Chapter XV. The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life According to the Fathers and the Great Spiritual Writers

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W/ E HAVE discussed what constitutes Christian perfection and the obligation to tend to it, either by the common way or by the special way of the effective practice of the three evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience. We must now consider the distinction between the three ages of the spiritual life, commonly called the age of beginners, that of proficients, and that of the perfect, or in other terms, the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways. We shall see, first of all, how the problem of the three ages of the spiritual life is stated, and then the answer found in the testimony of the fathers and in that of the doctors who followed them.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

One of the greatest problems of spirituality is in what sense we must understand the traditional division of the “three ways, the purgative, illuminative, and unitive,” according to the terminology used by Dionystus, or the states of “beginners, proficients, and the perfect,” according to an earlier terminology preserved by St. Thomas.?

As we have already indicated in chapter one (sections 5, 6, and 7), two notably different interpretations of this traditional division have been given, according as the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith and the union with God which results from it are considered as belonging to the normal way of sanctity, or as not only extrinsically but intrinsically extraordinary favors.¹

This divergence of interpretation appears if one compares the division of ascetical-mystical theology generally followed until the second half of the eighteenth century with that given by several authors who have written since that period. We noted ? that this divergence is evident if a comparison is made, for example, between the treatise of Vallgornera, O.P., Mystica theologia divi Thomae (1662), and the two works of Scaramelli, S.J., Direttorio ascetico (1751) and Direttorio mistico. Vallgornera, closely following the Carmelite, Philip of the Blessed Trinity, connects the latter’s division with that of earlier authors and with certain characteristic texts from the works of St. John of the Cross on the period when the passive purifications of the senses and of the spirit generally appear.”

The following division made by Vallgornera shows what these authors considered the characteristics of the three ages of the spiritual life:

1. The purgative way or stage, proper to beginners, in which it is a question of the active purification of the external and internal senses, of the passions, of the intellect, and of the will, by mortification, meditation, prayer; and finally, it is a question of the passive purification of the senses, in which infused contemplation begins and by means of which the soul is raised to the illuminative way, as St. John of the Cross says.‘

2. The illuminative way or state, proper to proficients, in which, after a preliminary chapter on the divisions of contemplation, are discussed the gifts of the Holy Ghost and infused contemplation, which proceeds principally from the gifts of understanding and wisdom, and which is declared desirable for all interior souls, as being morally necessary for the full perfection of Christian life. This second part of the work, after several articles relating to extraordinary graces (visions, revelations, interior words), ends with a chapter of nine articles relative to the passive purification of the spirit, which marks the passage to the unitive way. This again is what St. John of the Cross taught.’

• Philip of the Blessed Trinity sets forth the same ideas in the prologue of his Summa theologiae mysticae (ed. 1874, p. 17). Many Carmelite theologians think as he does.

• The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. I, chaps. 8, 14. 5 Ibid., Bk. Il, chaps. 2, 11.²

3. The unitive life or stage, proper to the perfect, in which it is a question of the intimate union of the contemplative soul with God and of its degrees up to the transforming union.

Like Philip of the Blessed Trinity and many others,® Vallgornera considers this division traditional, truly conformable to the doctrine of the fathers, to the principles of St. Thomas, and to the teaching of St. John of the Cross and the greatest mystics who have written on the three ages of the spiritual life. It harmonizes fully with these two capital texts from the writings of the Carmelite doctor: “The passive purification of the senses is common. It takes place in the greater number of beginners.” 7 “The soul began to set out on the way of the spirit, the way of proficients, which is also called the illuminative way or the way of infused contemplation, wherein God Himself teaches and refreshes the soul without meditation or any active efforts.” 8 From this point of view, the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith is manifestly in the normal way of sanctity. This is not at all surprising, since it proceeds from faith enlightened by the gifts of understanding and of wisdom, which are found in all the just.

However, the division given by Scaramelli and those who followed him is quite different. In his Direttorio ascetico, Scaramelli intends to describe the ordinary way which leads to Christian perfection. In this work he does not discuss, so to speak, the gifts of the Holy Ghost or the contemplation which proceeds from them. In his Direttorio mistico, he treats of infused contemplation as an extraordinary grace,’ and only at the very end does he speak of the passive purification of the senses (tr. V); whereas, for St. John of the Cross, as we have said, this purification 1s like a second conversion which marks the entrance into the illuminative way.

The divergence between this new manner of looking at the matter and the preceding one springs manifestly from the fact that the early authors, as opposed to the more recent, maintained that all truly interior souls may humbly ask for and keenly desire the grace of the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith, of the Incarnation, of the passion of Christ, of the Sacrifice of the Mass, e This is also the division proposed by another Dominican, Giovanni Maria di Lauro, in his Theologia mystica, published in Naples in 1743.

of the Blessed Trinity present in us, and of eternal life, mysteries which are so many manifestations of the infinite goodness of God. They considered this supernatural and confused contemplation morally necessary for close union with God, in which the full perfection of Christian life consists. It is from this point of view that they determined the characteristics of each of the three ages of the spiritual life.

With the above statement in mind, the question may obviously be put in the following terms: Is the idea generally accepted until the second half of the eighteenth century true? Has it a basis in Scripture, in tradition, and in the very principles of theology? We shall examine these different points.

Tue TESTIMONY OF SCRIPTURE

We shall cite only some of the more important texts, after the already numerous ones which we adduced above. We have seen +° in the light of the Gospel, according to the eight beatitudes, how lofty Christian perfection is. We have also seen that it cannot be obtained without the mortification of all that is inordinate in us,!! without the cross borne with patience,’? without prayer to the Father hidden in the secret of our hearts,'® without docility to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost,'* which should characterize “the true adorers . . . in spirit and in truth.” 1° Is this not, under a special influence of the Holy Ghost, the loving contemplation of the mysteries of salvation?

St. Paul tells us also what is normally proper to the spiritual age of the perfect when he writes: “Howbeit we speak wisdom among the perfect: . . . the wisdom of God in a mystery, a wisdom which is hidden, which God ordained before the world, unto our glory. . . . 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. But to us God hath revealed them by His Spirit; for the

Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” +° Is this not what the perfect contemplate?

St. Paul writes likewise to the Ephesians: “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened by His Spirit with might unto the inward man; that Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts, that, being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth: to know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fulness of God.” 17 Is not this what characterizes the age of the perfect: the infused contemplation of the mystery of Christ and the union with God which results from it? We shall see that the Greek and Latin fathers thus understood these inspired words, which they never tired of repeating.

First of all, let us note, as several writers have observed, that in the spiritual life of the apostles themselves, who were trained directly by Christ, there are three distinct phases which correspond to the three ages of the spiritual life.1®

The first phase of their interior life, that of beginners, extends from their conversion up to the Passion, when they passed through a profound crisis, during which Peter went so far as to deny his Master. Immediately afterwards he repented. This was his second conversion, which took place in that true passive purification, the dark night of the Passion. Something similar occurred in the life of the other apostles when, by the grace of the Savior, they again got control of themselves after having abandoned Him.

The second phase of their interior life, that of proficients, extends from the Passion to Pentecost. They were still fearful; their faith still needed to be enlightened, their hope to be strengthened, their charity to be endowed with the necessary zeal. This phase was completed by the great privation of the sensible presence of Christ after His ascension into heaven. They had to continue their way in naked

18 We developed these observations in Les trois conversions et les trois voies, pp. I-112.

faith, with the prospect of the persecutions which had been announced to them.

The third phase began with Pentecost, which was for them like a third conversion, a true passive purification of the spirit and a spiritual transformation which introduced them into the perfect life. This purification greatly enlightened their souls, and greatly strengthened their wills to preach everywhere Christ crucified. This third phase of their interior life was marked by an increasingly closer union with God and deeper self-oblation, even to martyrdom.

Farther on, we shall return to the subject of these three phases of the interior life of the apostles, each phase of which began by a conversion or a transformation of the soul. If a person reflects deeply on this subject before God in prayer, he will find in it a true light on the three ages of the spiritual life. ‘These indications given by Scripture are, moreover, confirmed by what the fathers tell us.

THe TESTIMONY OF I RADITION

In recent years special study has been made of the doctrine ot the Greek and Latin fathers on these three periods in the interior life of every Christian striving for sanctity. We shall recall here what seems most certain in their teaching.'® We shall consider, first of all, the testimony of the Greek fathers. Among the apostolic fathers, St. Ignatius of Antioch often speaks in his letters of the spiritual and mystical presence of Christ in the Church and in the faithful. He exhorts the faithful by telling them that they are Christopbores (Christ-bearers) or Theophores (God-bearers). He says to them: “Let us perform all our actions with the thought that God dwells in us. We shall thus be His temples, and He Himself will be our God, dwelling in us (cf. Eph. 15:3).” St. Ignatius of Antioch strongly aspires to live more and more intimately with Christ and to die in order to be definitively united with Him. His letters are filled with that lofty knowledge of Christ, at once living and penetrating, which is nothing else but contemplation and

19 Cf. in particular F. Cayré, A.A., Précis de patrologie, 1927, in which the spiritual doctrine of the fathers of the Church is set forth ex professo, which is quite rare in a work of this type. Cf. I, 19-29, 173 f., 177, 192, 207, 417, 582,

584, 683; Il, 355-62, 903-6. See also G. Bardy, La vie spirituelle d'après les pères des trois premiers siècles. 1935.

which overflows in a most abundant apostolic activity, the fruit of a great charity. But to reach this very close union with God and the Savior, we must have contempt for self, for all that is inordinate in us, for everything that lessens the divine life in us.*° In this period of persecution, St. Ignatius desires to be ground by the teeth of beasts in order to become the wheat of Christ, as Christ was ground to become our Eucharistic bread.

In the second century, St. Irenaeus insists on the fact that man ought to allow himself to be formed by God like clay in the potter’s hands. Instead of resisting, of shrinking away from the imprint of the divine hand, he should be increasingly docile to the Holy Ghost in prayer and action, and then he will come to judge spiritually of all things and to live only on the love of God.*!

At the end of the second century, Clement of Alexandria (in his Stromata) ?? describes the spiritual ascent, every phase of which brings the soul closer to the state of the perfect man that St. Paul speaks of to the Ephesians.?* Clement conceives of these successive states through which interior souls pass as spiritual mansions.** These states he characterizes as follows: first of all, the fear of God dominates,”° then faith and hope,?® and finally, charity and wisdom.?" Now, the fear of God is the least elevated of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and wisdom is the highest of all, according to the descending enumeration given by Isaias (11:2 f.). The gift of wisdom bestows peace, which springs also from charity, the highest of the virtues.

According to Clement of Alexandria, the perfect are tranquilized souls in which charity dominates. According to the expression of St. Paul, they have attained to the state of the “perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fulness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13).?° They have received the mysterious and hidden wisdom which St. Paul preached “among the perfect” (I Cor. 2:6). Clement calls this wisdom the gnosis. It is a religious contemplation springing from

20 Cf. Epistle to the Romans, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9. Epistle to the Trallians, 4 f. 21 Adv. haeres., IV, 39; V, 9; IV, 33.

the inspiration of the Holy Ghost in the docile soul and transforming our interior life, making us friends of God.

Origen, like his master Clement of Alexandria, says that the perfect _ man lives especially by charity, and that ordinarily he receives from the Holy Ghost infused wisdom, intimate knowledge of the divinity of Christ 2° and of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity.®° Origen, in his commentary on St. John 1:6, even writes: “No one can grasp the meaning of the Gospel (of St. John, which is consecrated to the divinity of Christ) unless he has rested on the breast of Jesus, and unless he has received from Him, Mary, who becomes his mother also.” 31 According to Origen, the Word reveals Himself to the perfect and trains their souls, as He trained those of the apostles. In the most beautiful pages of his Commentary on St. Matthew 12:15-20, Origen admirably describes this training of the Twelve by the Savior.®?

Origen distinguishes three stages:** that of beginners, in whom inordinate passions lose their strength; that of proficients, in whom these passions begin to die out under the abundance of the grace of the Holy Ghost; finally, that of the perfect. He recommends docility to the Holy Ghost, through whom we can go to Christ, and through Him rise even to the Father in the contemplation which solitude favors.

Didymus the Blind and the Cappadocian fathers teach the same doctrine. Didymus, whose teaching is marked by the depth of his piety, invites every Christian to close union with Christ, whom he calls the Spouse of holy souls, an expression taken from the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.*4

St. Basil, who organized monastic life in Cappadocia and Pontus, set forth the principles of this life and their application in his Greater Rules and his Lesser Rules.” His spirituality is firm, solid, and serious, and prepares souls for contemplation and union with God. In the preface of his book on the monastic rules, he says:

29 Contra Cels., I, 13; VI, 13; PG, XI, 679, 1309; In Levit., 5:3; PG, XII, 452; In Psalm., 26:4; PG, XII, 1279.

“When the eye of the soul becomes pure and shadowless, it contemplates divine things, thanks to a light from on high, which fills it abundantly without satiating it. . . . After undergoing painful combats and succeeding in freeing the spirit, in spite of its close union with matter, from the mélange of sensible passions, it becomes capable of conversing with God. . . . He who has reached this state ought no longer to permit the vapors of vile passions to trouble and to cover the gaze of his soul with a thick veil, and thus to make him lose spiritual and divine contemplation.” St. Basil expresses the same idea in his explanation of Psalms 32 and 44, and in his first homily on faith. Progressive purification is the condition of union with God in contemplation.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus likewise says that God is substantial light,?° which a person can grasp only by himself becoming light,?7 and by purifying his soul in order to rise from fear to wisdom,*® that is, from the lowest of the gifts of the Holy Ghost to the highest. It will be observed that all these authors use three terms: purification, illumination, union.

St. Gregory of Nyssa, in his De vita Moysis,®° in which the life of Moses serves only as the outward framework for the development of the spiritual life, shows that we must detach ourselves from creatures and live by Christ in order to be “admitted to the contemplation of the divine nature” and to union with God. This, says the saint, constitutes a victory over the enemy, a victory obtained only by the cross and by the progressive purification of one’s intellect from all that is sensible and material. In his treatise De virginitate,*° the same father shows that perfection makes the soul the spouse of Christ, a theme which he also develops in his homilies on the Canticle of Canticles.*1

St. Ephrem, who considered Christian life a spiritual combat, regards contemplation obtained by docility to the Holy Ghost as the privilege of the perfect life. In his treatise De virtute, chapter 10, he says: “When we have conquered our passions, destroyed

3T Oratio go, chaps. 37 f.: “Lumen efficiamur. Illuminemur oculis, ut recte cernamus.”

every inordinate natural affection in ourselves, and emptied our minds of every preoccupation useless to salvation, then the Holy Ghost, finding our souls at rest, and communicating a new power to our intellects, will put light mto our hearts, as we light a lamp that has already been provided with wick and oil. . . . Therefore, above all things, let us prepare our souls for the reception of the divine light, and so render ourselves worthy of the gifts of God.” The way of union with God is through purification and the light which the Holy Ghost gives.

In the fifth century, Diadochus taught this doctrine in his Chapters on Spiritual Perfection,® and Dionysius the Mystic (the Pseudo- Areopagite) repeatedly speaks in well-known texts of purification, illumination, and the unitive or perfect way.* The unitive way belongs to the mystical order; it is the normal prelude of eternal life. According to Dionysius, purification prepares a lofty knowledge of God, illumination communicates it, and sanctification makes it expand completely in the soul.

Among the Greek fathers of the seventh century, St. Maximus develops this doctrine and distinguishes three degrees of prayer corresponding to the three degrees of charity: “Simple prayer is like bread; it comforts beginners. When a little contemplation is added to prayer, it is like oil with which one refreshes oneself; pure contemplation is like a wine of exquisite flavor which lifts those who drink it out of themselves.” 44 “Contemplation proceeds from an illumination of the Holy Ghost.” 4 “He who is purified is enlightened and merits to penetrate into the innermost sanctuary and there enjoy the embraces of the Word.” #® St. Maximus also noted clearly the severe trials which contemplatives must undergo, the crucible through which they must pass that they may be fully purified and firmly established in the love of God.*7

42 Published by Weis-Liebersdorf, Leipzig, Teubner, 1912. Quoted at eas by Saudreau, Vie d’union d’après les grands maîtres, 3rd ed., 1921, pp. 52 fi.

48 Cf. The Celestial Hierarchy, Ul, 2 f£. The Divine Names, I, 2; IV, 12 f.; VII, 13. Mystical Theology, 1, 3; Il. See also Cayré, Précis de patrologie, Il, 92-96.

47 Ibid., col. 1215. We have assembled elsewhere numerous similar texts

In the eighth century, St. John Damascene says also that infused contemplation is generally granted to the perfect: “He who has reached the highest degree of love, going out of himself, so to speak, discovers Him who cannot be seen. Taking his flight above this cloud of the senses which arrests the gaze of the spirit and establishing himself in peace, he fixes his gaze on the Sun of justice and enjoys this spectacle which he can never tire of.” 48 “To have attained to the contemplation of the Creator by the generous practice of virtues is a treasure that will not be snatched away.” 4°

Therefore, according to the Greek fathers, supernatural contemplation, proceeding from the gift of wisdom, is in the normal way of sanctity. It begins with the age of proficients and ordinarily accompanies the charity of the perfect.

The Latin fathers, in particular St. Augustine and St. Gregory the Great, present the same teaching. In De quantitate animae (chap. 33, nos. 70-76), St. Augustine distinguishes several degrees. He insists on the struggle against sin, the difficult work of purification, followed by the entrance into light for those who are purified and finally by divine union (mansio in luce). Later, in his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount,°° he describes the ascending progress of the soul toward God, according to the gradation of the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The fear of God is the first degree of the spiritual life; wisdom its summit. Between these two extremes, he distinguishes a double period of purifying preparation for wisdom: a remote preparation, called the active life, which is the active practice of the moral virtues that correspond to the gifts of piety, fortitude, knowledge, and counsel; then a proximate preparation, called the contemplative life,°! which is the eminent exercise of the theological virtues and of the gifts of understanding and wisdom in souls established in peace and docile to grace. Faith, enlightened by these gifts, is then the principle of contemplation, and ardent charity unites the soul closely to God. Thus the labors ef the active life from St. Maximus and his predecessors: cf. Perfection chrétienne et contemplation, I], 668 ff.

50 De Sermone Domini, 1, chaps. 1-4, De doctrina christiana, Il, chap. 7; Serm. 347.

81 De Trinitate, Bks. XII-XIV.

prepare for contemplation, in which the purified soul enjoys the divine light, the pledge of eternal life. This contemplation which proceeds from the gift of wisdom is, in truth, infused contemplation.®?

In the fifth century, Cassian in his Conferences, or lessons in spirituality, especially in the ninth and tenth, shows that the end of the spiritual life on earth is divine contemplation, which Cassian regards as the perfect exercise of the love of God. The soul prepares for it by prayer in order to obtain the pardon of sins committed, by the practice of the virtues and a lively desire for a greater charity for itself and its neighbor.®* Then prayer ends by becoming “a prayer all of fire,” °* which “is formed by the contemplation of God alone and by the ardor of a burning charity.” 55 “Thus the soul begins to taste in an earthen vessel the first fruits of the glory which it hopes for in heaven.” 58

It is well known that Cassian’s Conferences were over a long period the current book of spiritual reading. St. Thomas read them often, and preserved Cassian’s doctrine in speaking of the gift of wisdom, whose progress accompanies that of charity.

In the sixth century, St. Gregory the Great also admits the division of the three degrees of the spiritual life: the struggle against sin,°” then the active life or the practice of the virtues,®* and the contemplative life, which is that of the perfect,®® and which he declares necessary for apostles or preachers of the word of God °° and for those who wish to attain perfection.*! In this teaching, St. Gregory shows himself the disciple of St. Augustine. In his opinion all the

52? Father Cayré says quite justly in his Précis de patrologie, 1927 (1, 669), in treating of the spirituality of St. Augustine: “St. Thomas will truly remain the disciple of St. Augustine when he presents these graces (of infused contemplation) as the crowning of the entire spiritual organism of the soul, and as destined to subject the soul wholly to God” (Ia Iae, q.68, a.1).

Father Ephrem Longpre, O.F.M., says the same thing about St. Bonaventure in Archivium Franciscanum historicum, 1921, fasc. 1, II, “La théologie mystique de saint Bonaventure.”

58 See Ninth Conference, chaps. 8 ff.

58 Tenth Conference, chap. 6.

works of the Christian life have their full perfection only if souls are illumined by the superior lights of contemplation.®? It is the end of asceticism, the fruit of a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the exercise of the gift of wisdom. Clearly meant is an infused contemplation,** for which one prepares especially by humility, purity of heart, and habitual recollection.

St. Gregory also noted the painful passive purifications later described by Hugh of St. Victor, Tauler, and especially St. John of the Cross.®* St. Gregory insists on the fact that these purifications “dry up all sensual affection in us” ®* and thus prepare us for contemplation and union with God, wherein we find great strength in trial and ardent charity.

St. Bernard preserves all this teaching, and speaks in his Sermons °" of the humble and burning desire for contemplation. If these desires are ardent, they are, in his opinion, heard and granted; but men of desire are only too rare. St. Bernard often describes the union with God which results from infused contemplation and the alternate succession of the presence and absence of the Word, the Spouse of the soul.®8

The same doctrine is also found in Hugh of St. Victor, who insists on the passive purifications of the soul,®® in Richard of St. Victor,"® in St. Bonaventure,*! who was fond of the terminology, which Dionysius used habitually, of the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways.

st. Thomas, as we shall see, preserves the distinction between beginners, proficients, and the perfect.?? This distinction is clarified

64 Ibid., X, 13: “We are inclined toward superior goods when the Spirit touches us with His breath . . . and then is imprinted in the heart which receives it the traces, as it were, of God’s footsteps.” Cf. Cayré, op. cit., II, 242-47.

7 Itinerarium, VII; De triplici via, chap. 3; De apologia pauperum, chap. 3; Sermo l de Dom. V post Pascha. Cf. P. Bonnefoi, O.F.M., Le Saint-Esprit et ses dons selon saint Bonaventure, 1929, p. 217; E. Longpré, O.F.M., art. cit.

by what he says in his Commentary on St. Matthew (chap. 5) about the beatitudes of the flight from sin, of those of the active life, and’ of those of the contemplative life. In this commentary he describes the ascent of the soul as St. Augustine and St. Gregory did."

THe THREE AGES OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE AND THOSE OF THE CoRPOREAL LIFE

St. Thomas 7* compares the three ages of the spiritual life with those of the corporeal life: childhood, adolescence, and maturity. We should note this analogy, and in particular the transition from one period to another.

It is generally admitted that first childhood ceases on the awakening of reason about the seventh year. This period is followed by a sort of second childhood which lasts until the period of adolescence, about the fourteenth year. Adolescence extends from the fourteenth to the twentieth year; then comes maturity, which is divided into the period which precedes full maturity, and that which, from about the thirty-fifth year onward, follows before the decline of old age.

Psychologists point out that mentality changes with the transformations of the organism. The child follows chiefly the imagination and the impulses of the sensible appetites. He does not yet discern, nor does he organize rationally; even when his reason begins to awaken, it remains extremely dependent on his senses. On leaving childhood, about the fourteenth year, at the period of puberty, there is not only an organic, but a psychological, intellectual, and moral transformation. The adolescent is no longer content to follow his imagination; he begins to reflect on the affairs of human life, on the necessity of preparing himself for a certain profession or life-work. This period of transition, called the awkward age, is not without difficulty: then, about the fourteenth year, the adolescent’s moral personality begins to take shape with a sense of honor and of good reputation, or he may become perverted and begin to go wrong, unless he becomes a retarded, unstable, abnormal person.

Here the analogy throws light on the spiritual life. We shall see that the beginner who does not become a proficient, as he should, turns out badly or remains a retarded, tepid soul, and, as it were,

a spiritual dwarf. As the fathers, particularly St. Bernard,” so often say: “He who does not advance, falls back.” To refuse to become better, is to fall back, whereas to tend persistently toward perfection, is, in a sense, already to possess it.7°

To continue the analogy, if the crisis of puberty, which is at once both physical and moral, is a difficult period through which to pass, the same is true of another crisis, which may be called that of first liberty, which introduces the adolescent into maturity at about the twentieth year. The young man, who is then fully formed physically, must begin to take his place in the life of society. Some pass through this period badly, abuse the liberty given them, and, like the prodigal son, confound liberty with license. On the other hand, the adult who develops normally and takes the good road concerns himself with matters of individual, family, and social life in a manner superior to that of the adolescent. The adult is engrossed in more general questions. Unless he has received a higher vocation from God, he himself founds a home that he may in his turn become an educator.

Something similar exists in the spiritual life. When the proficient who is, so to speak, in the period of spiritual adolescence, reaches the more advanced age of the perfect, his mentality rises as it becomes spiritual, and it grows more and more supernatural. He sees with increasing clearness not only the things that pertain to individual, family, and social life, but those that have to do with the reign of God or the life of the Church in their relation to eternal life.

We should like particularly to emphasize here the differences which separate the three ages of the spiritual life and to explain how the transition is made from one to the other. As St. Thomas observes: “The divers degrees of charity are distinguished according to the different pursuits (studia) to which man is brought by the increase of charity. For at first it is incumbent on man to occupy himself chiefly with avoiding sin and resisting his concupiscences, which move him in opposition to charity. This concerns beginners, in whom charity has to be fed or fostered lest it be destroyed. In the second place, man’s chief pursuit is to aim at progress in good, and this is the pursuit of the proficient, whose principal aim is to

one THREE AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE strengthen their charity by adding to it: man’s third pursuit is to aim chiefly at union with God and enjoyment of Him: this belongs to the perfect who ‘desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ’ (Phil. 1:22), Pt

These are the three stages of progress toward sanctity; but what is important to add, and has been admirably observed by St. John of the Cross, is the transition from one spiritual age to another, a transition analogous to that in the order of corporeal life. As there is the crisis of puberty between childhood and adolescence, there is a similar crisis between the purgative life of beginners and the illuminative life of proficients. This crisis has been described by several great spiritual writers, notably by Tauler,’® especially by St. John of the Cross, under the title of the “passive purification of the senses,” 1° by Father Lallemant, S.J., under the name of “second conversion.” 8° As a matter of fact, this crisis recalls the second conversion of Peter during the dark night of the Passion.

At this point, the generous beginner, who runs the risk of standing still in many unconscious defects, in particular of dwelling on sensible consolations in his spiritual exercises, is deprived of these consolations that he may be introduced into a spiritual way that 1s much more detached from the senses, a way in which he finds in aridity a beginning of contemplation which the Holy Ghost grants him in order to make him advance. This is St. John’s teaching: “The first night, or sensual purgation, wherein the soul is purified or detached, will be of the senses, subjecting them to the spirit. . . . The night of sense is common, and the lot of many: these are the beginners.” 8? They begin to understand clearly that one must be truly poor in spirit, truly humble, in order to grow in charity. One must renounce all the more or less gross or subtle follies of vanity, pride, and spiritual sensuality. The holy doctor adds: “When the house of sensuality was at rest, that is, when the passions were morti-

78 Second Sermon for Lent, and Sermon for the Monday before Palm Sunday (nos. 3 f.), which, in the Latin translation of Surius, is attributed to the first Sunday after the octave of the Epiphany.

79 The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. I, chaps. 9 f.: “Characteristic signs of the night of the senses.” “How they are to conduct themselves who have entered the dark night.”

80 La doctrine spirituelle (Paris, ed. Gabalda, 1908), 2nd principle, chap.

6, a.2, SEC. 2, p. 113; cf. pp. 91, 123, 143, 187, 301 ff. 81 The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 8.

fied, concupiscence quenched, the desires subdued and lulled to sleep in the blessed night of the purgation of sense, the soul began to set out on the way of the spirit, the way of proficients, which 1s also called the adluminative way, or the way of infused contemplation, wherein God Himself teaches and refreshes the soul without meditation or any active efforts that itself may deliberately make (at least quite generally in prayer)... . Such . . . is this night and purgation of the senses.”

The words we have italicized in this text are very significant and reproduce exactly the original Spanish. Following the example of St. Augustine, Cajetan, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas, Tauler, and others, St. John of the Cross, it should be noted, speaks of the illuminative way in the full, strong meaning of the term, and not of an illuminative way that is, so to speak, diminished, such as exists in those who have only partially profited by the passive purification of the senses, as the saint points out.**

Finally, farther on when speaking of proficients,** St. John of the Cross treats of the imperfections proper to the advanced or proficients. He declares that there is still in them natural rudeness, a distraction and dissipation of mind, presumption, and subtle and secret pride. These defects show the necessity of the passive purification of the spirit in order to enter the perfect unitive way, that of those who, as St. Thomas says: “aim chiefly at union with God and enjoyment of Him .. . and who ‘desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ.’ ” 85

This trial of the passive purification of the spirit is a crisis analogous to that which occurs in the natural order when the adolescent becomes an adult and makes use of his liberty, sometimes to his cost. At this point in the spiritual order, there is, as it were, a third conversion,®® or better a transformation of soul which recalls what Pentecost was for the apostles, when, after being deprived of the presence of Christ, who had ascended into heaven, they were en-

86 Tauler spoke also of this great purification in the Sermon for the Monday before Palm Sunday: no. 7: Trials by which the life of the third degree begins; no. 8: Reason for these trials; no. 9: Divine union in the superior faculties.

242 THREE AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE lightened and fortified by the Holy Ghost, who thus prepared them for the severe persecutions they would have to undergo and who made them perfect ministers of the Savior.”

St. John of the Cross is assuredly describing spiritual progress as it appears especially among contemplatives, and more particularly in those who are the most generous in striving to reach union with God as directly as possible. He thus shows fie superior laws of the life of grace in all their loftiness. But these laws apply also in an attenuated manner in many others who do not reach such a lofty perfection, but who, nevertheless, advance generously without turning back. Attentive reading of the history of the interior life of the servants of God, reveals, in their interior sufferings and their progress, this profound purification of the senses and spirit, so that all their faculties may at length be fully subjected to God present in them in the depths of their souls.

St. John of the Cross, better than anyone else, noted these two crises of the transition from one age to another, and he rightly called them the passive purifications of the senses and the spirit. Manifestly they correspond well to the nature of the human soul (to its two parts, the sensible and the spiritual). They correspond also to the nature of the divine seed, to sanctifying grace, the germ of eternal life, which ought more and more to vivify our lower and higher faculties and to inspire all our acts until the depths of our souls are purified of all egoism, of all more or less conscious self-love, and in truth belong entirely to God.

87 We developed these ideas at length in a little treatise, Les trois conversions et les trois voies, pp. 42-50, 123-80.

88 The objection has sometimes been raised that this lofty idea of St. John of the Cross notably surpasses the common idea of spiritual writers, and, it has been added, it seems that the beginners who are discussed in The Dark Night (Bk. I, chap. 8) are not those generally spoken of but those who are making a beginning, not in the spiritual life but in the mystical ways. To this objection it is easy to reply that the idea of St. John of the Cross corresponds admirably to the nature of the soul (sensitive and spiritual), no less than to that of grace, and that the beginners he speaks of are indeed those to whom this name is generally given. To be convinced of this, it suffices to see the defects that St. John finds in them: spiritual gluttony, an inclination to sensuality, to anger, to envy, to spiritual laziness, to pride, which leads them to “go to a stranger to confess their sin, that their usual confessor may think they are not sinners but good people” (The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 2). Such people are real beginners who have made no progress in asceticism.

When he speaks of the three ways, the purgative, the iluminative, and the

Keeping this fact in mind, we can understand that Vallgornera should have followed this lofty idea of the three ages of the spiritual life in dividing his work Theologia mystica divi Thomae. In doing so he concurred, as we said in the beginning of this chapter, with the Carmelites, Philip of the Blessed Trinity, Anthony of the Holy Ghost, and many others. ‘Thus is preserved the tradition of the fathers, of Clement of Alexandria, Cajetan, St. Augustine, Dionysius, St. Bernard, St. Anselm, Hugh, Richard of St. Victor, St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas, whose doctrine on the gifts of the Holy Ghost thus appears in its full development.

To sum up what we have just said, we shall give a table that coincides approximately with one agreed on by several of the authors we have just named.*®

In beginners may be noted, with the first degree of charity, the initial virtues or the first degree of meekness, patience, chastity, and humility. Interior and exterior mortification makes them more and more avoid deliberate venial sins, or induces them to rise immediately from mortal sin should they fall into it. Their prayer is vocal, their meditation is discursive and tends to be transformed into simplified affective prayer. In them the gifts of the Holy Ghost begin to appear, but they are still rather latent. From time to time they have special inspirations from the Holy Ghost, but as yet little aptitude to profit by them. Docility to the Holy Ghost remains feeble; the soul is, above all, conscious of its activity and must frequently recognize its indigence.®° unitive, St. John understands them, not in a diminished sense but in their normal plenitude.

It should be noted also that, following several other writers, Father Cayré (Précis de patrologie, histoire et doctrine des pères et docteurs de l’Eglise, Il, 886 ff.) rightly says: “There is certainly no reason to distinguish in the spirituality of St. John of the Cross two parallel ways, the one ascetical and the other mystical, each leading by its own means to perfection. The active and the passive ways, spoken of in the two great treatises (The Ascent and The Dark Night), represent not two distinct states, but two aspects of the one and only way of sanctity. . . . St. John of the Cross considers the transforming union the normal end of the journey toward perfection.” With this in view, he points out in The Ascent what the soul must do, and in The Dark Night what it must receive with docility. Several Carmelite theologians have recently made the same observation. 89 In particular, with the table proposed by Father Cayré, op. cit., II, 811,

834. 90 This stage corresponds to the first and second mansions of St. Teresa.

The soul experiences its poverty in the crisis of sensible aridity of the passive purification of the senses, a painful purification more or less well borne, which marks the transition to the illuminative way, which has not been diminished and is truly worthy of its name.®*?

In proficients, with the second degree of charity, appear the solid virtues which are no longer merely initial virtues; in particular, meekness and patience, a more genuine humility, which leads to benevolence toward one’s neighbor, and the spirit of the three counsels of poverty, chastity, and filial obedience to God recognized as present in the superiors placed over us. With these solid virtues, the gifts of the Holy Ghost begin to manifest themselves, especially the three less elevated gifts of fear, knowledge, and piety. The soul, more docile now, profits more from interior inspirations and illuminations. If the proficient is truly generous, then infused prayer ordinarily begins by isolated acts of infused contemplation in the course of the acquired prayer of recollection. Then, if the soul is faithful, little by little come the prayers of supernatural recollection and of quiet (arid or consoled), in which may be seen a manifest influence of the gift of piety, which makes us cry: “Abba, Father,” as St. Paul says.°” Here, truly, the soul’s intimate conversation with itself becomes a conversation with God. Then, if the soul is generous, it sees in itself faults of subtle pride, of lack of benevolence toward its neighbor, sometimes of hardness, of lack of zeal for the salvation of so many souls that are being lost. ‘These defects which did not at first appear to the soul, require a new passive purification, that of the spirit.°?

In spite of certain, as it were involuntary, imperfections, the perfect have, with the third degree of charity, eminent and even heroic virtues: great meekness, almost unalterable patience, profound humility which does not fear scorn and loves even humiliations, a great spirit of faith which leads the soul to see all things as coming from the hand of God, great confidence in God, magnanimity which causes the soul to tend to great things in spite of obstacles and rebuffs, and perfect abandonment to the will of God. The gifts of understanding and wisdom then manifest themselves more strikingly

61 As we shall see, it is the third mansion of St. Teresa with a beginning of the arid prayer of quiet.

92 This stage corresponds to the fourth mansion of St. Teresa, and in part to the fifth. In this fifth mansion, we shall see farther on, there are extraordinary graces that do not belong to the normal way of sanctity.

8 St. Teresa speaks of this purification in the sixth mansion.

245 Proficients So Beginners (illuminative way) The Perfect as (purgative way ) Threshold of the (unitive way) Poa Ascetical life mystical life Mystical life F Initial virtues, first | Solid virtues, second | Eminent and heroic degree of charity, |degree of charity, | virtues, third degree temperance, chastity, obedience, more of charity, perfect < patience, first de- |profound humility; | humility, great spirit F grees of humility. spirit of the counsels. | of faith, abandon-| @

Gifts of the Holy Ghost rather latent, inspirations at rare intervals, slight aptitude as yet to profit by them. The soul 1s especially conscious of its activity.

Active purification of the senses and of the spirit, or exterior and interior mortification.

Acquired prayer: vocal prayer, discursive prayer, affective prayer, which becomes more and more simple, called the prayer of active recollection.

First and second mansions ment, almost unalterable patience.

The gifts of the Holy Ghost begin to manifest themselves, especially the three inferior gifts of fear, knowledge, and piety. The soul, more docile now, profits more from inspirations and interior illuminations.

Passive purification of the senses, under the influence especially of the gifts of fear and knowledge. Concomitant trials. Entrance into the illuminative way.

Initialinfused prayer, isolated acts of infused contemplation in the course of the acquired prayer of recollection; then, prayers of supernatural recollection and of arid or consoled quiet. The gift of piety.

Third and fourth mansions

The higher gifts manifest themselves more notably and frequently. The soul is, aS it were, dominated by the Holy Ghost. Great passivity in His regard, which does not exclude the activity of the virtues.

Purification of the spirit under the influence especially of the gift of understanding. Concomitant trials in which are manifested the gifts of fortitude and of counsel. Entrance into the perfect uni- | tive way.

Infused prayers of simple union, of complete union (sometimes ecstatic), of transforming union, under the more and more marked influence of the gift of wisdom. Concomitant favors.

Fifth, sixth, and seventh mansions suoneoyting sraAvig esə L ‘3S Jo suorsueyy

246 THREE AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE and frequently. The soul is, as it were, dominated by the Holy Ghost, who inspires it also to a more perfect practice of the virtues.

Ordinarily at this time, there is the infused prayer of union under the more and more marked influence of the gift of wisdom.®* The center of the soul is finally purified, and the higher and lower faculties are fully subject to God intimately present in the inner sanctuary. In the penumbra of faith, this is eternal life begun, or the normal prelude of beatitude which ought never to end.

This spiritual progress may be expressed by the preceding summary, which should be read from the bottom up in order better to see that the passive purifications of the senses and the spirit are found at the entrance to the illuminative and unitive ways.

94 St. Teresa speaks of the various degrees of the infused prayer of union in the fifth, sixth, and seventh mansions.

Footnotes

1. Summa, Ila Iae, q.24, 2.9; q. 183, a.4. 225 ↩

2. See supra, chap. 1, §§ 5, 6, 7. ↩