Chapter VI. The peace of the kingdom of God: a prelude to the life of heaven

Tuose who follow the way of generosity, self-denial, and self-sacrifice which the saints have taught, will come at length to know and taste the joys of God’s complete dominion within us.

Truly spiritual delights have their source in the cross, in the spirit of sacrifice which causes disordered inclinations to die in us and gives the first place to the love of God and the love of souls in God, which installs in the throne of our souls that charity which is the source of peace, the tranquillity of order. These deep joys cannot enter into the soul until the senses and the spirit have been purged and refined by tribulations and sufferings which detach us from things created. As we read in the Acts of the Apostles: ‘ Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.’!

The divine awakening.

After the dark and painful night of the spirit there is, St. John of the Cross tells us, a divine awakening : ‘ The soul uses a similitude of the breathing of one that awakens from his sleep,’ and says, ‘ How gentle and loving is . . . thine awakening, O Word and Spouse, in the centre and depth of my soul . wherein alone, secretly and in silence, Thou dwellest as its Lord.’ This divine awakening is an inspiration of the Word manifesting His dominion, His glory and His intimate sweetness.”

This inspiration shows the face of God radiant with graces and the works which He accomplishes. ‘This is the great delight of this awakening: to know the creatures through God and not God through the creatures; to know the effects through the cause and not the cause through the effects.’ Then is the prayer of the Psalmist fulfilled: ‘ Arise, Lord, why sleepest thou?’ ‘ Arise, Lord,’ that is to say, remarks St. John of the Cross, ‘do thou awaken us, and enlighten us, my Lord, that we may know and love the blessings that Thou hast ever set before us.’*

The same grace is described in the 39th Psalm: ‘ With expectation I have waited for the Lord, and he was attentive to me. And he heard my prayers and brought me out of the pit of misery and the mire of dregs; and he set my feet upon a rock and directed my steps, and he put a new canticle into my mouth.’

In this ‘ powerful and glorious awakening’ the soul receives, as it were, an aspiration of the Holy Spirit, who fills it to overflowing with His goodness and His glory, ‘ wherein He has inspired it with love for Himself, which transcends all description and all sense, in the deep things of God.’

These graces are a preparation for that other awakening of the supreme moment of death, when the soul issuing forth from the body will see itself immediately as a spiritual substance, as the angels see themselves. And the last awakening of all will be in the moment of entrance into glory, when the soul, separated from the body, sees God face to face, and sees itself in God. Happy the saints who go straight to heaven. While those about them are lamenting their departure, they have reached the end of their journey in the clearness of the vision that gives them joy. As the Gospel says, they have entered into the joy of their Lord.

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The Living Flame.

Already here on earth the divine awakening produces in the soul of the perfect a flame of love which is a participation of that living flame which is the Holy Spirit Himself. ‘ This flame the soul feels within it, not only as a fire that has consumed and transformed it in sweet love, but also as a fire which burns within it and sends out flame. . . . And this is the operation of the Holy Spirit in the soul that is transformed in love, that His interior actions cause it to send out flames. .. . And thus these acts of the soul are most precious, and even one of them is of greater merit and worth than all that the soul may have done in this life apart from this transformation, however much this may be; .. . it is the same difference as that between the log of wood that is enkindled and the flame which it sends forth. . . In this state, therefore, the soul can perform no acts, but it is the Holy Spirit that moves it to perform them... . Hence it seems to the soul that whensoever this flame breaks forth . . . it is granting it eternal life . . . it teaches the soul what is the savour of eternal life . . . it causes the soul to experience the life of God, even as David says: My heart and my flesh have rejoiced in the living God.’!

This flame wounds the soul as it is given, but the wound is tender, salutary and, instead of causing death, it increases life ; for the soul is holiest that is most wounded by love. Thus St. John of the Cross says that ‘ this wound is delectable,’ and he adds that this ‘ came to pass when the seraph wounded the soul of St. Francis (of Assisi) with love.’?

When the heart is thus burning with love for its God, the soul is contemplating lamps of fire which¹ Living Flame, st. I, 20-22; cf. Ps. Ixxxiii, 3. 2 Ibid., II, 12.

too THREE WAYS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE enlighten all things from on high. These are the divine perfections: Wisdom, Goodness, Mercy, Justice, Providence, Omnipotence. They are, so to speak, the colours of the divine rainbow which, without destroying one another, are identified in the intimate life of God, in the Deity, as the seven colours of the rainbow are united in the one white light from which they proceed. ‘ All these are one lamp, which is the Word. . . . This lamp is all these lamps, since it gives light and burns in all these ways.’

The powers of the soul are then as though melted in the splendour of the divine lamps ;? it is truly a prelude to eternal life.

‘ The soul is completely absorbed in these delicate flames, and wounded subtly in each of them, and in all of them more deeply and subtly wounded in love of life, so that it can see quite clearly that that love belongs to life eternal, which is the union of all blessings. So that the soul in that state knows well the truth of those words of the Spouse in the Songs, where He says that the lamps of love were lamps of fire and flame.”*

The flame which the wise virgins must tend in their lamps is a participation of this flame.‘

The following lines from a recent commentary on the Canticle of Canticles are worth pondering: ‘ The divine love is a consuming fire. It penetrates the soul to its depth. It burns and consumes, but it does not destroy ; it transforms into itself. Material fire which burns wood to its innermost fibres and iron to its last molecules, is an image of that fire, but how feeble an image! At times, under the influence of a specially powerful grace, the soul that, is on fire with divine love sends forth flames. They ascend straight to God. He is their principle as He is their end ; and it is for His sake that the soul is consumed

PEACE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD or with love. The charity that elevates the soul to God is only a created, finite, analogical participation of uncreated charity; but it is nevertheless a real, positive and formal participation of the substantial flame of Jehovah.’ 1

We can understand, therefore, why St. John of the Cross often compares the soul that is penetrated by God with the union of air and fire in a flame, which is nothing else but air on fire. Doubtless there is always an infinite distance between the Creator and the creature, but God by His action enters so intimately into the purified soul that He deifies it, giving it an increase of sanctifying grace. And sanctifying grace is a real and formal participation of His inner life, His own nature, which is Deity.

Unitive love then becomes in the soul like a sea of fire that ‘ reaches to the farthest heights and depths, filling it wholly with love.’ This love, hardly perceptible at first, grows more and more until the soul experiences an ever-increasing hunger for God and a burning thirst, of which the Psalmist says: ‘ For thee my soul hath thirsted ; for thee my flesh, O, how many ways!’% This is truly the beatitude of those that hunger and thirst after justice ; this is truly the prelude to the life of heaven, truly a beginning of eternal life, ‘ quzdam inchoatio vite eterne,’ as St. Thomas has said. This is the supreme, but normal, development of the life of grace on earth, the seed of glory, semen gloriz.

What are we to conclude from this doctrine, which may appear too sublime for us poor mortals ?

It would certainly be too sublime for us if we had not received in baptism that life of grace which, in us

1 Virgo Fidelis, by Robert de Langeac (Lethielleux, 1931), p. 279.

H too, must develop into eternal life; if we had not often received Holy Communion, the precise effect of which is to increase that grace within us. Let us remind ourselves that each of our Communions ought to be substantially more fervent than the preceding, since each of them ought to increase the love of God in us, and thus dispose us to receive our Lord with a greater fervour of will on the following day.

As St. John of the Cross says,! spiritual souls that desire this union would attain it if they did not flee from those trials which God sends them for their purification.

Exactly the same doctrine is found in the Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, where we are given the explanation of those words of Christ: ‘ If any man thirst let him come to me and drink. . . . Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.’ t You were all invited, generally and in particular, by My Truth when He cried in the Temple, saying : “ Tf any man thirst, let him come to me and drink... .”’ So that you are invited to the fountain of living water of Grace, and it is right for you, with perseverance to keep by Him who is become for you a bridge, not being turned back by any contrary winds that may arise, either of prosperity or adversity, and to persevere until you find Me, Who give the water of Life, by means of this sweet Word of love, my only-begotten Son... .’?

‘But you must have thirst, because only those that thirst are invited. *“ If any man thirst,” He says, * let him come to me and drink.’’ He who has no thirst will not persevere, for either fatigue causes him to stop, or pleasure distracts him . . . he turns back at the smallest persecution, for he likes it not... .

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The intellect must gaze into the ineffable love which I have shown thee by means of My only-begotten Son. ... A man who is full of My love and the love of his neighbour finds himself the companion of many real virtues; and then the soul is disposed to thirst: it thirsts for virtue, and the honour of My name and the salvation of souls ; every other thirst in him is spent and dead. The soul then walks securely . . . being stripped of self-love ; it is raised above itself and above transitory things. . . . It contemplates the deep love that I have manifested to you in Christ crucified. . . . The heart, emptied of the things that pass away, becomes filled with heavenly love which gives access to the waters of grace. Having arrived there, the soul passes through the door of Christ crucified and tastes the water of life, slaking his thirst in Me, who am the Ocean of Peace.’

What practical conclusion are we to draw from all this? We ought to say and repeat this prayer to our Blessed Lord :

‘Lord, teach me to know the obstacles that, consciously or unconsciously, I am placing in the way of Thy grace in me. Give me the strength to put them aside, and if I am negligent therein, vouchsafe Thyself to remove them, howsoever I may suffer thereby. What wouldst Thou have me to do for Thee this day, my God? Show me what it is in me that displeaseth Thee. Teach me rightly to value the Precious Blood which Thou didst shed for me, of the sacramental or spiritual communion by which we are enabled to drink that Blood from the wound of Thy most loving Heart.

‘Make me, O Lord, to grow in love of Thee. Grant that our inner conversation may never cease ; that I may never separate myself from Thee ; that I may receive all that Thou dost deign to give me;

1o4 THREE WAYS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE and that I may not stand in the way of the grace which through me should be poured out upon other souls to give them light and life.’

Pax in veritate.

And thus, in the words of St. Thomas, man lives no longer for himself, but for God.! He may say, with St. Paul: ‘ To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’* Life for me is not study, not work, or natural activity of any kind, but Christ.

Such is the way that leads to this quasi-experimental and almost continuous knowledge of the Blessed Trinity dwelling within us. And this is what makes St. Catherine say at the end of her Dialogue :*

‘O eternal Trinity, O Godhead, O divine Nature that gavest to the Blood of Thy Son so great a price, Thou, O eternal Trinity, art a bottomless sea into which the more I plunge the more I find, and the more I find the more I seek Thee still. Of Thee it is never possible to say: Enough. The soul that is sated in Thy depths desires Thee yet unceasingly, for it hungers ever after Thee... . Thou art the fire that burns ever and is never quenched, the fire that consumes in itself all the self-love of souls, that melts all ice and gives all light. This light is an ocean into which the soul plunges ever more deeply and there finds peace.’

What better commentary could we find on those sublime words of St. Paul to the Philippians :* ‘ The peace of God, which surpasseth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.’ This is the fruit of the third conversion, in very truth a prelude to the life of heaven.

NOTE ON

Tue CALL TO THE INFUSED CONTEMPLATION OF THE MYSTERIES OF FAITH

WE have pointed out above—and we have developed the theme at length elsewhere’—that the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost are connected with charity,” and that they consequently develop together with it. It is therefore impossible to have a high degree of charity without having at the same time and in a proportionate degree the gifts of understanding and wisdom, gifts which, together with faith, are the principle of the infused contemplation of revealed mysteries. In some of the saints, as in St. Augustine, this contemplation bears immediately upon the mysteries themselves; in others, as in a St. Vincent de Paul, it bears upon the practical consequences of these mysteries; for example, upon the life of the members of the mystical body of Christ. But in either case it is infused contemplation. The superhuman mode of the gifts, a mode of activity which is derived from the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost and which transcends the human mode of the virtues,* is at first latent, as in the ascetic life; but then it becomes manifest and frequent in the mystical life. In fact, the Holy Ghost usually inspires souls proportionately to their habitual docility or to their supernatural dispositions (i.e. according to the degree in which they possess² the virtues and the gifts). This is definitely the traditional teaching.

We have also shown elsewhere,! that according to St. Thomas the gifts have not a human mode specifically distinct from their superhuman mode ; for if this were so, the former might always be perfected without ever attaining to the latter, and would thus not be essentially subordinate to it.

Now, if the gifts have no human mode specifically distinct from their superhuman mode, it follows that —as we have often said—there is for all truly spiritual souls a general remote call or vocation to the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith—a contemplation which alone can give a profound and living understanding of the redemptive Incarnation, of the indwelling of God within us, of the sacrifice of Calvary substantially perpetuated on the altar during the Mass, and of the mystery of the Cross which should be reproduced in any true and profound Christian life. However, this ‘ general and remote call’ does not mean the same as an ‘ individual and proximate call,’ just as a ‘ sufficient call’ does not mean the same as an ‘ efficacious call.’

We have recently been conceded, on this matter, a point which we had not asked—and which, incidentally, we do not accept—namely, that ‘ the negative element of perfection, that is to say, detachment from creatures, must be the same for all souls : complete, absolute, universal’ ; ‘there can be no degrees in the absence of voluntary faults. The very smallest, like the very greatest, destroys perfection . . ...athread is enough to hold a man captive.’

We do not think that detachment from creatures is the same for all, whether for the greatest saints or for those souls that have reached a minimal perfection.

And the principal reason is, that perfection excludes not only faults that are directly voluntary, but also those that are indirectly voluntary ; those which proceed from negligence and a relative tepidity, from a secret and semi-conscious egoism that does not allow the depth of the soul to belong completely to God. Likewise there is a certain co-relation between the intensive growth of charity and its extension, in consequence of which charity gradually excludes even those obstacles which we more or less unconsciously oppose to the work of grace in our souls.

If then, as we are granted, every soul is called by its progress in the love of God to exclude all voluntary faults, even the smallest, even those that are indirectly voluntary, it will succeed only by means of a high degree of charity. This charity will, evidently, be proportionate to the vocation of the individual soul ; it will not be the same for Bernadette of Lourdes as it was for St. Paul; but it will have to be a high degree of charity. Without this the depth of the soul will not belong completely to God; without this there will still be some egoism, which will manifest itself often enough by faults that are at least indirectly voluntary.

If a soul is to be perfect, it must possess a degree of charity higher than that which it possessed when it was still in the ranks of beginners or of proficients ; just as in the physical order the full age of manhood presupposes a physical strength superior to that of childhood or adolescence—though it may be that accidentally a youth is found to be more vigorous than a fully grown man.

What conclusion follows regarding the purgation of the depth of the soul, which is necessary to exclude

1 Non sunt judicanda ea que sunt per se, per ea que sunt per accidens.³

all egoism and secret pride? A recent study on this question contains the following :

“I admit that the passive purgations (which are of the mystical order) are necessary in order to arrive at the purity required for mystical union; and it is in this sense that St. John of the Cross speaks. . But I deny that the passive purgations are necessary for the purity required in the union of love by conformity of wills—The reason of this difference is a profound one. For the mystical union, which involves infused contemplation and love, active purgation is not sufficient, precisely because the purity of the will is not sufficient. It is necessary that there should be added to it a sort of psychological purity of the substance and the powers of the soul, which consists in rendering them adapted to the mode of being of the divine infusion.’

The important question, then, is: Are the passive purgations, according to St. John of the Cross, not necessary for the profound purity of the will? Are they not necessary in order to exclude that more or less conscious egoism, and those indirectly voluntary faults which are incompatible with the full perfection of charity, incompatible also with the full perfection of the infused virtues and gifts, which develop together with charity like so many functions of the same spiritual organism ?

The answer to this extremely important question, for our part, is not for a moment in doubt.

It suffices to read in the Dark Night the description of those faults of beginners which render the purgation of the senses necessary. Here are, not faults opposed to the sort of psychological purity of which our author speaks, but faults which are contrary to the moral purity of the sensibility and of the will. They are, in fact, as St. John of the Cross tells

NOTE 109 us, the seven capital sins translated into the order of the spiritual life, such as spiritual greed, spiritual sloth, spiritual pride.

The same remark may be made of the faults! of proficients which render necessary the passive purgation of the spirit; they are ‘stains of the old man which still remain in the spirit, like a rust which will disappear only under the action of an intense fire.’ These proficients, says St. John of the Cross, are really subject to natural affections; they have moments of roughness, of impatience ; there is still in them a secret spiritual pride, and an egoism which causes some of them to make use of spiritual goods in a manner not sufficiently detached, and so they are led into the path of illusions. In a word, the depth of the soul is lacking, not only in psychological purity, but in the moral purity that is required. Tauler has spoken in the same sense, solicitous especially to purify the depth of the soul of all self-love, of all more or less conscious egoism. Hence it is our opinion that the passive purgations are necessary for this profound moral purity. But these purgations are of the mystical order. They do not always appear under so definitely contemplative a form as that described by St. John of the Cross; but in the lives of the saints, even of the most active among them, like a Vincent de Paul, the chapters which treat of their interior sufferings prove that they all have a common basis, which none has described better than St. John of the Cross.

A final and very important concession has been made to us in connection with the famous passage of the Living Flame, st. II, 23:

‘It behoves us to note why it is that there are so few that attain to this lofty state. It must be known

1 Dark Night, Book II, ch. i and ch. ii.⁴

that this is not because God is pleased that there should be few raised to this high spiritual state— on the contrary it would please Him if all were so raised—but rather because He finds few vessels in whom He can perform so high and lofty a work. For, when He proves them in small things and finds them weak and sees that they at once flee from labour, and desire not to submit to the least discomfort or mortification . . . He finds that they are not strong enough to bear the favour which He was granting them when He began to purge them, and goes no farther with their purification. ...’

With regard to this it has recently been conceded : “We admit that St. John of the Cross is treating here of the spiritual marriage, and that he states that the will of God is that all souls should attain to this state. But we deny that this implies a universal call to the mystical life... . The confusion arises, in our opinion, from a failure to distinguish two elements included by St. John of the Cross in the two degrees of union called spiritual betrothal and marriage. One of these two elements is essential and permanent; the other accidental and transitory. The essential element is the union of wills between God and the soul, a union which results from the absence of voluntary faults and from the perfection of charity; the accidental element consists in the actual union of the powers, a mystical union in the proper sense of the word, a union which cannot be continuous.’

In this supposition, it is possible that the transforming union, or spiritual marriage, should exist in a person without that person ever having had a mystical union ; the mystical union being merely an accidental element, like the interior words or the intellectual vision of the Blessed Trinity mentioned by St. Teresa.! To us,’on the contrary, it appears certain

NOTE III that, according to St. John of the Cross, the transforming union cannot exist without there having been at least from time to time a very lofty contemplation of the divine perfections, an infused contemplation! proceeding from the gifts, which have now reached a degree proportionate to that of perfect charity. It is, he says, ‘even as the fire that penetràtes the log of wood . . . and having attacked and wounded it with its flame, prepares it to such a degree that it can enter it and transform it into itself.” ?

Moreover, to our mind it is absolutely certain that the profound union of wills between God and the soul, which is recognized as being the essential element of the transforming union, presupposes the moral purgation of the depth of the soul, a purgation from that more or less conscious-self-love or egoism which is the source at least of many indirectly voluntary faults ; and this moral purification of the depth of the soul, according to St. John of the Cross, requires the passive purgations which eliminate the faults of beginners and proficients.

We therefore maintain what we have said, in common with numerous theologians, Dominican and Carmelite, about the doctrine of St. Thomas and St. John of the Cross concerning the gifts of the Holy Ghost. To conclude, we recall especially these two important texts :

• The night of sense is common and comes to many ; these are the beginners.’* Being passive, this purification, or night, is of the mystical order: ‘ The way of progressives or proficients . . . is called the way of

• According to St. John of the Cross (Dark Night, Book I, ch. xiv) ‘ the way of illumination ’ is a ‘ way of infused contemplation, wherewith God Himself feeds and refreshes the soul.’ A fortiori, Man in the way of union.⁵⁶

illumination or of infused contemplation, wherewith God Himself feeds and refreshes the soul.’! Hence infused contemplation is in the normal way of sanctity, even before the unitive way is reached ; and therefore it is inconceivable that a soul should be i in the státè of spiritual marriage or the transforming union without ever having had that infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith which is the eminent exercise of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, developing in us side by side with charity.

We cannot admit that a mind of the calibre of St. John of the Cross can have meant only something accidental when he wrote the passage which we have just quoted, and which we quote once more in conclusion :

‘ The way of progressives or of proficients . . . is called the way of illumination or of infused contemplation, wherewith God Himself feeds and refreshes the soul,’ 1 Dark Night, Book I, ch. xiv.

THE END

Footnotes

1. Living Flame, st. IV, 5. 2 Ibid., 9. 9 Ibid., 17. ↩

2. aacra chrétienne et contemplation, t. I, pp. 338-417; t. II, PP. 430-47 Cf. St. Thomas, I-Ilz, Q. Ixviii, art. 5. 3 I-Ilz, Q. lxviii, art. 1; see also Perfection chrétienne . . ., t. I, pp. 355-385; t. II, pp. (52)-(64). ↩

3. Vie Spirituelle, November, 1932 (Supplément, pp. (65)-(83) : Les dons ont-ils un mode humain ? ↩

4. Book I, ch. ii-ix. ↩

5. VIIth Mansion, ch. i and ch. ii. ↩

6. Living Flame, st. I, 16. ? Dark Night, Book I, ch. viii. ↩