13. This Is the Sixth Step

THE sixth degree or step in Love, consists in a clear intuition, Purity of spirit and intelligence. These three qualities of the contemplative Soul spring from a living source, where we are united to God above reason and the ordinary exercise of Virtue. Whosoever desires to experience it must offer God both virtues and good works without looking for any reward, and above all offer self, abandoning every-

1 The true contemplative life which is here spoken of is but the development of the fourth method of celestial Song described in the last chapter, in other words, the return to the Purity of Intelligence.

Love's Gradatory thing to the free disposal of God ; always going forward without looking back, in a lively Reverence for God. Thus the Soul must prepare with the Grace of God, to attain to the contemplative life. The exterior and sensitive life must be ruled and given to good works before all men. The interior life must be filled with grace and charity, without dissimulation, of direct intention, rich in virtue, the memory exempt from cares and solicitude, freed and detatched, entirely delivered of every image ; the heart set free, open and uplifted above the Heavens; the intelligence empty and stripped of all consideration but God.

Such is the citadel of loving Souls where all pure intellects

Love's Gradatory are united, in one simple Purity. This is the habitation of God in us, where none can operate but God alone ; its Purity is eternal, there is neither time nor space, past nor future, always present and ready to be revealed to those pure intelligences raised to it. The air is pure and serene, lit by a light Divine, and by it we shall discover, fix, and contemplate the eternal Truth, with purified and illuminated eyes. There, too, all things are trans formed, are one only Truth, one only image in the mirror of the Wisdom of God ; and God created us that we might find, know, and possess this image in our essence and the Purity of our intelligence. Contemplating, applying our minds to this in 149 K

Love's Gradatory the Divine Light, with simple and spiritual eyes, we attain to contemplative life.

But yet another thing is necessary, Purity of spirit ; for an intelligence in repose without images, an intuition in the light of God, and a spirit elevated in Purity to the Face of God, these three qualities united constitute the true contemplative life, where none can err ; for the pure spirit expands ceaselessly and follows rapidly in purified love, the enlightened intelligence towards its Cause.

Now, our heavenly Father is the Cause and End of all that is ; in Him we begin all good, with an intelligence stripped of sense in a prospect without images. In His Son we contemplate all

Love's Gradatory

Truth with an intelligence enlightened by the Light Divine ; and in the Holy Spirit we perfect our works. Then are we ravished out of self by purified Love, even to the Face of God, freed and emptied of every event and illusion. This is the contemplative life of highest price. To begin and finish each moment is Love's counsel. And such is the sixth step of the heavenly Ladder.