Chapter IV. Of contemplation

Article I

There are two sorts 0/ contemplation.

1. We must distinguish between two kinds of contemplation, the ordinary and the extraordinary.

2. Ordinary contemplation is a supernatural habit, by which God raises the powers of the soul to sublime knowledge and illuminations, lofty sentiments and spiritual tastes, when He no longer finds in the soul such sins, passions, affections, cares, as prevent the communications He would make to it.

3. They who possess this habit pray easily, and have. as it were, at their disposal the particular grace of the Holy Spirit necessary for the exercise of the theological virtues ; so that they make acts of it whenever they will, after raising their heart to God to ohtain His succour, which is always ready.

4. There is another higher kind of contemplation, which consists in raptures, ecstacies, visions, and other extraordinary effects. The former leads to this ; and we make more progress in it in a short time than we do in meditation during many years, that is to say, we acquire more virtue, and that more speedily. By meditation, the soul walks afoot with labour ; by contemplation, it flies without trouble. Thus St. Theresa said, that when God had admitted her to this sort of prayer, all her difficulties ceased at once, and she experienced a powerful attraction towards acts of all virtues, attended with a marvellous relish and sweetness.

They who possess this last gift of prayer commonly pray without knowing they are praying, or being aware of it ; and it is then that prayer is perfect.

In this sort of prayer we place ourselves in God*s presence. We remain thus without making distinct or repeated acts, occupied either in the simple contemplation of God with awe and love, or in some pious sentiment which God inspires, and which lasts sometimes an hour, two hours, a day, two days, according to the disposition of the soul and the state of perfection and purity to which it has attained : in souls perfectly pure, the presence of God becomes almost unceasing.

It is usually said that in this kind of prayer no acts are made. This is not strictly true, for some are always made, but in a manner more exalted, more simple, and as it were imperceptible. A complete suspension of all act is simple idleness of a very dangerous kind.

Directors are apt to commit two faults in respect to contemplation. Some, but little spiritaal, or too timid, close the door of it altogether against the souls under their charge, although God may be calling them into it Others, on the contrary, admit eyery body indiscriminately, and talk of nothing but prayer of simple regard, extraordinary graces, interior voices, yisions^ revelations, and ecstacies.

Article II

Of the gift of the presence of God, Thefint step in corUempUUim.

When, after a long cultivation of purity of hearty God would enter into a soul and manifest Himself to it openly by the gift of His holy presence, which is the first in order of His supernatural gifts, the soul finds itself so delighted with this new state, that it feels as if it had never known or loved God before. It is astounded at the blindness and stupidity of men ; it condemns the indolence and languor in which we generally pass our lives ; it deplores the losses it believes itself to have incurred by its slothfulness ; it accounts the life it has hitherto led as not deserving the name of life, and that it is only just beginning to live.

In vain do we labour to have this sense of the presence of God unless He Himself bestows it upon us. It is a pure gift of His mercy. But when we have received it, by that presence and in that presence we see God and the will of God in our actions, as we behold at one and the same time the light and the body which it enables us to see. This grace is the fruit of great purity of heart, and leads the soul to close union with God. He bestows it upon us, when, on our part, we do what we can and ought to do.

Were we fiiUj possessed with God, we should be able to practise incessant prayer. It occasionally happens that some passion, or resentment, or yexation of mind, so possesses ns, that we are altogether engrossed by it for two or three days together, and think of scarcely any thing else. Not an hour in the day passes without our experiencing this ill feeling 3 and though we fancy we resist it, yet if God were to shew us the real disposition of our heart, we should see that we had no desire to be free from it, and yielded it some sort of secret consent.

In like manner, if we had a tender deyotion to our Lord, to the Holy Sacrament of the altar, we should think of Him a thousand times a day. If our heart were wholly occupied with God, we should cherish an unceasing remembrance of Him, and should experience no difficulty in realising His presence. Every thing would serve to raise us to Him, and the least occasions would excite our fervour.

Let us be assured that our Lord and the Blessed Virgin behold us from the height of heaven, even with their bodily eyes, the perfection of their powers of vision compensating for the greatness of the distance. Thus we ought to perform all our actions as in their presence ; and this is the means of attaining the most exalted sense of the presence of God, wherein the prophets Elias and Eliseus walked, and which made them say : " As the Lord liveth, before whom I stand;" — a presence, the sense of which is more lively and more piercing than what we have by faith. ■

Article III

T^ adocmtagea of c(mtempl(Uion.

Contemplation is true wisdom. This it is the books of Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, and Ecdesiasticus recommend SO much. They who dissuade others from it are guilty of a great error. There is no danger in it when we bring to it the requisite dispositions. True it is that there is danger of illusion in raptures and ecstacies, espedally while grace is still weak, and the soul as yet unaccustomed to such things ; but in contemplation there is no danger.

We see in the first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians that the most marvellous gifts of God were commonly granted to the first Christians, the gift of tongues, of healing the sick, of working miracles, of prophecy, and of discernment of spirits ; and the holy Apostle exhorts the faithful to desire these spiritual gifts, and particularly that of prophecy, which consists not only in predicting things to come, but also in understanding the Scriptures, in expounding them, and instructing the people.

Now-a-days, if any one aspires after some gift of prayer a little above the common order, he is plainly told that such things are extraordinary gifts which Cod gives only when He will and to whom He will, and that we must not desire them or ask for them : thus the door of these gifts is for ever shut against him.

This is a great abuse. True it is that we must not of ourselves intrude into these kinds of prayer ; but at the same time we ought not to refuse them when God offers them, nor actually do any thing which may have the effect of preventing His admitting us to them when He pleases.

§ ni.

Meditation wearies and fatigues the mind, and its acts are of short duration ; but those of contemplation, even such as is of a common order, last whole hours without labour and without weariness ; and in the purest souls contemplation may easily continue several days together, in the very midst of the world and the engagements of business. In the state of glory, the first act made by a holy soul on beholding the beatific vision will last to all eternity without satiety or fatigue, ever the same and ever new. Now contemplation is a participation in the state of glory. It resembles it in its facility and duration. It injures neither health nor strength.

Contemplation opens a new world to the soul, with the beauty of which it is enraptured. St. Theresa, when passing out of a state of prayer, used to say that she came from a world incomparably more vast and beautiful than a thousand worlds such as this.

St. Bernard, returning from converse with God, went back with regret to the society of men, and dreaded attachment to creatures as hell itself. That holy priest, Father John Avila, on leaving the altar, could scarcely endure intercourse with the world.

In contemplation a pure soul discovers without labour, or any exertion of its powers, truths which throw it into ecstacy, and which, withdrawing it from all the operations of the senses, cause it to experience within itself a foretaste of paradise.

§v.

Contemplation leads souls to heroic acts of charity, zeal, penance, and other virtues, as, for example, martyrdom. The Saints, who had received this gift from God, desired their suiOferings to be increased tenfold; and to form these desires they had not to undergo those struggles and repugnances which we commonly experience in our good resolutions. They found therein nothing but consolation.

By contemplation we obtain a perfect knowledge of things human and temporal, supernatural and heavenly. The former we perceive to be so vile and contemptible as to be convinced that to set any value upon them is the greatest illusion possible, and that to attach our heart to them is the worst disorder we can fiJl inta We judge infallibly of the value of both one and the other, and distinguish between them as easily and with as much certainty as a man who understands coins, having several pieces before him, is able to pronounce, only by looking at them, or touching them, '* This is good gold, and that is not."

When God has admitted a soul to contemplation, it discovers in itself faults and imperfections it did not see before : for instance, a habit of letting the eyes dwell on the countenance of a person of pleasing appearance, seeking willingly the company and conversation of this person, and loving him, because he is attractive. Such looks, such conversations, such individual likings, are in God's sight a kind of impurity, and the principle of them is vicious.

Article IV

Contemplation, so/arjfrafn being opposed thereto, ia necessary to the Apostolic life.

Contemplation, far from hindering zeal for souls, on the contrary, augments it by three considerations, of which it gives the mind a vivid appreciation.

First, that souls are capable of possessing God ; and that viewed in this light, there is not one which is not incomparably more precious than the heavens and the earth with all their glory and riches.

Secondly, 'that souls belong to the Son of Gk)d ; that He has given His life to redeem them ; that He has washed them in His Blood ; and that being His inheritance and His kingdom, there is no labour which should not be undertaken, no sufferings which should not be endured, for their salvation and perfection.

Thirdly, what is the state of a soul in mortal sin ! how wretched it is, and nigh unto hell !

These considerations it was that made St. Paul desire to be anathema for his brethren, and has caused many Saints to wish that they might suffer, if God had permitted it, the pains of hell without sin, so that they might prevent the loss of a single soul.

Such were the sentiments of a St. Catherine of Sienna, a St. Catherine of Bologna, an Alphonsus Kodriguez.

§ n.

Without contemplation we shall never make much progress in virtue, and shall never be fitted to make others advance therein. We shall never entirely rid ourselves of our weaknesses and imperfections. We shall remain always bound down to earth, and shall never rise much above mere natural feelings. We shall never be able to render to God a perfect service. But with it we shall effect more, both for ourselves and for others, in a month, than without it we should accomplish in ten years. It produces acts of great perfection, and such as are altogether pure from the alloy of nature ; most sublime acts of the love of God, which we perform but very rarely without this gift ; and, in fine, it perfects faith and all virtues, elevating them to the highest degree to which they are capable of rising.

If we have not received this excellent gift, it is dangerous to throw ourselves too much into active occupations of charity towards our neighbour. We ought to engage in them only experimentally, unless imposed upon us by obedience, otherwise we ought to occupy ourselves but little in external employments, — the mind in such case having enough to do in acquiring self-knowledge, in purifying continually the natural acts and sentiments of the heart, and in regulating the interior, so that we may walk always in the presence of God.

Article V

What contemplation is.

Contemplation is a perception of God or of divine things, simple, free, penetrating, certain, proceeding from love, and tending to love.

1. This perception is simple. In contemplation we do not exercise the reason, as in meditation.

2. It is free ; because to produce it the soul must be liberated from the least sins, irregular affections, ecigerness, and unprofitable and disquieting cares. Without this, the understanding is like a bird tied by the feet, which cannot fly unless it be set at liberty, 3. It is clear and penetrating, not as in the state of glory, but as compared with the knowledge we have by faith, which is always obscure. In meditation we see things only confusedly, as it were from afar off, and in a dryer manner. Contemplation enables us to see them more distinctly, and as it were close at hand. It enables us to touch them, feel them, taste them, and have an inward experience of them. To meditate on hell, for instance, is to see a painted lion ; to contemplate hell, is to see a living lion.

3. It is certain ; because its objects are the supernatural truths which the divine light discloses to it ; and when this disclosure is made immediately to the miderstanding, it is not liable to error. When it is made either through the senses or through the imagination, some illusion may at times mix with it.

4. It proceeds from love, and tends to love. It is the employment of the purest and the most perfect charity. Love is its principle, its exercise, and its term.

§ n. Suarez holds that an act of contemplation is an act of faith or of theological reasoning ; but it seems to be an act of those supernatural habits which are called gifts of the Holy Spirit, and which perfect faith and the other infused virtues. • It is a received maxim among theologians, that Gk)d reveals no new articles of faith, but only makes known more clearly and more distinctly those He has already revealed ; and besides, by contemplation we may have truths manifested to us which only suppose the presence of faith, and do not directly proceed from any theolo^cal reasoning, although this may sometimes be their origin.

§ in.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit which serve to contemplation are particularly those of understanding, wisdom, and science, in regard to the intellect ; and those of piety and fear, in regard to- the will.

By the gift of science we have knowledge of creatures, and despise them, beholding their frailness, their fleetingness, their nothingness. By the gift of wisdom we know the greatness of God and of heavenly things ; and hence we are led to detach ourselves from all affection to creatures, in order to unite ourselves solely to God. The effect is pretty much as when one has just been seeing the Louvre or some extraordinary picture. The mind, flUed with these beautiful objects, deigns not 80 much as to cast a look at some peasant's hot or some 8cbool-bo7*8 daab. Thus a soul to which God manifests Himself in prayer ceases to find any thing great on earth. 8t. Anthony possessed so rare a gift of contemplation, that he passed whole nights in this holy exercise without perceiving that he had spent a moment in it ; and on receiving letters from the Emperor Constantine, did not deign even to send him one word in reply.

§ rv.

They who say or imply that the object of contemplation is, properly speaking, God alone, are Tni8t.aken. Every thing relating to God may be so. By the gift of contemplation, St. Theresa saw hell in so palpable a manner, that ever after she had no difficulty in performing acts of mortification, or any other acts however arduous. Another time she beheld, in an ideal representation, the sacred Humanity of our Lord, which delivered her for all the rest of her life from all affection for the things of earth, so that she could no longer love any thing but the divine beauty she had seen. By which we perceive what power the visits of God have in them, seeing they produce effects so wonderful ; and often there needs only a single supernatural vision to work an entire change in the heart.

Article VI

Of the properties cmd effects of contemplcUiofu The properties and effects of contemplation are : elevation, suspension, admiration, raptures, and ecstacies.

1. Contemplation elevates the mind above its ordinary mode of action, and draws it supematurally to sublime operations, whether with regard to God simply or any object relating to God. This elevation is produced either by the gift of wisdom or by that of science : by the firsts if contemplation is occupied with the perfections of God ; by the second, if with some other subject relating to Him. The gift of understanding also contributes thereto, inasmuch as by its means the mind is enabled intimately to penetrate whatever appertains to wisdom or science.

2. The mind thus elevated remains, as it were, suspended in the knowledge of the truth with which it is enraptured. This may be explained by comparing it to the flight of birds, which do not always continue mounting, but after raising themselves aloft, keep themselves sometimes suspended in the air without vibration of their wings or any other apparent movement. In this state of suspension sometimes it is the understanding, sometimes the will that is most exercised, according as Gk)d communicates to the soul more light or more affection.

When it is said, that the will is more exercised than the understanding, it is meant that its action is strongest and most sensible, and not that it acts alone, without the understanding acting at all, as some with little probability maintain. The Will, then, in this condition is so penetrated, so inflamed with its object, that the action of the understanding is imperceptible. It is as if the will absorbed all the forces of the soul, so preoccupied and possessed is it by the Spirit of God.

3. Suspension is followed by admiration ; which may spring from two sources, viz. either the ignorance of the mind, or the greatness of the object.

4. Sometimes admiration is so strong that the mind no longer acts externally ; and this is the cause of rap* tures and ecstacies. Eapture, properly so called, is a sudden transport of the powers of the soul, elevated in an instant by the Spirit of God. Ecstacy is the state and the repose in which the soul continues when thus h elevated above itself. Some would have ecstacy to ' that kind of transport which takes place graduallj a] gently, and is called by others '' the flight of t mind."

Raptures are marks of imperfection, and of a certa remaining earthlincss, when they happen to a soul simp because it is as yet unaccustomed to the objects whii throw it into rapture ; but when they proceed from tl greatness and the extraordinary excellence of the lig communicated by Gk>d, they are not marks of impc fection.

In first raptures the impression made by supem tural objects upon the soul and body is so powerful th we are unable to support it without being carried 01 of our senses ; but in course of time the soul become accustomed to it, and gradually grows stronger, so th the impression produced by the divine commimicatioi it receives ceases to be attended with violent effect except when God, who is infinite in bounty, impar some new and very extraordinary light ; for on sm occasions the soul will still fall into rapture, although has become accustomed to those objects which heret fore produced that effect upon it.

In fine, when the soul, being perfectly strengthen< and habituated to the most wonderful commuuicatioi of grace, is no longer liable to be ravished out of itse it experiences the effects of rapture without being a tually in a state of rapture. The impressions of gra are then purely spiritual, and act no longer on tJ body, as was the case when it was not perfectly subje to the spirit, and as pure as it is now become.

For it is a maxim of philosophers, that " every thii received into a subject is received therein according the disposition of the subject." Thus, when the soul still somewhat sensual, and the body not entirely pui fied, the operations of God, meeting with this obstacle, are more feeble, less sweet, and less perfect.

St. Theresa said, that after receiving graces of this sort, it is martjrdom to live among creatures ; the soul, on returning to itself, feels more keenly than ever its exile and its miseries.

These wonderful effects of grace cannot be explained even by those who experience them, and much less by those who have no experience of them. Generally they fill the soul with so much sweetness and such solid contentment, that St. Francis Xavier used to say, that for the least of such consolations he would willingly have undertaken a second voyage to Japan, fearless of the toils he had endured in the first.

This is quite a different thing from those sweetnesses and tears of sensible devotion which God sometimes gives to beginners.

Whence we may see how great is the misery of spending our life in trifles and sensual satisfactions, which deprive us of the favours of our Lord ; and that there is incomparably more pleasure in serving God in self-abnegation than in remaining always attached to self and to creatures, and never arriving at union with God. This is to participate in the pain of loss which constitutes the eternal woe of hell.

God sometimes favours souls with such wonderful communications and such transporting sentiments concerning some of the objects of faith, that ever after the mere remembrance, the mere thought, the very name of them, is enough to throw them into ecstacies ; as was the case with the blessed Giles of Assisium when he heard the word " Paradise" pronounced.

Kaptures and ecstacies happen commonly rather to women and persons who are less actively employed than to others, because their life more disposes them thereto, and health, which is extremely affected by graces of this kind, is not so necessary in their case for the promotion of the glory of Gbd. On the other hand, the devotion of Apostolic men who have to labour for the salvation of souls is less sensible in its effects, more spiritual, and more solid. Generally speaking, God does not grant them the grace of ecstacies, unless it be that He desire thereby to give authority to their ministry, as is the case sometimes ; witness St. Vincent Ferrer and St Francis Xavier : and He communicates to them rather by the way of the understanding, which is capable of receiving lights of the highest order, than by that of the imagination, in which the divine lights are of a more sensible character, and their effects more externally manifested.

When a person falls into a state of suspended consciousness, in which the mind does not act, and receives no operation on God*s part, it is not an ecstacy, but a plain illusion of the devil, or a dangerous lethargy.

The connexion between the soul and its senses is never interrupted, save in sleep, without much injury to health ; for such disjunction is like the death of the senses : it is a commencement of that complete separation of the mind from the body which happens at deatL There is danger in desiring raptures and ecstacies, in wishing to have visions and revelations during such a state, and in hankering after other ways than those by which God is pleased to lead us : but there is no danger in asking for the gifts of the Holy Spirit and His guidance, solid virtues, and a high order of prayer.

Article VII

Different divisions of the degrees of corUemplation. The degrees of contemplation, according to some, are, first, recollection of all the powers of the mind ; secondly, semi-rapture ; thirdly, complete rapture ; fourthly, ecstacy. But this division expresses not so much the essence of contemplation as its accidents ; for sometimes a soul without rapture will be favoured with a sublimer light, a clearer knowledge, a more excellent operation from God, than another who is favoured with the most extraordinary raptures and ecstacies. The Blessed Virgin was more elevated in contemplation than all the Angels and Saints united ; and yet she had no raptures. Our Lord enjoyed the beatific vision without ecstacy. The blessed in heaven will have a perfectly free use of all their senses.

Others distinguish the degrees of contemplation by different acts of the will, or by different states of fervent charity. Kichard of St. Victor reckons four : 1. the wounds of love, cJicmtas vvhiercms; 2. the captivity of love, clw/iritas ligans; 3. the languors of love, civa/ritas languems; 4. the faintings of love, cka/ritas deftdens. In the first, love pierces the heart and makes itself master of all the affections ; in the second, it takes the mind captive and possesses itself of all the thoughts ; in the third, it prevents the action of the external senses and the internal powers ; in the fourth, it throws the soul into swoons and into a sort of death-like state by the boundless longings of its zeal, which it is unable to endure, as it perceives that all it does and all it can do is nothing, and that all it cannot do is infinite. Some mystical theologians add to this what they call the sepulchre of the soul, in which it is reduced, as it were, to dust and annihilated, afterwards to rise again and become a new creature in Jesus Ch^st, a creature wholly transformed into God.

The progress of these degrees is as follows : 1. When a person has applied himseK for some time p to the keeping of his own heart, the love of our Lord, and other such exercises, remaining the while faithful to God, so it is that he receives from heaven lights of a more abundant grace, which cause the soul to know its own state and its miseries; that what it has hitherto done for God is as nothing ; that it owes every thing to Him, and that He merits that all hearts should bum with His love, and all beings be consimied in His service.

At this sight the soul is filled with confusion ; then, rousing itself, it abandons itself to love ; and love, seeing it given up into its power, pierces it to the heart with its flaming arrows. It feels itself wounded, and the wound with which it is stricken causes it both pain and pleasure.

2. The heart being thus engaged, the mind can no longer think of any thing but the object beloved. Love takes the thoughts captive, recalling them from their wanderings among creatures to attach them to God ; so that they can no more be drawn away from Him, save by compulsion. This, however, does not prevent a person still employing himself in indifferent matters. The merchant can attend to his commerce, the judge and the advocate to their suits of law, married persons to the management of their family.

3. The soul now wounded and captive, continually receiving new impressions of divine love, does nothing but languish, and becomes incapable of any action which is not either of God or for God. If it sees or hears any thing which has no reference to God, it is as if it saw or heard it not. In the two preceding degrees love makes itself master of the affections and the thoughts ; in this it takes possession of the actions, permitting only such as are divine, that is to say, such as have God for their principle and end ; and even in this state a person can act but very little, and is capable only of certain exercises conformable to his attraction.

4. The soul being in such wise wholly possessed by God, whatever it may do for His service, whatever it may suffer for His glory, it is never satisfied ; it is ever desiring to do and suffer still more; thus putting no bounds to its desires, it loses itself in their immensity, and perceiving that there is an infinity of other things that might be done for God, but which it cannot do, it feels itself ready to faint away. Thus our Lord, although He did and suffered so much for the glory of God His Father, counted it all as little or nothing compared with what was due unto Him ; and the martyrs, full of esteem and admiration for the Divine Majesty, could not satisfy their desires of glorifying a God so great and so worthy of love. This was also the disposition of those holy heroes who shewed themselves insatiable of labours and sufferings.

§ n.

Some change the order of these degrees, making the second that state of languor which follows a deep and extensive wound ; and the third that of captivity, which takes place, they say, when the soul, no longer sensibly experiencing the operations of God, is, as it were, abandoned to itself and its enemies, amid disquietude and suffering, feeling itself on the point of offending God, but that it finds itseK bound, as it were, and restrained by a secret power.

In that mystical death which, according to some theologians, takes place in the soul previous to deification, the person in this state suffers sensible pains even in his body, because the process is that of severing him from the corruption of his nature, his evil affections and bad habits, which, through their intimate connexion with himself, cannot be torn away without the acutest pain. He must bear them courageously, and rejoice in the loss inflicted, seeing that he is but parting with bis miseries to attain the sovereign good of this life.

Again, there is a state which, in mystical theology, is called that of burning love, in which the soul suffers a sort of fever, atfiended with fits and paroxysms, which even communicate themselves to the body and set it all on fire, causing revulsions, transports, and other marvellous effects — as was the case with St. Catherine of Genoa, the blessed Stanislas, and numerous other Saints.

Some make four degrees of contemplation in this wise :

The first, they say, is when the soul, having attained great purity of heart, receives a new accession of the knowledge and love of our Lord by infused lights and extraordinary operations of grace.

The second, which some call the prayer of divine presence, is when the soul is ordinarily occupied with a simple attention to God ; when it beholds itself before God with a profound awe for His adorable majesty and a holy horror of itself.

The third is a clearer and more penetrating knowledge of God, which enables the soul to see Him in a manner more and more perfect ; for God does nothing but give and take away, as if He were saying : " This is not it yet, it is something more."

In this state the soul may say with the Spouse : " I sat down under his shadow ;" such knowledge being, as it were, the shadow of God. There are souls which remain thus many years ; and what they see of God creates such an ardent desire of beholding Him as He is, that it seems as if they would quit the body to fly towards God. In this state the symptoms exhibited are like those of death ; the limbs remain cold, stiff. motionless, destitute of feeling, like those of a corpse ; and to such excess might this love proceed as to cause actual death. St. Theresa, one Easter-day, fell into this state, and the effect was such as nearly to deprive her of life. And, indeed, there would be danger of death, unless an effort were made to dissipate the strength of this impression and distract the mind to some external object.

The fourth degree is called by mystical theologians the embrace of God, the chaste kiss of the Spouse. It is now that the soul is actually united to God as His spouse. Some would have it, that when arrived at this degree it already loves God as perfectly as in the state of glory ; but this is not so. So long as He is seen only through the medium of faith and as in a glass, however vividly, He is never loved as much as He shall be hereafter in glory, where the blessed soul, being raised to the highest degree of contemplation, sees God face to face, and as He is in Himself.

Article VIII

Another division of the degrees of contemploUion.

Some reduce what concerns the essence of contemplation to four degrees.

The first is the knowledge and the love of our Lord, together with those supernatural effects which devotion to Him operates in pure souls.

Many err in the way of the spiritual life, thinking to arrive at union with God and the sublimest order of prayer without attaching themselves to our Lord ; yet Ee is " the way," and it is through Him that we are to go to God. We must become filled with the knowledge of His perfections and His mysteries. His doctrine, His Spirit, and His love, joining thereto the careful study of His pnrity of heart ; in proportion as we advance in this path, we approach the Divinitj.

The progress made within the extent of this degree consists, first, in a certain recollection of all the interior powers, attended in the beginning, not by any vivid lights, but by a sweet peace which keeps the soul ever tranquil Secondly, in a secret feeling of the nearness and the presence of God, which causes the powers of the soul to be still more collected and drawn together in order to their union with God ; in the same manner as several needles which have touched the magnet turn all in the same direction and join their points together to meet at their centre. Thirdly, a presence of God more express and more formal than any hitherto experienced ; not equal, however, to that enjoyed in the highest degrees, and which lasts a greater or a less time according to the disposition and co-operation of the soul.

The second, which mystical theologians call the state of divine darkness, is when God strips the soul of all the experiences it had before, all its lights and affections, and all its spiritual sweetnesses ; and thus stripping it, He thereby disposes it for more perfect lights and a purer and more ardent love, making it rise continually by the way of deprivation, ever giving, in order afterwards to take away and bestow upon it something better still.

When God places a soul in this state of mystical darkness, and strips it thus of its first lights. He enlarges its understanding and its will, rendering them capable of performing acts of eminent perfection.

To arrive at this degree, there is need of a generous virtue, a faithful correspondence with grace, a complete detachment from self, and an unreserved surrender of ourselves to God : and as we are exceedingly pusillanimous, there are but very few who have courage enough to reach this point, and fewer still who advance further, because men cannot make up their mind to strip themselves perfectly of creatures.

Sfc. Denis exhorts St. Timotheus to separate himself completely from aU created things, to strip himself of all affection for them, of the very thought and remembrance of them, of all imaginations and ideas regarding them, and to rise above the senses and the ordinary modes of knowledge and of action ; to the end that, having arrived at this perfect void and nudity of spirit, he might enter within the brightness of divine darkness and the luminous obscurity of the Divinity, to which no souls have access bufc such as are free and detached from every thing that is not God. This mystical darkness is a participation in that which surrounds the throne of God in glory, and which was figured by the smoke and clouds wherein God appeared to Moses when He spoke with him on the Mount.

The third is when God raises the soul to an extraordinary mode of action with regard to supernatural objects, communicating to it, through the medium of the imagination, lights and revelations which produce so powerful an impression upon it as to carry it out of itself. This it is that causes raptures and ecstacies, when the lights which the soul receives are so strong and so transporting as wholly to absorb it and abstract it from the senses and all exterior actions, to bring it into close application to the object manifested to it, which sometimes is of such a nature that all the powers of the soul combined are still too weak to endure or comprehend it. These raptures and ecstacies last as long as the operation of God continues, or as long as one operation is succeeded by others, or a single one by its strength and novelty arrests and captivates the soul.

In this state God is loved with a pure love, and acts of virtue are performed with great simplicity, acts which not being mixed with self-love or any of the impurities of nature, render more glory to God in a quarter of an hour than we ordinarily render to Him in many years.

The fourth is when the soul acts no longer through the imagination, the medium through which raptures and ecstacies are caused, hut is wonderfully enlightened hy God hy means of mental species or intellectual illuminations, independent of the imagination and of phantoms.

Then it is the pure spirit alone that acts, or, to speak more correctly, that receives the operation of God, and this divine operation does not prevent the exterior action of the senses.

This degree is described in the words of David in the second book of Kings, where he says that God spoke to him " as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, shining in the morning without clouds, and as the grass springeth out of the earth by rain." The sun shining in the morning without clouds denotes the operation of God in the soul, without admixture of sensible images and phantoms of the imagination.

Some say that souls that are raised to this degree are confirmed in grace. This at least is certain, that in it they exercise acts of virtue so pure and so perfect, that the honour rendered to God thereby, and the consequent increase of merit to the soul, are greater than we can conceive.

In this state God bestows, sometimes for a time, sometimes permanently, lights so penetrating, that without seeing with the bodily eyes those with whom they are in communication, persons behold them with the eyes of the mind, and know what they would say before they open their mouth. They know what to answer on every occasion and in all matters that come before them. They receive supernatural lights to guide themselves always and in all things by the Spirit of God.

This degree of divine union was the ordinary state of the Apostles, even in the midst of the world and their most important occupations. So also was it of St. Ignatius from the very first year of his conversion, ever after an intellectual vision which he had while gazing at a stream along the banks of which he was walking while at Manresa. After this he was so enlightened in all the truths of faith, that he used to say that even were they not written in the Gospel, he would be ready to shed the last drop of his blood in their defence ; and that if the Holy Scriptures were lost, nothing would be lost for him.

Article IX

Opinion on the ahqve divisions oj the degrees of contemplation.

Of all the above divisions of the degrees of contemplation, the truest is that which is formed from viewing the subject on the side of the understanding, and the different modes of knowing God and divine things : the first mode being by the lights received through the senses ; the second, by such as come through the imagination and phantoms ; the third, by those which God Himself communicates immediately to the understanding, without the ministry or the co-operation of the lower faculties.

These are, as it were, three sources of contemplation. The first corresponds with the first degree, in which the object of the soul's study is the love and knowledge of our Lord. The second corresponds with the second degree, which is called divine darkness, in which prop2 gress is made towards the last by the way of deprivation ; and with the third degree, in which souls are in a state of rapture and ecstacy. The third answers to the fourth degree, in which souls advance in the purest region of the mind and in the highest perfection which it is possible to attain on earth.

§n.

Even in the lowest degrees of contemplation God communicates Himself with so much sweetness, that a thousand years' enjoyment of all the pleasures of the world are nothing compared with the delight the soul experiences in God. The perfections and the joys it finds in Him are so transporting to it, that it is, as it were, impossible for it to love any thing but God, or to seek any satisfaction out of Him.

The highest degrees are not attained until all sins have been remitted, as regards not only the guilt, but the penalty also ; and if sins are still committed in the sublimest states (seeing there is no state so perfect as to exempt from sin), they are but slight faults, faults of surprise and infirmity, which are bitterly lamented, and forgiven immediately.

As it is not possible to attain these highest degrees except through extraordinary purity of heart, so neither is it possible to abide therein without the utmost fide- Hty to grace. And as Grod is lavish of His liberality to a soul in such a state, so is the soul, on its part, bound to the strictest correspondence with God ; otherwise He withdraws His graces, and the soul fails to persevere in the degree to which it had been raised.

From the time that a soul receives these extraordinary gifts from God, and especially when it has attained to the highest degree of contemplation, it is marvellous how detached it is from creatures j it ceases to be eager any thing whatever ; nothing affects it save the re of God.

In these highest degrees of prayer, a person acts but little from the formal motive of particular virtues.

Loe he is united to God by love, he does every thing the principle of love and under the direction of without troubling himself, generally speaking, with ives of other virtues, which might distract the soul >m its union with God.

When Gk)d bestows such grace upon a soul as to it to the highest degree of contemplation, He no reuses it any thing j it commonly obtains every it asks for. If it is requested to ask some favour Qod, no sooner does it prepare to offer its petition, it feels the Spirit of God carrying it away to the itemplation of admirable mysteries, in the midst of it loses itself, thinking no more of the subject of prayer, nor recollecting what it wished to ask ; and €k)d grants its request, and its desires are fulfilled lout its bestowing any attention upon them. A that has attained to this point of perfection, may ly, by its prayers and merits before God, uphold a >le religious order or a whole kingdom.

§ ni. The union of the soul with God differs in every one these four degrees of contemplation, each having that lich is peculiar to itself. The first and the most excellent, to which all the fexerdses of the active and the contemplative life tend, ^is an habitual union, by which the principal powers of Boul remain continually united to God at all times, ['In all places, even amid the disturbance of exterior acftbEi and the most urgent affairs, without causing a Ipenon to be more abstracted or less capable of acting Mi^iudly* The second kind of union with God is not as perfect, nor as general, nor as lasting ; it is when the will is united to God, but not all the other powers, in such a way, however, that the imagination occasions no more trouble than in the first.

The third is when the will is united to God, but not in such a way but that it is sometimes distracted and harassed, or is in danger of being so, by the aberrations and roving propensities of the other faculties. This it is that happens to us so often at Mass : our will is really united to God, and yet the lightness of our imagination, sounds, and external objects striking on our senses, are an occasion of disturbance to us.

They who are subject to this weakness, not being as yet firmly settled in a state of interior recollection, run in pursuit of their imagination and their discursive thoughts with a view of checking them ; but they do but fatigue themselves in vain, ahd the trouble they take serves only to make them lose the small degree of union they had with God, and to fill their soul with disquiet and excitement, which is a worse disorder than the first. St. Theresa warns us of this, having herself experienced it. In connexion with this subject we may remark, that after Communion to exert ourselves to converse with our Lord by eliciting acts, is not the best mode of thanksgiving; and many give themselves a great deal of trouble in this way without much fruit. Then is the time for enjoying, not for seeking ; for if it is true that acts of virtue have no other end than to unite us to God, when once we have Him within us, and when once we possess Him, as we really do possess Him in the Holy Sacrament, what more do we seek? This should not prevent us from representing our miseries and our necessities to Him, but without much inward discourse. At such a time, the better way is to remain recollected in His presence^ and let Him act in us according to His good pleasure, listen to Him, receive what He gives us, keeping the mind always in a reverential attitude, and observing the other duties of interior recoUection, neither allowing it its usual excursions, nor letting it fall into the inaction and the false repose of quietism.

We ought to seek to put ourselves in the same dis« position which St. Theresa speaks of being in : that great Saint seeking God alone in all things, and finding her repose only in God, did not even concern herself about virtues where it was question of God, His presence, and the enjoyment of Him. She left off making acts of the virtues, that she might enjoy God when He vouchsafed to communicate Himself to her ; and in this there was no illusion : for what can we have without God ? and if we have Him, what virtues can we want ? It is to possess them all in an eminent degree and in a more excellent way tharf when we possess them formally, as theologians say, since they all tend only to unite us to God.

It sometimes happens to pure souls, that when they present themselves before our Lord in visiting the Blessed Sacrament, they experience inmiediately a transport of their spirit into the Heart of Jesus, where perhaps they remain for hours and whole days together.

There are those who enjoy a certain union with God who may be compared to children at their mother's breast ; at times they cling more closely to it and press it more tightly. So there are souls which at times are more recollected in God and drink more deeply of Him, according as the movement of grace draws them, and exterior occupations dispose them thereto.

In the various gifts and visits with which God favours souls, there is no fixed or definite order, so as that one might say, for example : After such an operation such another will follow; or from such a degree of prayer jou pass on to such another. St. Theresa notices this, and says that the order she observes in enumerating the favours she received from God regards only herself, and denotes merely what she had herself experienced.