.P., but he seems to forget that this Thomist, faithful to his school, teaches, as do the Carmelite theologians, that all souls should aspire to infused contemplation and that it is ordinarily granted to the perfect. It is, therefore, not essentially extraordinary (by nature). Cf. Vallgornera, Theol. myst. S. Thomae, I, 428; likewise Philip of the Blessed Trinity, C.D., and Anthony of the Holy Ghost, C.D.

He recognizes elsewhere (op. cit., pp. 243, 257) that the passive purifications, purgatory before death, are necessary to cleanse the soul from all its blemishes. When we add to this idea the fact that these passive purifications are, as St. John of the Cross says, a mystical state, must we not conclude that the mystical state normally leads to the full perfection of Christian life, to the perfect purification of the soul immutably united 'o God?

without ever attaining the dignity of infused faith by which we believe in the Trinity and in the incarnation. 81 Thus the sides of a polygon inscribed in a circle can be multiplied infinitely, and the polygon will never coincide with the circle, for no matter how small each side may be, it will never become a point.

The theory of the immediate perception of God is likewise contrary to the common teaching of the mystics. St. John of the Cross tells us that even in the spiritual marriage contemplation takes place in faith. For him, as well as for St. Thomas, 82 faith and immediate, positive perception are mutually exclusive: the act of vision cannot be an act of faith. Consequently we can admit here only an obscure, negative (per viam negationis) intuition. According to St. Thomas, this intuition shows us better and better what God is not, that He surpasses all conception; it is to this quasi-unknown God that infused love unites us.

All mystics tell us that they perceive, not God Himself, as He is, but the effect of His action on their souls especially in the sweetness of love which He causes them to experience. Speaking of what often happens to those who have the supernatural prayer of union or that of quiet, St. Teresa writes, as we have already observed: “The presence of God is frequently felt, particularly by those who have attained to the prayer of union and of quiet, when we seem, at the very commencement of our prayer, to find Him with whom we would converse, and when we seem to feel that He hears us by the effects and the spiritual impressions of great love and faith of which we are then conscious, as well as by the good resolutions, accompanied by sweetness, which we then make. This is a great grace from God; and let him to whom si Thus our infused faith, which is exercised by acquired ideas, differs materially from the infused faith of the angels, which is exercised by infused ideas; but it does not differ from it formally by the formal motive, or by the infused light which is likewise supernatural.

82 Summa 3 Ha Has, q-i, a.4.

He has given it esteem it much, because it is a very high degree of prayer; but it is not vision. God is understood to be present there by the effects He works in the soul: that is the way His Majesty makes His presence felt. ,, 88 We could quote many similar texts from the greatest masters of mysticism. 84 St. Thomas teaches the same doctrine in his explanation of the classic expression of Dionysius: “Not only learning but also experiencing divine things.” “There is a twofold knowledge of God’s goodness or will. One is speculative. . . . The other knowledge of God’s will or goodness is affective or experimental, and thereby a man experiences in himself the taste of God’s sweetness, and complacency in God’s will, as Dionysius says of Hierotheos (Div. nom II), that he learns divine things through experience of them. It is in this way that we are told to prove God’s will, and to taste His sweetness.” 85 This is the way that we know God, not immediately as He is, but by the effects which He produces in us.

Footnotes

1. In the ascetical life, the inspiration of the Holy Ghost remains latent; but in the mystical life it is generally quite manifest. It may not be so for the soul receiving it, for in periods of trial this inspiration may remain hidden from the soul; but it is manifest at least for the spiritual director who sees that the pas sive night of the senses and of the spirit have as their principal cause a purify ing light of mystical order. ↩

2. It is thus that Honors de Sainte-Marie, C.D., in his work, which in certain respects is very valuable, Tradition des peres et des auteurs ecclesiastiques sur la contemplation, 1708, Part III, Diss. 3, a. 1, sec. 2, applies the word “acquired’* to all contemplative prayer which has been preceded by some work of recollec tion. Moreover, he even maintains that acquired contemplation, like infused, “is accompanied ... by the prayer of quiet, by the sleep of the powers, by spiritual silence, ecstasy, rapture.” He is, however, obliged to add: “Although acquired contemplation may sometimes cause ecstasy and rapture, it seems quite evident that this cannot happen without some influence of the gifts of the Holy Ghost; and thus acquired contemplation passes into infused.’* We read in the same chapter: “In this acquired contemplation, one never attains to what is called pure contemplation.” ↩

3. This is what Anthony of the Annunciation, C.D., taught in his Disceptatio mystica, tr. 2, q.4, a. 8, no. 34. He was later corrected on this point by Joseph of the Holy Ghost, C.D., Cursus theol. myst.-scol., II, 224. ↩