Chapter XCV. Diabolical Phenomena’
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HE persecutions of the devil comprise all that one may have to suffer from him: temptations, obsession, possession. On this subject we must recall, first of all, the theological principle which throws light on these problems: the action of the devil does not go beyond the sensible part of the soul and cannot be exercised immediately on the intellect or the will.
St. Thomas ? says in substance that, since every agent acts for an end which is proportionate to it, the order or subordination of agents corresponds to the order of the ends. God alone can incline our intellect to universal truth and our will to the universal good, and finally to Himself, the Sovereign Good. Therefore He alone can act immediately on our intellect and will, according to their natural inclination, which comes from Him and which He preserves. Solus Deus illabitur in anima.
With the permission of God, however, the devil can attack us by acting on our imagination, our sensibility, on external objects, and on our body to incline us to evil. He often limits himself to temptation by way of suggestion and more or less impetuous movements; but occasionally his action goes as far as obsession and in certain cases even to possession.
In these matters two excesses must be avoided: attribution to the devil of what proceeds from the triple concupiscence or from cer-123 tain morbid states, or, on the contrary, unwillingness to admit his intervention in any case, in spite of what Scripture and tradition tell us about it.
We shall sum up here the traditional teaching on obsession and possession.
OBSESSION
Obsession is a series of temptations that are more violent and prolonged than ordinary temptations. Rarely does the devil act only on the exterior senses; more frequently, through the imagination, he provokes lively impressions of the sensible appetites in order to trouble the soul. He may act on the sight by loathsome apparitions or, on the contrary, seductive apparitions; * on the hearing, by making a racket’ or by making the person hear blasphemous or obscene words; ê on the touch, by inflicting blows or by embraces of a nature to lead to evil.” There are cases in which these apparitions are not corporeal, but imaginary or produced, like hallucination, by nervous overexcitement.
The direct action of the devil on the imagination, memory, and passions, may produce obsessing images, which persist in spite of energetic efforts and which lead to anger, to very lively antipathies, or to dangerous affections, or again to discouragement accompanied by anguish. ‘Those whom the enemy of good persecutes in this way feel at times that their imagination is as if bound by thick shadows, and that over their heart rests a weight which oppresses them. ‘This powerlessness is entirely different from that proceeding from the divine action which, in bestowing infused contemplation, renders discursive meditation more or less impracticable. The enemy of God, in his jealous desire to imitate the divine action, seeks to cause the effect of God’s action to deviate, in such a way that, in the passive purifications, the soul occasionally finds itself between the special action of God, which inclines it to a spiritual life more freed from the senses, and an inverse action, which in its way strikes it t Cf. A. Poulain, S.J., op. cit. chap. 24, no. 94.
e “Blessed Margaret of Cortona,” Bollandists (February, 22), VI, p. 370, no. 178. T A. Poulain, S.J., loc. cit.
with powerlessness in order to cause the effect of the divine action to deviate and to throw the soul into utter confusion.
If the temptations of which we are speaking are sudden, violent, and persistent, and no illness explains them, a special influence of the devil may be seen in them.
Obsession may be so strong that it deserves the name of diabolical siege. Scaramelli says: “In the diabolical siege, the devil stays near the person whom he besieges as a captain does near a place which he surrounds closely with his troops. But he has no stable and permanent power over the body of the obsessed person (which occurs only in possession); and once the time of purification is ended, the devil himself raises the siege and goes off without exorcisms, without injunction.” $
By what sign may one recognize that obsession is related to the passive purification of the senses? Obsession may be linked with the passive purification of the senses if the obsessed person works seriously at his perfection, in particular if he is humble, obedient, charitable, and if he has the three signs of the night of the senses indicated by St. John of the Cross. On the other hand, astute, very subtle persons may, for interested motives, seek to make themselves pass for victims of the devil, in such a way especially as to excuse excessively compromising exterior faults which they commit.
In dealing with obsessed persons, the director should be prudent and kind; he should not believe too readily in a true obsession; he should remind the penitent, first of all, how temptation must be resisted, pointing out that it is an occasion to acquire great merits by a salutary, firm, at times heroic reaction, and by the practice of humility. He should remind the penitent that the principal remedies are humble, trusting prayer, recourse to the Immaculate Virgin, to St. Michael, to the guardian angel, the trusting use of the sacraments and sacramentals, scorn.of the devil, who may indeed bark, but who can bite only those who draw near him. The director should also remind his penitent that, if in the violence of temptation disorders are produced without any consent, there is no sin in them. In case of doubt, he will judge that there is no serious sin when the person concerned is habitually well disposed. If he sees that the obsession is part of the passive purification of the senses or
of the spirit, he will give appropriate counsels, which we recalled earlier in the course of this study.®
Lastly, if diabolical obsession is morally certain or very probable, the priest may employ privately the exorcisms prescribed by the Roman Ritual or shortened forms. To avoid agitating the penitent or overexciting him, it is best, as a rule, not to inform him beforehand that one is going to pronounce over him the words of private exorcism; it is sufficient to tell him that one is going to recite over him a prayer approved by the Church.
PossESSION
What is possession? By possession the devil really dwells in the body of the victim, instead of only making his action felt from the outside, as in obsession. Moreover, by thus acting from within, he not only hinders the free use of a man’s faculties, but he himself speaks and acts by the organs of the possessed person, without the latter being able to hinder him from doing so, and even as a rule without his perceiving it.
When we say that the devil dwells in the body of a person, we do not mean that he is there like the soul itself which informs the body, but like a motor which, through the body, acts on the soul. He acts directly on the members of the body, makes them execute all sorts of movements, and he acts indirectly on the faculties in the measure in which they depend on the body for their operations.
Two states are distinguished in possessed persons: a state of crisis, with contortions, outbursts of rage, blasphemous words; and a state of calm. During the crisis, the patient generally loses, it seems, the feeling of what is taking place in him, for afterward he has no memory of what the devil has, they say, done through him. Nevertheless, as an exception, there are possessed persons who remain aware of what is taking place in them during the crisis. This was, it seems, the case with Father Surin, who, while exorcising the Ursulines of Loudun, himself became possessed or at least obsessed. He said: “In this state, there are very few actions in which am I free.” 1°
? Cf. supra, chap. 5: “Conduct to be observed in the night of the senses”; Part IV, chap. 38: “Conduct to be observed in the passive purification of the spirit.”
10 Letter to Father d’Attichy (1635); cf. Lettres spirituelles du P. Jean- Joseph Surin (Toulouse, 1926), I, 126 ff.
In the state of calm, the devil seems to have withdrawn, although there may still remain at times chronic infirmities which physicians do not succeed in curing.
As a rule possession is more properly a punishment than a purifying trial. However, there are exceptions, like the case of Father Surin, that of Blessed Eustochium of Padua, beatified by Clement XII, on March 22, 1760, that of Marie des Vallées, spiritual daughter of St. John Eudes.’? Mention must also be made of the more recent case of Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified, an Arabian Carmelite who died in the odor of sanctity at Bethlehem in 1878, and the cause of whose beatification has been introduced. She was twice the victim of possession, or at least of a very strong obsession, first at the Carmel of Pau, later at that of Mangalore.'* There have been other similar cases, in which possession was a concomitant phenomenon of the passive purification of the senses or that of the spirit, in souls that offered themselves as victims for sinners.
What are the signs of real possession? Great care must be taken to distinguish it from certain cases of monomania and of mental alienation which resemble it. According to the Roman Ritual (De exorcizandis obsessis a daemonio), there are three principal signs: “To speak an unknown language, making use of several words of this language or understanding him who speaks it; to disclose distant and hidden things; to manifest strength which surpasses the natural powers of the subject, considering his age and state. These and other similar signs, when united in great number, are the strongest indications of possession.” They are particularly striking, for example, if a person who does not know either Latin or theology or knows only their rudiments, speaks in correct and even elegant
12 E. Georges, Eudist, Saint Jean Eudes (Paris, 1936), pp. 278-315. We read (ibid., p. 291) that Marie des Vallées said to the devil: “Is that all you can do? You are not very strong. .. . Be careful not to omit the least of the afflictions that God permits you to make me endure... . But take great care what you do. You are a lion, and I am only a miserable ant. Should the lion overcome the ant, people would make fun of him for having armed himself to fight so weak and wretched a beast. But if the ant overcomes the lion, as it undoubtedly will, because it is fortified by the grace of God, confusion will be the eternal share of the lion. Are you not, therefore, very foolish to do what you do? Shame, shame on the beast with the ten horns” ( Manuscrit de Québec, Bk. I, chap. 4).
13 Estrate, Vie de Sœur Marie de Jésus-Crucifié (2nd ed.; Paris, 1916), pp. 85-147, 230-56.
Latin about the most difficult problems of theology, like that of the gratuity of predestination.‘ It is true that people adduce cases of morbid exaltation which awaken in the memory forgotten languages or fragments that have been heard; but in this question the Ritual demands much more, as we have just seen. Accompanying possession at times is levitation, a preternatural phenomenon which manifests itself under circumstances of such a nature that they cannot be attributed to God or to the good angels, but must be attributed to the devil. According to tradition, this was the case with Simon Magus who, they say, was lifted into the air and fell down.
Another indication of possession is that on coming into contact with a sacred object or on the recitation of certain liturgical prayers, the person believed to be possessed becomes furious and blasphemes horribly. This sign is more significant when the experience is brought about without the knowledge of the person, in such a way that the reaction is not produced by him, by his ill will, or by a desire to simulate possession.
It has been pointed out, apropos of these signs, that in extreme hysteria there are analogous phenomena.’® Analogous, it is true, but not specifically similar; in hysteria the patient does not discourse in a language of which he is ignorant and in a learned manner on problems of which he has no knowledge at all, such as predestination or the efficacy of grace. Besides, the devil can produce either nervous diseases, or exterior phenomena analogous to those of neuroses; he may also make use of an existing illness and reduce the patient to a state of exasperation.
What are the remedies for possession? The Ritual indicates the following: (1) The possessed person must do penance and purify his conscience by a good confession. (2) He should receive Holy Communion as often as possible, according to the advice of a prudent and enlightened confessor. The more pure and mortified a soul is, the less hold the devil has on it; Holy Communion introduces into the soul the Author of grace who is the conqueror of Satan. However, Holy Communion should be given only in moments of calm. (3) Ihe possessed person should often implore the mercy of God
14 We know a case of this kind, which we learned of through a written account sent us more than thirty years ago by one of our Dominican friends, who was at that time professor of dogma in the seminary of Mosul.
18 Cf, Richer, Etudes cliniques sur la grande hystérie.
DIABOLICAL PHENOMENA 623 by prayer and fasting. (4) With a great spirit of faith he should make use of sacramentals, in particular of the sign of the cross and holy water.'® He should have trusting recourse to the invocation of the holy name of Jesus, of His humility, His immense love. (5) Lastly, the exorcisms were instituted for the deliverance of possessed persons in virtue of the power of driving out devils which Jesus Christ left to the Church. But solemn exorcism may be performed only by priests chosen by the bishop of the place and with his special authorization.
The Ritual counsels exorcists to prepare themselves for this difhcult function by prayer, fasting, and a humble and sincere confession, so that the devil may not reproach them with their own sins. In addition, solemn exorcism should, at least as a rule, be performed only in a church or chapel. The exorcist should be accompanied by grave and pious witnesses, sufficiently strong to overpower the possessed person if necessary. Lastly, the exorcist should proceed to the interrogations with authority, rejecting all that is useless. He summons the devil or the devils to declare the reason for the possession and to tell when it will end. To oblige the enemy of God to do this, the exorcist must redouble the adjurations which seem to irritate the devil most, that is, the invocations of the holy names of Jesus and Mary. If the evil spirit makes sarcastic and derisive answers, silence must be imposed upon him with authority and dignity. The witnesses should be few in number, they must not ask questions, but should pray silently. The exorcisms should be continued for several hours and even for several days, with intervals of respite, until the deliverance, which should be followed by prayers of thanksgiving.
Many authors point out that the exorcisms are not always efhcacious against obsession. They do not deliver the soul completely from an obsession which is part of the passive purifications, for God permits it for a time known to Him, in view of the great advantages which the soul should derive from this trial.
A STRIKING EXAMPLE
We have studied particularly the diabolical vexations which Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified had to undergo in 1868 in the Carmel of
Pau and in 1871 in that of Mangalore, not only according to the account given by Father Estrate in her Life and the shorter report by Father Buzy, but also according to the testimony gathered by her directors and superiors. We are convinced that in her case there was, on two different occasions, possession or at least a strong obsession which took away from the servant of God the responsibility for certain exterior acts (a short departure from the cloister, which was not yet canonically established) and for certain remarks contrary to humility and obedience, virtues which she practiced in a heroic degree, even in those obscure periods, as soon as she recovered the use of her faculties.17
We think there was in this case not a punishment, but a trial and very great merit. As Father Estrate,'® who was one of the directors of this valiant Carmelite, points out, she bore these diabolical vexations with heroic patience, a very great spirit of faith, an admirable confidence in God, an ardent love of God and of souls. As long as she preserved freedom of movement and the use of speech, she spent hours at a time replying to all the suggestions of the devil. The devil had permission to attack her one hundred times in the Carmel of Pau, and he sought by every means to make her utter a complaint; “always conquered, he begged the Master to be allowed not to continue the struggle. Jesus obliged him to go on.” The servant of God did not cease to reply to his assaults by words such as these: “I offer my sufferings for the enemies of Jesus, that they may love Him as St. John did.” The devil was forced to say: “Do you know why the little Arab speaks thus? Why is she strong? Because she walks in the steps of the Master.” At length at the end of forty days she was freed.!9
This case furnished an example of one of the greatest trials which may accompany the passive purifications of the senses or the spirit. It brings out strikingly the truth of what St. John of the Cross says on this subject: “There is open warfare between two spirits. . . . This attack of the devil takes place also when God bestows His favors upon a soul by the instrumentality of a good angel. The devil sees this occasionally, because God in general permits it to become known to the enemy, that he may do what he can [that is, if God
17 Cf. Estrate, Vie (2nd ed.), pp. 231 ff., 249-55. 18 Ibid., pp. 106-24. 19 Ibid., pp. 106-24, 230-56.
grants the soul extraordinary favors, He often permits the devil to fight as if with equal arms, by extraordinary vexations].... At that time the mental agonies are great and occasionally surpass all description; for when spirit has to do with spirit, the evil one causes an intolerable horror in the good one.” ?° All authors of mystical theology express the same opinion, and there are similar facts in the lives of many canonized saints.
The example we have just recalled and others more or less similar are made clear in the light of what St. John of the Cross teaches in The Dark Night on the night of the senses and that of the spirit. He states that these nights are tunnels through which generous souls, called to a high degree of perfection, to true sanctity, must pass. If a soul emerges from the first tunnel with a heroic degree of the virtues and if, on leaving the second, the heroic quality of its virtues is even. More manifest, it is a certain sign that it did not go astray in these very dark and difficult passages, but, on the contrary, gained very great merits therein. These trials are more particularly painful for souls that have a reparatory vocation and that must, in imitation of our Lord, suffer for the salvation of sinners.
In these exceedingly painful dark nights, the soul may occasionally commit a sin, even a serious sin, as happened to the Apostle St. Peter during the dark night of our Savior’s passion. But if, like St. Peter, the tried soul rises immediately with deep repentance, it receives a notable increase of grace and charity and it continues its ascent from the very spot where it stumbled for a moment. ““Wherefore the penitent sometimes arises to a greater grace,” 21 says St. ‘Thomas.
It follows that these obscure periods in the lives of the servants of God, far from being an obstacle to their beatification, on the contrary bring out more clearly the heroic degree of their virtues. Those who have passed through them have triumphed over the most difficult trials which the saints meet with in this life. This is
20 The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. Il, chap. 23.
21 Summa, la, g.89, a.2. Cf. J. N. Grou, S.J., Maxinies spirituelles (ed. 1915), 22nd maxim, p. 238: “To bring certain interior souls to the sense of their total powerlessness and perfect dependence on grace .. . , God humbles them by the sins into wh -h He permits them to fall, especially when He sees that they count on themselves. . . . Just so a mother lets her child take falls which are not dangerous, that it may recognize its need of her and learn not to leave her.”
especially true of those who fight more directly against the devil, and who in this way show more clearly the depth of the reign of God in souls that are wholly submissive to Him. Thus are realized occasionally in an extraordinary manner the words of St. Paul: “But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong. And the base things of the world, and the things that are contemptible, hath God chosen, and things that are not, that He might bring to nought things that are.” 22
Notre
The article entitled “Possession” in the Dictionnaire théologique catholique states: “In our Western civilizations, men would be inclined to say that the devil is interested instead in dissimulating his action. Does he not hold men so much the better when they ignore or deny him?” ?3 But, as Father L. de Grandmaison points out: “In the regions where the Gospel penetrates intensively for the first time, it still encounters, as in ancient times, a sort of occult power, usurped but established, which, by its resistance and manifestations, perfectly recalls the convulsions of the evil spirits in the presence of Jesus. There is hardly a missionary in those countries who has not encountered it.” 24
Why does God permit these diabolical manifestations? St. Bonaventure answers: “It is either for the manifestation of His glory (by constraining the devil, by the mouth of the possessed person, to confess, for example, the divinity of Christ), or for the punishment of sin, or for the correction of the sinner, or for our instruction.” 25
In practice, possession should be admitted only on solid proofs or indications, and the spiritual director should secure the opinion of an experienced physician. St. Philip Neri, although he “thought that persons whom people believe to be possessed by the devil are, in the majority of cases, either sick, melancholy, or mad, nevertheless, judging a certain Catherine, a noble lady of Aversar, to be truly possessed, he freed her from this terrible evil.” 2°
35 In Ium Sent., Dist. VIII, p. I, q.1, art. unic. 26 Capecelatro, La vita di S. Filippo Neri (Rome, 1901), I, 423.
On temptation in general and its causes, we advise the reading of the excellent articles by Father Masson, O.P., which were published in La Vie spirituelle, from 1923 to 1926: I. “Temptation in general, its nature, universality, necessity” (1923, p. 108). Il. “Its sources: the flesh (zbid., pp. 193, 333); the world (p. 421); the devil (1924, p. 270); (the tempter, his work, p. 384, his mode of suggestion, by ruse, by violence, his stubbornness; the limits of his power; resistance to temptation). III. “The processus of temptation” (1926, p. 493). IV. “End of the temptation on the part of the devil, on the part of God: why does God permit temptations? Justice and mercy”
EPILOGUE
Tue AXIS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE AND Its UNITY
O conclude, we shall return to our starting point. The problem of the axis of the spiritual life is a catechetical question worth examining theologically, if it is true that the most elementary truths are those which become the most vital and profound when meditated on for a long time, and end by being the object of our contemplation.
Among these elementary truths, is the following: the axis of the spiritual life is found in faith, hope, and charity. Failure to recognize this truth would be an unpardonable error, which would prove that one had lost the meaning of Christian doctrine. But, with respect to this elementary and fundamental question, there are more subtle problems which we must consider at the end of this work.
Someone wrote recently that the division between “ascetical” and “mystical” theology is “a regrettable division, whose error consisted precisely in telescoping sanctifying grace and its peculiar organism of the divine virtues between moralism and mysticism. (The history of modern spirituality is witness to this.)” “St. Thomas did not conceive or build his moral theology on this division, but rather on the following plan: the moral virtues, the theological virtues (subsequently modifiable by the gifts in the interior of their object). Otherwise a considerable section of the Second Part (all the admirable analysis of the regime of the virtues) loses its import and seems impregnated with semi-naturalism, as if the supernaturalness of the gifts was the only integral supernaturalness, that of the virtues being only semi-supernatural.” ?
What is true in these observations? The answer depends on the way the terms “ascetical” and “mystical” are understood. They by Father Lemonnyer, O.P., Notre Vie divine, ed. du Cerf, 1936. 6284 should have a good meaning since they are commonly accepted in the Church; but they have not always been understood in the same way. It is, consequently, important to return to this point.
Weare happy to see with what insistence the writer of these pages speaks of sanctifying grace and the infused virtues, but he surprised us by reproaching certain Thomists, who in recent years have treated more particularly of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, with having “exaggerated the role of the gifts to the detriment of the theological virtues.”
It may be that someone gathered this impression by reading articles written for the purpose of treating especially of infused contemplation, properly so called, and of the passive states, articles in which it was indeed necessary to place the emphasis on the gifts of understanding and of wisdom and their superhuman mode. But we must remind our readers that for the last thirty years or so we have hardly ceased to defend the essentially supernatural character of infused faith (independently of the gifts), by reason of its essential object and its formal motive.?
In the domains of dogmatic theology, moral theology, and spirituality, we have always said that all the infused virtues, both theological and moral, are intrinsically and essentially supernatural by reason of the formal object that specifies them. We have not ceased to defend the principle: Potentiae, habitus et actus specificantur ab objecto formali.
In our opinion it would be a gross error to think that the description given by St. Thomas of the moral virtues is impregnated with semi-naturalism. Semi-naturalism would consist in being more attentive to the (intrinsically natural) acquired moral virtues than to the infused moral virtues. It would consist in aiming rather at being a perfect upright man, master of self, than at being a child of God increasingly conscious of his dependence on his heavenly Father and more and more docile to divine inspirations. One might thus reach the state of attributing in part to oneself the respect due to God, which would be a serious error.
It is also fully evident (to ignore the fact would be unpardonable) that, as Father Lemonnyer so rightly insisted, the axis of the supernatural life passes through the theological virtues. We have not5 ceased to say so under different forms,’ and Father Lemonnyer himself graciously recognized, in what he wrote on theological prayer, how well founded is what we have been saying for a long time about common prayer,* in which, in our opinion, faith, hope, and charity are exercised especially.
This statement contains an elementary truth that certainly deserves to be penetrated deeply. No theologian would think of denying it; but its importance in spirituality may be more or less great according to the idea one has of the distinction between ascetical theology and mystical theology.
Tue Distincrion BETWEEN ASCETICAL AND MYSTICAL THEoLocy as Ir Has Or TEN BEEN PROPOSED SINCE THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
The distinction between ascetical and mystical theology is not a division of the virtues, like that between the theological and the moral virtues; it is a distinction between two forms of the spiritual life.
Ascetical and mystical theology is the application of the teaching of dogmatic and moral theology to the direction of souls toward ever closer union with God. It presupposes what sacred doctrine teaches about the nature and the properties of the Christian virtues and of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and it studies the laws and the conditions of their progress from the point of view of Christian perfection. It causes the lights of dogmatic and moral theology to converge toward this end.
The distinction between ascetical and mystical theology 1s inspired by the current meaning and the etymology of these terms. The term “asceticism,” as its Greek origin indicates, means the exercise of the virtues. Among the first Christians those were called ascetics who devoted themselves to the practice of mortification, exercises of piety, and other Christian virtues. Consequently the term “ascetical” was applied to that part of spiritual theology which directs souls in the struggle against sin and in the progress of virtue.
Mystical theology, as its name indicates, treats of more hidden
8 Christian Perfection and Contemplation, pp. 54-80; 115-46 (“The Life of grace or the beginning of eternal life”). L'Amour de Dieu et la croix de Jésus, II, 575-635: “La purification passive de la foi, de l’esperance, et de la charite.”
- Christian Perfection and Contemplation, pp. 208-17.
and mysterious things: of the intimate union of the soul with God; of the transitory phenomena that accompany certain degrees of union, as ecstasy; lastly, of essentially extraordinary graces, such as visions and private revelations.
Until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, writers generally treated under the single title of mystical theology not only the mystical union, infused contemplation, its degrees, and essentially extraordinary graces, but also Christian perfection in general, and the first phases of the spiritual life, the normal progress of which thus seemed directed toward the mystical union as its culminating point. This is the conception found in the mystical theologies of the Carmelites, Philip of the Blessed Trinity, Anthony of the Holy Ghost, Joseph of the Holy Ghost, and of the Dominican Vallgornera, who so often literally reproduced the teaching of Philip of the Blessed Trinity.
Since the seventeenth and eighteen centuries, several authors have deemed it necessary to distinguish absolutely between ascetical theology and mystical theology, which since then have often become subjects of special treatises, such as the Ascetical Directory and the Mystical Directory of Scaramelli. We wrote in 1920 in one of the first numbers of La Vie spirituelle: “Excessively eager to systematize things and to establish a doctrine to remedy abuses, and consequently led to classify things materially and objectively, without a sufficiently lofty and profound knowledge of them, they declared that ascetical theology should treat of the ‘ordinary’ Christian life according to the three ways, the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive. As for mystical theology, it should treat only of extraordinary graces, among which they included not only visions and private revelations, but also supernatural, confused contemplation, the passive purifications, and the mystical union.” ®
Thereby the unity of the spiritual life was compromised; the perfection which ascetical theology speaks of, became an end and not a disposition to a more intimate and more elevated union. Mystical theology was no longer of any importance except to some rare privileged souls.
For about the last thirty years many theologians have rejected the division thus conceived between ascetical and mystical theology.
ë This article is to be found also in Christian Perfection and Contemplation, pp. 27f.
They have returned to a more traditional doctrine, according to which the ascetical life is a form of the spiritual life in which appears chiefly the human mode of the Christian virtues, while the mystical life is a form of life in which predominates quite manifestly and frequently the superhuman mode of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are in all the just. From this point of view, the unity of the spiritual life is better comprehended in spite of the differences between the three successive ages distinguished by tradition: that 1s, the age of beginners, that of proficients, and that of the perfect, or in other words, the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways. Thus there is a return to a traditional division more commonly received among the ancients than that between ascetical theology and mystical theology, that is, the division between the active life and the contemplative life, which was dear to St. Augustine and to St. Gregory, and was well explained by St. Thomas.
In the opinion of these great masters, the active life, to which 1s attached the exercise of the moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance,® and the outward works of charity prepare for the contemplative life, so far as it regulates the passions that disturb contemplation and so far as it makes us grow in the love of God and of our neighbor.” Then comes the contempiation of God, which is proper to the perfect; it is found either in the purely contemplative life, or in the mixed life which fructifies in the apostolate. Contemplation then directs action from above and renders it much more supernatural and fruitful.§ The contemplative e Cf. St. Thomas, Ila Ilae, q.181, a.1: “The active and the contemplative life differ according to the different occupations of men intent on different ends: one of these occupations is the consideration of the truth; and this is the end of the contemplative life, while the other is external work to which the active life is directed. . . . Hence it is clear that the moral virtues belong essentially to the active life.” Ad rum: “The chief of the moral virtues is justice.” Ad 3um: “It may also be replied that the active life is a disposition to the contemplative life.”
lbid., a.2: “The knowledge of prudence, which is of itself directed to the works of the moral virtues, belongs directly to the active life.”
T Ibid., q.182, a.3: “Hence the work of the active life conduces to the contemplative, by quelling the interior passions which give rise to the fantasms whereby contemplation is hindered.”
8 Ibid., a.q: “The contemplative life, with regard to its nature, precedes the active, inasmuch as it applies itself to things which precede and are better than others; wherefore it moves and directs the active life.”
Cf. ibid., ad 2um, 3um; q.188, a.6: “From the fullness of contemplation proceed teaching and preaching.”
life is chiefly that of the theological virtues and of the gifts which accompany them, as the active life is especially that of the moral virtues.
This traditional division is more profound, more grounded on the very nature of man and also on the nature of grace, the virtues, and the gifts, than the division between ascetical life and mystical life, which may be seriously misunderstood and which it is quite difficult to define clearly.
DISADVANTAGES FROM A WronG UNDERSTANDING OF THE Division BETWEEN ASCETICAL AND MYSTICAL [THEOLOGY
Some souls seem to have gone beyond the essentially ascetical life (or the active life in the meaning given to it by the ancients), which consists chiefly in methodical exercises of piety, united to the practice of mortification or of the Christian virtues that discipline the passions and regulate relations with one’s neighbor. These souls live especially by the theological virtues and, in a more or less latent manner, by the gifts which accompany them. However, they do not yet give evidence of the properly so-called mystical life of passive prayer, described by St. Teresa from the fourth mansion on, and by St. John of the Cross beginning with the clearly characterized passive purification of the senses. The opinion is usually held that the souls we are speaking of here are in a still imperfect illuminative way, intermediary between the purgative or ascetical way of beginners and the essentially mystical or passive way, which, according to St. John of the Cross, is that of proficients, or the advanced, and that of the perfect.®
The prayer of the souls we are discussing already rises above methodical exercises; it is a simple lifting up of the soul to God by a prolonged act of faith, followed by acts of hope and love of God. It is often called simplified affective prayer; we have described it under the title of the common prayer of the ancients,!° and Father Lemonnyer, under the title of theological prayer.
? The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 14: “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 re- freshes the soul without meditation or any active efforts that itself may deliberately make.” 10 Christian Perfection and Contemplation, pp. 208-17. 11 Cf. Notre Vie divine, pp. 125-52. In the opinion of Father Lemonnyer,
Souls such as these seem to be in a stage between the ascetical life, properly so called, and the mystical life in the essential meaning of the term, a period which for the most generous is one of transition and which for others is prolonged for their whole lifetime.’”
Father Gabriel of St. Magdalen, C.D., makes similar observations when he treats of active (or acquired or mixed) contemplation according to Carmelite writers, in whose opinion it is ordinarily a preparation for infused contemplation.!? We must also remember that in the prologue to The Ascent of Mount Carmel St. John of the Cross says: “Its contents . . . are a solid and substantial doctrine suited to all, if they seek to advance to that detachment of spirit which is here described. My principal object, however, is not to address myself to all, but only to certain persons of our holy Order of Mount Carmel, of the primitive observance.” St. John of the Cross wrote chiefly for the most generous souls among contemplatives, for those who wish to take the road which ascends most directly toward very close union with God.
Manifestly, therefore, there is an intermediate stage between the methodical discursive meditation, described in works on ascetical theology, and infused contemplation properly so called, spoken of by mystical authors.
Various Forms OF SIMPLIFIED PRAYER
Even the authors who hold that the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith is in the normal way of sanctity and that with- meditation is moral prayer, the exercise of the practical reason, in which the infused virtue of prudence leads the soul by “elections” to a resolution. Here the influence of the theological virtues is felt only from above and through the intermediary of the moral virtues, the virtue of religion included. Theological prayer, often called affective prayer, is the proper exercise of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which have for their object God Himself, with whom the soul enters into intimate conversation for a closer union with Him, and not for practical results that are, so to speak, exterior. Lastly, mystical prayer, the fruit of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, depends on His initiatives and procures for us a sweet experience of divine things.
12 St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 9.
18 Father Gabriel of St. Magdalen, C.D., S. Giovanni della Croce, Dottore del’amore divino (1937), pp. 165 f.: “There is no question here of a completely active contemplation, nor of a perfectly passive contemplation: a delicate divine infusion meets a most simple activity of the soul. But this divine infusion does not fall under the experience of the soul, whereas the latter may perceive its own activity.”
out it there is not the full perfection of Christian life, recognize the difference between the active and the contemplative life. They also say that Marys reach infused contemplation more rapidly than Marthas. Moreover, the former find in contemplation great purifying trials, which at the same time make them work for the salvation of souls.
These authors likewise often distinguish between the acquired prayer of recollection, or simplified affective prayer,** and, above it, a latent infused contemplation, similar to the diffuse light which pervades the air when the sun is not directly visible, and which illumines everything though it does not itself appear as a distinct ray. We have often spoken of it.1° In our opinion, it seems certain that St. Vincent de Paul often had, not only during prayer and the celebration of Mass but in his ministry, this latent infused contemplation, which is an act of living faith accompanied by a certain influence of the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Through it he continually saw suffering members of Christ in abandoned children and prisoners condemned to the galleys. Therein lay a frequent although diffuse influence of the gift of wisdom under its practical form. St. Thomas +° points out that this gift, like faith and the gift of understanding, is speculative and practical, in the sense that it bears both on the mysteries to be believed and on the precepts and counsels, or on the conduct of life. In certain servants of God this gift appears more under its practical form, united to the gifts of counsel, fear, piety, and fortitude; in others it appears under its speculative or rather contemplative form, united to the gifts of understanding and knowledge.
Consequently we see why a theologian who is also a man of prayer may often have latent infused contemplation which heightens the activity of his mind and, so to speak, directs his work from on high: for example, that he may ward off useless discussions which would degenerate into personalities, that he may preserve the requisite benevolence toward all; that he may seek especially the profound and fruitful understanding of the mysteries of faith. When
14 St. Teresa describes it in The Way of Perfection, chap. 28. It is a simplified acquired prayer, whereas passive prayer begins with the fourth mansion.
18 Christian Perfection and Contemplation, pp. 324 ff.; Les trois conversions et les trois voies, pp. 124-38; 151-60. Cf. supra, chaps. 28, 31, 32.
we read the works of St. Augustine, we are led to believe that this contemplation often directed his search, illumined from on high the reasons he developed, and made them all converge in a superior synthesis which he finally seized at a single glance. Father Cayre, A.A., has rightly insisted on this point in his beautiful book, La Contemplation augustinienne (1927).
To the theologian who, like St. Thomas, often recalls the same principles to illumine questions such as those of grace, free will, merit, and sin, from time to time one of these oft-quoted principles appears in all its elevation and radiance, throwing light on entire tracts, previously studied with patience. Take, for example, the principle of predilection: “No one thing would be better than another if God did not will greater good for one than for another.” 7 This principle expresses in equivalent terms the thought of St. Paul: “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” 18 and contains virtually the doctrine of predestination and that of grace.
In this case the theologian has a contemplation which is in a sense acquired, so far as it is the fruit of his work, and which, in a superior sense, is infused, so far as the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost elevates it in a more or less manifest manner, giving it a penetration and spiritual sweetness surpassing simple faith and theological speculation. Faith adheres to revealed mysteries, the gift of understanding makes us penetrate them, the gift of wisdom makes us taste them.?®
Clearly manifest infused contemplation, such as St. John of the Cross describes in The Dark Night, especially in Book II, during and after the purification of the spirit, is superior to acquired or mixed contemplation which we have just spoken of. St. Thomas received this contemplation in an eminent degree toward the end of his life, when he could no longer dictate. When we speak of this
19 In this case there are three infused habits specifically distinct by reason of their formal object, although these gifts bear on the mysteries of faith. Faith itself adheres to these mysteries owing to the authority of God revealing. The gift of understanding makes us penetrate them under a special illumination, which is the immediate rule or the formal motive of this act of penetration as such (Ila Iae, q. 8, a. 1, 2, 3, 6). The gift of wisdom makes us taste them under another special inspiration which utilizes the connaturalness with divine things based on charity (ibid., q. 45, a.2), and which makes us attain them, “non proprie ut revelata, sed ut fruibilia.” Cf. Ia, q. 43, a. 3.
contemplation, it does not follow that we do not esteem the less elevated forms of knowledge which dispose to it.
We have often insisted on the different aspects of this great problem. In concluding, we revert to this subject in order to show that the axis of the spiritual life is not displaced by ascetical theology or by the mystical theology of the best masters whose teaching the Church approves.
Tue Axis OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE AND ASCETICAL TuHroLocy RIGHTLY UNDERSTOOD
It suffices to read any good ascetical work, such as the /ntroduction to a Devout Life, by St. Francis de Sales, and the first books of his Treatise on the Love of God, where he does not yet deal with contemplation but only with meditation, to realize that the axis of the spiritual life, which rests especially on the theological virtues, far from being displaced in the ascetical life, 1s already greatly strengthened. The holy doctor says that interior and exterior mortification is a powerful means to draw down upon us the favors of heaven, if we practice it in charity and through charity. He also states very practically that the greatest mortifications are not the best, declaring that ordinary ones, which fall to our lot daily and unexpectedly, are more fruitful and assure the conformity of our will with God’s will, signified by the precepts and the counsels. In these pages the saint reminds us that mortification without prayer is a body without a soul, and that prayer without mortification is a soul without a body. In these works he treats not only theoretically but practically of the progress of the virtues illumined by faith and vivified by charity, especially of the progress of the theological virtues. St. Francis de Sales here applies in a practical manner the teaching of St. Thomas in the second part of the Summa, by causing to converge toward daily acts what the Angelic Doctor tells us of virtue in general, of the virtues in particular, their motive, their connection, and their progress. Abstraction separated these questions; ascetical theology reunites them in order to point out to us the road that leads to perfection. It aims at the end to be attained practically rather than at the nature of virtues to be well defined.
Ascetical theology rightly understood, far from being a moral system which fails to recognize the elevation of the theological vir- tues, is inspired by the breath of these virtues and directed toward a higher life to which it makes the soul aspire. To show how the moral virtues should be at the service of faith, hope, and love of God and of souls in God, to point out how the spiritual life should increasingly dominate every disorder of the sensible part of the soul, triumph over egoism, self-love, and pride under all its forms, certainly is not to change the axis of the spiritual life. It is at times necessary to recall these absolutely elementary truths which the erroneous linking of words would cause us to forget, so much the more so as we are too greatly inclined to dispense ourselves from ascetical effort and as we too readily renounce higher aspirations.
THE AXIS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE AND TRUE MysticaL [THEOLOGY
Likewise the axis of the spiritual life is certainly not changed, the role of the gifts of the Holy Ghost is not exaggerated to the detriment of the theological virtues, when, in company with the greatest spiritual writers, we point out what should be the progress of faith, hope, and charity in the illuminative way; ?° when, with St. John of the Cross, we recall how these three virtues are purificd during the passive night of the spirit, how their formal motive stands out with increasing relief, like three stars of the first magnitude in this superior obscurity.” Similarly the role of the gifts is not exaggerated to the detriment of the theological virtues by showing their heroic degree in the unitive life of the perfect, described by the great mystics.??
St. John of the Cross does not exaggerate the role of the gifts to the detriment of the theological virtues; on the contrary he practically never mentions the gifts themselves, but writes continually about faith, hope, and charity, using capital letters to designate these virtues. It would be as unjust to reproach him with having failed
20 We developed this idea in a series of articles on the theological virtues, and in another on these same virtues according to St. Catherine of Siena. Cf. La Vie spirituelle, May, June, December, 1935; January, April, October, 1936.
21 On this subject, cf. L'Amour de Dieu et la croix de Jésus, II, 575-632. Cf. supra, chaps. 39-41.
22 Cf. Philip of the Blessed Trinity, Summa theologiae mysticae (ed. Brussels, 1874), I, 132-274: “De exercitio virtutum theologicarum et moralium (in statu heroico).” Cf. supra, chaps. 42-47.
to recognize the importance of the gifts as to claim that he falls into a false supernaturalism which neglects the human subject, because he emphasizes the abnegation presupposed by the loftiest perfection. The faith he speaks of not only adheres to revealed mysteries, but is rendered penetrating and often sweet by the influx of the rarely named gifts of understanding and wisdom.
Is faith depreciated by showing what it is in all its sublimity, when it bears all its fruits? The regime of the virtues is not sacrificed to that of the gifts by pointing out what faith is when illumined by the gifts, as several great Thomists have done. Likewise the value of reasoning is not lessened by preparing oneself for the “simple intuition of the truth” which St. Thomas speaks of in connection with circular contemplation.** Because discourse ceases in this contemplation, it certainly does not follow that discourse must be renounced outside of contemplation. In like manner the importance of the study of sacred doctrine is not disparaged by saying it should be made with love of divine truth that prepares the soul for union with God, which is obviously superior to study itself.?4
Let us not stop at the external chaff of words, but penetrate to the kernel of things with a healthy realism. The supernatural virtues are not depreciated when, to explain the highest forms of the life of faith, we speak of the superhuman mode of the gifts of understanding and wisdom, which make us penetrate and taste revealed mysteries.” The same holds true in dealing with the radiant influence of the apostolic life of the greatest saints or of the life of reparation. What might happen, on the contrary, is that, under pretext of defending the superiority of the theological virtues over the gifts, one might diminish these very virtues by failing to recognize the value of the inspirations of the Holy Ghost which cause the
25 Cf. Christian Perfection and Contemplation (pp. 330f.): “Infused contemplation is an act which proceeds, in so far as its substance is concerned, from living faith, and with respect to its superhuman mode, from the gift of wisdom or of understanding” (Cajetan and Joseph of the Holy Ghost). We do not conceive of an act of these gifts which would not proceed radically from faith: here there is subordination of the habitus and of their formal objects. The fact remains that the theological virtues are superior to the gifts, although they receive from the latter an additional perfection, for example, of penetration. Thus the tree is more perfect than its fruits, but with them it is more perfect than without them. Cf. supra, chap. 31.
spirit of faith, hope, and love of God to grow more and more. By so doing, one would incline toward a moralism that would exaggerate the value of human prudence to the detriment of union with God.
If a Thomist is to give a course in mystical theology, he must certainly speak ex professo of infused contemplation, at first latent, then manifest; of its signs, its nature, and its fruits. On this point he may not omit the testimony of St. Teresa or of St. John of the Cross; he should seek to explain it theologically by the principles formulated by St. Thomas. The result would not be a clumsy concordance, nor would the use of this method be reprehensible in writing a work of this kind. Because St. Thomas himself did not write a mystical theology, but gave its principles, he certainly did not forbid the writing of such a text. Similarly, because he did not write the Praxis confessarii of St. Alphonsus, he did not exclude the possibility of similar works. It would be narrowness of spirit to renounce, under the pretext of Thomism, the theological treatment of the essential questions of mystical theology, or in treating them to fear a depreciation of the theological virtues which, on the contrary, appear therein in all their loftiness.
We fully agree with what Father Lemonnyer says, in the work we quoted above, about the value of theology: “Grace and the virtues are not realities whose nature, object, mechanism wait to become intelligible to us and to make the spiritual life intelligible to us until we have completed the inventory of ascetical and mystical experiences. .. . [hese experiences do not judge the theology of the Church; the theology of the Church judges them, illumines them, and praises them according to their merits.” 2°
The theologian should, moreover, avoid any conceit, which would be more intolerable in him than in many others; it would take away all vitality from his interior life, depriving it of great graces, and would prevent him from understanding as he should prayerful souls, incapable of opening their hearts to him. He should remember that his theological wisdom, acquired secundum perfectum usum rationis, is inferior to the infused gift of wisdom, which judges according to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost and its connaturality with divine things.*7 St. Thomas possessed these two wisdoms
26 Cf. Notre Vie divine, p. 346. 27 Cf. Ila Ilae, q.45, a.2; a.4 ad 2um: “This argument considers, not the wisdom of which we speak but that which is acquired by the study and re- in an eminent degree; the elevation of the second prevented him from taking satisfaction in the first, to such a degree that at the end of his life, when he could no longer dictate, he was as if lost in God through contemplation.
Dominic Bañez, one of St. Teresa’s directors, used to say that theologians, after spending years in the study of theology, profit by association with spiritual persons. In fact, if the theologian’s personal interior life remains quite mediocre, if he has not persevered in ascetical effort, or led a profound life of prayer, he cannot sufhciently grasp the admirable spiritual riches contained in the treatises which he explains. Then he delays excessively over the rind and does not penetrate sufficiently into the substance. If he is teaching positive theology, he even runs the risk of becoming above all a historian; if he is teaching speculative theology, of being scarcely more than a logician or a metaphysician who speaks about the great supernatural mysteries from a relatively inferior point of view. The same is true of the exegete who interprets the Epistles of St. Paul according to his own mediocre psychology, which scarcely suggests “hunger and thirst for the justice of God.” Then everything is depreciated and no longer is a matter of interest.
The spirit of theological science becomes so much the less alive when one dallies too much over what is inferior in it, and when one no longer disposes oneself in this way for “the very fruitful understanding of the mysteries” spoken of by the Vatican Council.”§ If, on the contrary, the theologian loves to read the great spiritual writers and if he sees the lives of prayerful souls truly dead to themselves in the midst of the passive purifications which they have had to undergo, and already possessing a very close union with God, then he has the impression of being in a higher atmosphere, very different from that in which one is too preoccupied with one’s scientific reputation and with discussions in which self-love and many but slightly interesting petty passions often mingle. From the higher point of view dominated by the gifts of understanding and wisdom, which render faith penetrating and sweet, the theological treatises appear more elevated and profound. We personally taught St. Thomas’ treatise on the theological virtues for the first search of reason, and is compatible with mortal sin.” Ibid., c.: “The wisdom of which we are speaking cannot be together with mortal sin.” 28 Sess. III, chap. 4 (Denzinger, 1796).
time before we saw souls of prayer that had passed through the passive purification of the spirit. When, after acquaintance with several of these souls, we returned on different occasions to the explanation of St. Thomas’ articles relative to faith, hope, and charity, we saw much more in them than we did before. We passed from the confused to the distinct concept of the theological virtues and, in varying degrees, to their experiential concept. Such an experience shows ever more clearly how the theological teaching of St. Thomas sprang from the plenitude of contemplation, to use the expression dear to the saint.?? Then, without clumsy concordance, the teachings of a St. John of the Cross help one to a better understanding of what the Angelic Doctor meant. Often our interior life, which remains too superficial and mediocre, does not enable us to discover this plenitude of meaning; we should, therefore, be grateful to those who help us to do so. This helps us understand why St. ‘Thomas himself said that he had learned more at the foot of the crucifix and before the tabernacle than in books. He spent hours at night in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and in this profound prayer he grew in the knowledge of the spirit of those things of which theological books give us the letter.
What we have said shows that the axis of the spiritual life is found in the theological virtues 8° which are superior to the gifts, but which
80 What might, without our willing it, lessen the supernaturalness of the infused virtues, including that of the theological virtues, would be to define our supernatural life, as has been done, not as the participation in the intimate life of God, but the incarnation of the divine life in us. First of all, in this case “incarnation” is a metaphorical expression to which must be preferred preciseness of terms when possible. Moreover, “incarnation” designates the union of two natures, and more precisely the relation of dependence and appurtenance of the less elevated in regard to the person who possesses the higher of these two natures. To define the supernatural life by the incarnation in us of the divine life tends to make our own nature enter into the definition of the supernatural life, as the human nature of Christ is part of Him. Without wishing to do so, one would thus revert, because of lack of precision of terms, to the conception which denies the essential supernaturalness of the infused virtues. Their supernaturalness would be reduced to a mode superadded to our natural activity; now this mode is already superadded to the acquired moral virtues, governed by charity, and the acts of which are meritorious.
What we have just said in this chapter may be confirmed by reading in the Catéchisme composed by John of St. ‘Thomas and translated into Latin under the title Compendium totius doctrinae christianae (Venice, 1693, pp. 205 ff.), the chapter on “Meditation and Contemplation,” and the necessity of a profound interior life for every religious.
receive from them an added perfection. Faith is essentially supernatural and infallible by reason of its formal motive, but it is more perfect when, under the inspiration of the gifts of understanding and wisdom, it becomes penetrating and sweet; when it gives us the fruitful understanding of the mysteries of the inner life of God, of the redemptive Incarnation, of the infinite value of the Sacrifice of the Mass, of the inestimable treasure of the presence of the Blessed Trinity in us, of the intimate union with God which finds its perfection in the transforming union, the prelude of eternal life. From this point of view, nothing is diminished, but one grasps increasingly better the value of infused faith and notably, below it, that of theology.
Tue Beatiric Vision AND Its NorMAL PRELUDE
T the beginning of this work, we stated that the life of grace is the beginning of eternal life, according to the traditional formula: “Grace is the seed of glory.” It is essentially the same life in its basis, in spite of two differences: here on earth we know God only in the obscurity of faith, not in the evidence of vision, and although we hope to possess Him inamissibly some day, we can while on earth lose Him by mortal sin. In spite of these two differences relating to faith and hope, it is the same essentially supernatural life: sanctifying grace, received in the very essence of the soul, and infused charity, received in the will, should last forever, and with them the infused moral virtues and the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. The summit of the normal development of the life of grace is, therefore, the beatific vision received after death. By way of conclusion, we shall briefly discuss this vision of heaven and its normal prelude on earth in the truly purified soul.
THE ABSOLUTELY IMMEDIATE VISION OF THE DivInE ESSENCE
We shall sum up here what St. Thomas teaches on this point in the Summa.?
If God had created us in a purely natural state with a mortal body and an immortal soul, but without the supernatural life of grace, even then our last end, our beatitude, would have consisted in knowing God and loving Him above all else, for our intellect is made to know the truth, and especially the supreme Truth, and our will is made to love and will good, and especially the sovereign Good.
If we had been created without the supernatural life of grace, the final reward of the just would have been to know God and to love Him, but they would have known Him only from without, so to6 speak, by the reflection of His perfections in creatures, as the greatest philosophers of antiquity knew Him. Without a doubt, we would have known Him in a more certain manner without admixture of errors, but by abstract knowledge, through the intermediary of things and of limited concepts in the mirror of creatures. We would have known God as the first cause of spirits and bodies, and we would have enumerated His infinite perfections known analogically by their reflection in the created order. Our ideas of the divine attributes would have remained, we have said, like squares of mosaic incapable of reproducing perfectly the spiritual physiognomy of God without hardening it. This abstract and mediate knowledge would have let many obscurities subsist, in particular in regard to the intimate harmonizing of the divine perfections. We would always have asked ourselves how infinite goodness and the divine permission of evil are able to harmonize, how infinite justice and infinite mercy can accord intimately. The human intellect would not have been able to forbear saying: If I could only see this God, who is the source of all truth and goodness, of the life of creatures, and of intellects and wills! This desire would have remained conditional and inefficacious if we had been created in a purely natural state.
But, in reality, the infinite mercy of God has raised us to supernatural life, whose full flowering is called not only the future life, but eternal life, because it is measured by the single instant of immobile eternity. Preaching the beatitudes at the very beginning of His ministry, our Lord tells us: “Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven.” 3 To the Samaritan woman He says: “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.” 4 In His sacerdotal prayer, Christ says: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” © St. Paul explains this statement to us by saying: “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.” $ t John 4:13 f.
646 THREE AGES OF THE INTERIOR LIFE And St. John adds: “We shall be like to Him, because we shall see
The Church has defined that this revealed doctrine means an immediate vision of the divine essence without the intermediary of any creature previously known.® In other words, by the gaze of our intellect supernaturally strengthened by the light of glory, we shall see God better than we see with our eyes of flesh the persons with whom we speak, for we shall see Him clearly as an object closer to us than we are to ourselves. Here on earth we know especially what God is not: we know that He is not material, changing, limited; we shall then see Him as He is in His Deity, in His infinite essence, in His intimate life common to the three Persons. Grace is a participation of this essence and life since it will give us to see Him thus immediately as He sees Himself, to love Him as He loves Himself, to live eternally by Him.
St. Thomas explains this revealed doctrine by stating ° that between God and us there will not be even the intermediary of an idea, for no created idea can represent such as it is in itself, the pure, intellectual, eternally subsistent being that is God and His infinite truth, or His limitless love. We shall not be able to express our contemplation by any word, even by any interior word, just as a man is rendered incapable of speech when absorbed by the sight of a sublime and indescribable spectacle.
This immediate vision of the divine essence immensely surpasses all the created concepts of the divine perfections that we can have here on earth. We are called to see all the divine perfections intimately harmonized, identified in the eminence of the Deity, or the inner life of God; to see how the tenderest mercy and the most inflexible justice proceed from one and the same infinitely generous and infinitely holy love, from an eternal love of the supreme Good, which is, to be sure, intimately diffusive of self (the principle of mercy), but which also has a right to be loved above all (the principle of justice). We shall see how mercy and justice are united in all the works of God, how eternal love is identical with the sovereign good always loved, how divine wisdom is identical with the
first truth always known, and how all these perfections harmonize and are but one in the very essence of Him who is.
We shall also see the infinite fecundity of the divine nature in the three divine Persons; the eternal generation of the Word, “splendor of the Father and figure of His substance.” We shall gaze upon the ineffable procession of the Holy Ghost, term of the common love of the Father and of the Son, the bond uniting Them eternally in the most absolute diffusion of Themselves. The supreme Being is essentially diffusive of Itself in the intimate life of God, and freely bestows Its riches by means of creation and by our gratuitous elevation to the life of grace. Thus will be verified St. Paul’s words: “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 brothers.” 1° From all eternity God has an only Son to whom He communicates all His divine nature; He gives Him to be “God of God, light of light.” He has willed to have other sons, adopted sons, to whom He communicates a participation in His nature, sanctifying grace in the essence of their souls, and from this grace proceed in their higher faculties the light of glory and inamissible charity. Thus, St. Thomas says, “by the incarnation of the Son we receive adoptive sonship in the likeness of His natural sonship.” ™
We shall also contemplate immediately the intimate and indissoluble union of the person of the Word and of the humanity of the Savior. We shall see thereby all the splendor of the divine maternity of Mary, of her mediation, the price of the salvation of souls, and the unlimited riches of these words so quickly uttered: “The eternal life of the elect.”
No one can tell the joy that will be born in us of this absolutely immediate vision, which will be like a spiritual fusion of our soul, of our intellect, and of the divine essence, an uninterrupted transforming union, an intimate and perfect communion that nothing will ever be able to lessen. The love which will result from this vision will be so pure and strong a love of God that nothing will ever be able to diminish it. This love will be sovereignly spontaneous, but no longer free; it will be superior to liberty, ravished by the sovereign Good. By this love we shall rejoice especially that God 1s God,
infinitely holy, just, and merciful; we shall adore all the decrees of His providence in view of the manifestation of His goodness, and we shall subordinate ourselves completely to Him. We shall enter into His beatitude, according to the words of our Savior in the parable of the talents: “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” +? We can form some idea of the activity of the saints in heaven by the radiation of their lives on earth, such as it appears, for example, in our day in the numerous graces obtained through the intercession of Mary in the sanctuary at Lourdes, or through the prayer of a St. Teresa of Lisieux.
Tue NORMAL AND IMMEDIATE PRELUDE OF THE BEATIFIC VISION
If sanctifying grace is the seed of eternal life in us, what follows as a result? First of all, that sanctifying grace, called “the grace of the virtues and the gifts,” is “much more excellent,” as St. Thomas says,'® than the graces gratis datae, like the gift of miracles, that of tongues, or prophecy which announces a contingent event. These graces are, so to speak, exterior; they give us signs of the divine life, but they are not themselves the divine life shared in us.
Now, it is from the grace of the virtues and the gifts received by all at baptism, and not from graces gratis datae and extraordinary graces that, as we have seen, the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith proceeds. This contemplation is an act of living faith, illumined by the gifts of understanding and wisdom. It is not, therefore, an essentially extraordinary favor like prophecy or the gift of tongues, but is found in the normal way of sanctity.
The truth of this conclusion becomes even more apparent if we observe that sanctifying grace, being essentially ordained to eternal life, is likewise ordained to the normal and immediate prelude of the beatific vision. Is not this prelude precisely the eminent exercise of infused faith illumined by the gifts of wisdom and understanding, that is, the infused contemplation of the divine goodness and its radiation, together with perfect charity and the ardent desire for the beatific vision? On earth this ardent desire is found in its
full perfection only in the transforming union. Therefore this union does not appear to be outside the normal way of sanctity, especially if one considers, not so much a given individual soul, but the human soul and, in it, sanctifying grace considered in itself, as the seed of glory.
The ardent desire for God is only too rare on earth, even in consecrated souls; and yet if there is a good to which the Christian should ardently aspire, evidently it is the eternal possession of God. To attain it, he should desire an ever deeper faith, a firmer confidence, a purer and stronger love of God, virtues which are found precisely in the transforming union. Thus this union appears, in profoundly humble and fully purified souls, as the immediate prelude of the beatific vision. There must, in fact, be some proportion between the intensity of the desire and the value of the good desired; in this case the value of the good being infinite, it could not be too greatly desired. Consequently it is not fitting that this infinite good should be granted to a soul that does not yet desire it ardently. The more purified the soul is, the more it aspires to the possession of God, and if at death the soul’s desire is not as ardent as it should be, this is a sign that it needs additional purification, that of purgatory.
The dogma of purgatory, then, throws a new light on the present question. Purgatory is a punishment which supposes a sin that could have been avoided and an insufficient satisfaction that could have been complete if we had better accepted the trials of the present life. It is certain that no one will be detained in purgatory except for sins he could have avoided or for negligence in making reparation for them. Therefore normally we should, like the saints, undergo our purgatory in this life while meriting, while growing in love, instead of after death without meriting.
Therefore sanctifying grace, which is of itself ordained to eternal life, is also ordained to such perfection that the soul may receive the light of glory immediately after death without passing through purgatory. This disposition to enter heaven immediately after death supposes a complete purification, analogous at least to that of souls that are about to leave purgatory and have a very ardent desire for God. According to St. John of the Cross, this complete purification is normally found on earth only in those who have courageously endured the passive purifications of the senses and the spirit, which prepare the soul for intimate union with God.'* This reason confirms all that we have said and shows that the passive purifications are indeed in the normal way of sanctity, like the close union with God for which they prepare. Evident also is the degree of sanctity in question in the expression “the normal way of sanctity”; that sanctity 1s meant which permits the soul to enter heaven immediately after death.
Such is, we believe, the teaching of St. John of the Cross, which admirably preserves and explains the traditional doctrine on this point, in particular that of the great spiritual writers who preceded him. To grasp the meaning and import of this teaching, souls must doubtless be considered not only as they are, but as they should be. Now, it is the work proper to spirituality to remind souls incessantly of what they should be that they may go beyond what they are.
This lofty doctrine also conforms perfectly to what St. Thomas tells us not only about the nature of grace, the seed of glory, but also about the beatitudes and the imitation of Jesus Christ,!® the virtues of the purified soul,* the higher degree of humility,!" patience,'® the spirit of faith,?® confidence in God, and charity.?°
St. Thomas, St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, and after them St. John of the Cross and St. Francis de Sales ?* found this teaching in the fathers who spoke of the relations of contemplation and perfect love, in St. Paul himself, and in the Gospel. St. Paul delights in saying: “That which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation [if it is well borne], worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory.” ?? He gives us the ardent
14 In The Dark Night of the Soul (Bk. Il, chap. 20), St. John of the Cross says: “Love works in such souls—they are few, and perfectly purified in this life—that which purgatory works in others in the next.”
17 Cf. Ila Iae, q.161, a.6 ad zum: “The appetite may even go as far as lovingly to embrace external abasement.”
18 Cf. IIa, q.46, a.4: “It was most fitting that Christ should suffer the death of the cross, first of all, as an example of virtue. For Augustine thus writes: ... In order, then, that no kind of death should trouble an upright man.”
20 Tbid.; also Ia Iae, q.27; q. 184, a.3; Coz. in lib. Job, chaps. 1, 7, 21: “On the patience of the just in great tribulations.”
desire for it by reminding us that we have received the “pledge of the Spirit,” ?* or the pledge and foretaste of eternal life. And our Lord Himself says to us: “If any man thirst, let him come to Me, and drink. . . . Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” *4 “He that hath My commandments and keepeth them; he it is that loveth Me. And he that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father; and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” *° This secret manifestation of Christ to the faithful soul is truly the prelude of eternal life; it is found especially in the highest of the eight beatitudes: “Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers. . . . Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake.” ?° These beatitudes are, says St. Thomas, the highest acts of the virtues and the gifts; there is in them “a kind of imperfect inchoation of future happiness.” 27 Even here on earth, the fruits of these merits begin to appear, and they contain a savor of eternal life, or a foretaste of the joy of the elect.
27 Summa, Ia Iae, q.69, a.2: “The hope of future happiness may be in us for two reasons: first, by reason of our having a preparation for, or a disposition to, future happiness; and this is by way of merit; secondly, by a kind of imperfect inchoation of future happiness in holy men, even in this life. For it is one thing to hope that the tree will bear fruit, when the leaves begin to appear, and another, when we see the first signs of the fruit.”
ADDENDA
On THE NATURE OF SPIRITUAL [THEOLOGY
We call attention to a good work by Father Gabriel of St. Magdalen, C.D., which appeared in the Acta Academiae Romanae S. Thomae (1939): “De indole psychologica theologiae spiritualis.” This article, we believe, contains the most exact statement that has been made on this subject following two recent controversies: that between Father Stolz, O.S.B., and M. Penido on whether the psychological consideration of the facts of the interior life belongs to the domain of spiritual theology; and that between Jacques Maritain and Father T. Deman on the relation of spiritual theology with theology as such.
Father Gabriel answers these two questions as follows:
In reality spiritual theology as it exists today implies a psychological study of the facts of the interior life, but a study made in a manner notably different from that of St. Teresa, who is almost solely descriptive, and from that of St. John of the Cross, who interprets these facts theologically in order to show what the evolution of the life of grace in a completely faithful soul is and ought to be.
This psychological study may be scientific, and it becomes so when it establishes universal psychological laws, for example, on the relations of purifying aridity and union with God.
This study becomes theological when these laws find their superior basis in fixed theological principles. Such is the character of the psychological consideration of the spiritual life in the work of St. John of the Cross, in particular when he establishes the necessity of the passive purification of the senses and then that of the spirit to attain the intimate and perfect union with God, which is the culminating point of the evolution of the life of grace in perfect souls. (Thus fixed theological conclusions are reached.)
The psychological study of the facts of the life of the soul, although necessary even to moral theology in the tracts on himan 652
NATURE OF SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY 653 acts, the passions, the virtues in general and in particular, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, is particularly requisite for spiritual theology, which considers the development of the interior life and its different phases even to perfect union. Consequently spiritual theology preserves the same concepts of grace, faith, confidence, charity, contemplation, and so on, as does moral theology, such as St. Thomas considers it. Nevertheless in spiritual theology these concepts are in closer relation with the concrete development of the interior life: for example, the concept of infused contemplation with the successive phases of the night of the senses, the night of the spirit, and perfect union. As a result we are led, not to admit a specific distinction between theology as conceived by St. Thomas and spiritual theology, but to see in the latter a function of theology, which, without being a science subordinated to theology, depends essentially on its principles.
Father Gabriel thus admits, as we do, that spiritual theology 1s an application of theology which determines the nature of the intimate union of the soul with God and the means (the acts, trials, graces) which lead to this union. It thus establishes, according to fixed theological principles, juxtaposed with the experience of the saints, the superior laws of the life of grace.
This is the point of view we took in the introduction and in the course of this work. Spiritual theology is, we said—designedly using a very general term—an application of theology, an application which is still in the domain of the universal, and on which depend the art of direction and the prudence of the director, which is the particular, contingent, and final application to a given person rather than to another.!
We also stated that spiritual theology is a branch of theology, or one of its integral parts (ratione materiae);? but although it has a less extended domain than moral theology as conceived by St.78
Thomas, it is the highest of its applications or its branches, for its end is to lead souls to intimate union with God. By it theology returns to its point of departure, to its eminent source, to divine revelation contained in Scripture and tradition. Spiritual theology, as a matter of fact, studies what should be the infused contemplation of revealed mysteries and the divine union resulting from this contemplation. In a word, it shows what the normal prelude of eternal life should be. ‘Thereby the cycle of sacred science is completed.
From this point of view, spiritual theology presumes a thoroughly profound knowledge of dogmatic theology and of moral theology, which are the two parts of a single science that is eminently speculative and practical, like “the impression of the science of God in us.” 3 Thereby the superior unity of theology is maintained, and we see ever better how it realizes what the Vatican Council says: “Reason also, illumined by faith, when it seeks zealously, piously, and soberly, attains through the gift of God some understanding of the mysteries, and that a most fruitful one, now from the analogy of those which it knows naturally, now from the interrelation of those mysteries with the ultimate end of man.” 4
SYNTHESIS OF THE [TREATISE ON THE I HREE AGES OF
Unitive life of the perfect
Illuminative life of proficients
Purgative life of beginners
THE INTERIOR LIFE
(To be read from the bottom up)
extraordinary, e.g., with the vision of the Blessed Trinity full eminent contemplative ordinary form apostolic form not very continual union, often inweak terrupted bia: passive purification of the spirit more initial or less well borne extraordinary or accompanied by visions, revelations full clearly contemplative form infused conordinary | active form, or form ortemplation dained to action, e.g., gift of wisdom under practical form transitory acts of infused contemweak plation (cf. The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 9) passive purification of the senses initial more or less well borne (initial infused contemplation) fervent souls full pious and devout souls or generous tepid or retarded souls, not without weak relapses initial {first conversion or justification
SUMMARY OF THE Work IN THREE RETREATS
FIRST RETREAT: ON SPIRITUAL PROGRESS
- The last end of life: celestial beatitude, II, 644-51; the life of grace, eternal life begun, I, 29-39. 2. Sin, its roots and consequences; the predominant fault, I, 299- 322; tepidity, I, 389-96. 3. The redemptive love of Christ for us, I, 109-18; II, 128 ff., 480-87. 4. Charity toward God, II, 187-98, 465-68. 5. Charity toward one’s neighbor, Il, 187-98, 468-71. 6. Mortification, I, 275-98. 7. Humility, I, 117-39. 8. Poverty, II, 140-48. 9. Chastity, IT, 108-16. 10. Holy obedience, I, 149-57. 11. The cross and purifications in general, I, 40-64, 356-99. 12. The prayer of petition and liturgical prayer, I, 428-43. 13. Mental prayer, I, 444-53. 14. Docility to the Holy Ghost, II, 223-48. 15. Devotion to Mary, II, 265-71. 16. How to live profoundly by the Mass, II, 249-64. 17. Holy Communion, II, 258-64. 18. Zeal for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, I, 213-21.
SECOND RETREAT: ON THE SPIRITUAL ORGANISM 1. The interior life, intimate conversation with God, I, 40-47, 48-51. The Theological Virtues, I, 52-56
- Faith, II, 168-77. . Hope and its certitude, I, 178-86. 4. Charity, II, 187-212.
. Prudence and the interior life, II, 77-89. . The different forms of justice, II, go—98. 7. Fortitude and patience, II, 99-107.
w o a
NATURE OF SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY 657
. Actual grace and its different forms, I, 88—96.
. The Blessed Trinity present in us, I, 97-108.
. The gifts of the Holy Ghost and docility to the Holy Ghost,
. The influence of Christ the Redeemer on His mystical body, I,
. The influence of Mary Mediatrix, I, 119-28. . The growth of the life of grace through merit, prayer, the sacra- ments, I, 129-43.
. Sacramental confession, I, 397—405. . Assistance at Mass, source of sanctification, I, 406-13; II, 249-57. . Holy Communion, I, 414-27; II, 258-64.
THIRD RETREAT: ON CHRISTIAN PERFECTION
. Christian perfection, its true nature, I, 144-62. . The grandeur of Christian perfection and the beatitudes, I,
. Christian perfection and the precept of love, I, 196-205. . Christian perfection and the evangelical counsels, I, 206-13. . The special obligation of the priest and the religious to tend to perfection, I, 214-24.
. The three ages of the spiritual life, I, 225-46.
. The spiritual age of beginners, I, 265-74.
. The purification of the senses and the imagination, I, 332-52. . The purification of the intellect and the will, I, 353-78.
. The spiritual age of proficients, II, 65-71.
. The Sacrifice of the Mass and proficients, II, 249-57.
. The Communion of proficients, II, 258-64.
. The mysticism of The Imitation accessible to all, I, 272-78.
. The crosses of the sensible part of the soul and those of the spirit, II, 40—64, 356-99.
. The spiritual age of the perfect, II, 422-32. . The beatific vision and its normal prelude, II, 644-51.
Index aA AA AB B B AB B B @ B B B B B BB B B B BB B@ B@ B BB BEA ABW B B BG B BG B BE AEA EB BEA BEEBE EBA BE u
Abandonment to will of God, 195; hope transformed into, 413; its heroic degree manifested by heroic hope, 460 ff.
Abstinence, prolonged, 606
Affections, chastity and the inordinate, 110
Age of beginners, meaning of term, 42 note 8; see Vol. I
Age of proficients (see Purification, passive, of the senses)
beginning of contemplation in, 47 beginning of mystical life in, 70 characteristics of, 65-71
Communion in, 258-64 conduct when one is unable to meditate, 56 continuation of purgative way, 3 correction of defects, 43 defects in, 41 ff., 358 ff.
degrees of contemplative prayer in, 299-303 desire for God in, 47-50 devotion to Mary in, 265-71 entrance into, 21-29, 40 experimental knowledge of God in, 61 ff., 65-71 fraternal charity in, 199 gifts of Holy Ghost and virtues in, symbolized by spiritual edifice, 72- 76 heroic acts of virtues in, 441 inability to meditate in, 45, 49 influence of gifts of Holy Ghost in, knowledge of God in, 65-70 knowledge of self in, 61 lack of generosity in, 63 love of God in, 70 and the Mass, 249-57 moral virtues in, 75-79 progress in, 3 ff.
and the Rosary, 66 theological virtues in, 72-75
Age of the perfect (see also Purification, passive, of the spirit) apostolic life in, 489-96 desire for God in, 399, 417 devotion to Mary in, 484 ff. entrance into, 353 forms and degrees of unitive life, 489- 510 heroic degree of the virtues in, 441-79; see also Virtues indwelling of Trinity in, 426-32; see also Trinity influence of Holy Ghost in perfect soul, 513-18 life of reparation in, 497-510 love of Jesus crucified in, 480-84, 486 love of God in, 425 peace in, 426, 533, 539ff., 552-60, 570 H. knowledge of God in, 422-25 self-knowledge in, 424 Apostolate: conditions of, 494 ff.; eminent source of, 490-94; a form of the unitive life, 489-96; fruitfulness of, 494 ff. Aridity: cause of sensible, 44 ff., 317; purpose of, 227; spiritual, 316 Ascetical, meaning of term, 548 note 2 Asceticism of The Imitation, 277 Autosuggestion: in hysteria, 609; and stigmatization, 602
Beatitudes of the clean of heart, 380 highest acts of infused virtues, 443 of the merciful, 88, 230 of the peacemakers, 232 penetration of soul with beatitudes in passive purification, 397 of the poor, 226 relations to gifts of Holy Ghost, 226- of those who hunger and thirst after justice, 229 of those who mourn, 228 33
660 Betrothal, spiritual, 552; see Espousals, spiritual Blindness: physical, 613 ff.; spiritual, 169
Character: definition of, 91; education of, 95 Charisms; see Graces gratis datae Charity; see Theological virtue of charity Chastity acquired, 109 infused, 109 loss of, 109 motive of, 109 preparation for contemplation, 115 preservation of, 110 spiritual fruitfulness of, 111-16 temptations against, 59 ff. value of, 109 virginity, highest form of, 108 Childhood, spiritual; see Way of spiritual childhood Communion: conditions of a fervent, 258; and the gift of oneself, 263; and the mystical body, 259-63; principal effect of, 258; see also Vol. I, chap.
32 Confidence in God, voluntary poverty and, 143 Contemplation, acquired: conclusion in regard to, 311; confused with initial infused contemplation, 326 note 57; definition of, 309; Molinos on, 290 Contemplation, infused and acquired prayer of recollection, 284 beginning of, 47, 55 ff., 310 ff. call to, 319-23 character of newness in, 328 ff. characteristics of, 318 chastity, preparation for, 115 condition of the apostolate, 494 ff. conditions ordinarily required for, 326 definition of, 281, 287, 308, 310, 312, 341 description of, 310, 314, 551, 564 desire for, 323 desire for revelations turns soul from, 583 differences in teaching of St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross on, 342-49 direction of souls in relation to, 324 ff. distinguished from meditation, 313 distractions and, 50 ecstasy and, 578
Footnotes
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Cf. Ribet, Mystique divine, Vol. III, chap. 10; A. Poulain, S.J., Des Graces @’oraison (10th ed.), chap. 24, 7-8, 59-89; A. Saudreau, L’Etat mystique (2nd ed., 1921), chaps. 22 f; “Possession,” Dictionnaire apologétique, also Dict. théol. cath.; J. de Tonquédec, S.J., Les Maladies nerveuses ou mentales et les manifestations diaboliques (Paris, 1938). ↩
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Summa, la, q.105, a.4; Ia Ilae, q. 109, 2.6. ↩
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Ibid., Ia Iae, q. 80, “Of the cause of sin, as regards the devil”; Ia. q.114, “Of the assaults of the demons.” ↩
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Bulletin Thomiste (July-December, 1936), p. 78, apropos of the book ↩
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Cf. De revelatione (1st ed., 1918), I, 430-515. “La Surnaturalité de la foi,” Revue Thomiste, January, 1914. Le Sens du mystère (1934), 234-87. ↩
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Vol. I, chap. 1, pp. 29 f. ↩
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In the works of great spiritual writers, there are eminent parts which are theologically established; they alone belong to spiritual theology in statu scientiae. Other parts belong only to the art of direction, which must not be confounded with the prudence of the director. This prudence makes use of this art when the director has sufficient knowledge of it; the gift of counsel and certain graces of state may also supply for the knowledge of this art when the director has not gone deeply enough into it. ↩
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Thus many Thomists say, in a higher domain: predestination is an objective part of Providence, and it attains what is most elevated in the object of Providence. ↩
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