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We shall now discuss the supreme development on earth of the life of grace in souls that have undergone the passive purification
of the spirit, described by St. John of the Cross in Tbe Dark Nigbt
(1) and by St. Teresa in Tbe Interior Castle.(2)
On emerging from these interior trials, the soul receives such
knowledge of the divine majesty that it is at times absorbed in God,
as Archimedes was by his discoveries, to such an extent that he did
not hear speech addressed to him. At other times, the soul exults
and cannot refrain from singing the praises of God. In this
connection St. Teresa says: "So excessive is its jubilee that the
soul will not enjoy it alone, but speaks of it to all around so that
they may help it to praise God, which is its one desire." (3) Thus St.
Dominic spoke only to God or of God and spent his nights in prayer
at the foot of the altar; St. Thomas Aquinas also prayed for hours
at night before the Blessed Sacrament. This holy joy of soul, the fruit of union with God, may be desired,
says St. Teresa, (4) whereas it is in no way fitting to desire visions
and revelations, for they are extraordinary favors entirely distinct from
the full development of the life of grace in our souls. St.
Teresa declares: "Know that for having received many favors of this kind,
you will not merit more glory, but will be the more stringently
obliged to serve, since you have received more. . . . There are many
saints who never knew what it was to receive one such favor, while
others who have received them are not saints at all. . . . Indeed,
for one that is granted, the soul bears many a cross." (4) Finally, at the end of its earthly ascent toward God, the
soul is introduced into the transforming union, described especially
by St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross, who bring a precision of
statement on this point to what the greatest spiritual writers who
preceded them had said. Using their description, we shall see the
graces which sometimes accompany the transforming union, next the
essential nature of this union, its theological explanation, and its
fruits. THE GRACES WHICH SOMETIMES ACCOMPANY
THE TRANSFORMING UNION The spiritual marriage is at times celebrated with
expressive symbolism: the favored person receives a ring set with
precious stones, which from then on he sees from time to time; he
hears celestial canticles. This sensible symbolism is also at times
accompanied by an apparition of our Lord and by an intellectual
vision of the Blessed Trinity. St. Teresa mentions these two graces
which she personally received.(6) She also notes: "Those whom our
Lord admits into the seventh mansion. . . are constantly in the
company of Christ our Lord both in His humanity and His divinity."
(7) The intellectual vision of the Blessed Trinity which
certain persons receive in this state shows them by an infused idea
and an eminent light the real distinction between the three Persons
and the unity of Their nature incomparably better than the best
theologian could by developing the congruous arguments relative to
this mystery. The soul thus favored has not yet the immediate vision
of the divine essence; it does not possess the intrinsic evidence of
the mystery; it does not yet see that if God were not triune, He
would not be God. The soul still remains in the order of faith, but
its faith becomes singularly penetrating, luminous, and sweet. It
grasps far better than before that the Father is God, that the Son
is God, that the Holy Ghost is God, and, nevertheless, that the
Father is not the Son, and that neither the Father nor the Son is
the Holy Ghost. It sees dimly, so to speak, that the Father in His
infinite fecundity communicates the entire divine nature to the Son,
and the Father and the Son communicate it to the Holy Ghost by the
most perfect diffusion of the divine goodness and in the most
intimate communion. The soul sees in the Blessed Trinity an eminent
exemplar of Eucharistic Communion and of the closest union of the
soul with its Creator and Father, according to the words of Jesus:
"That they may be one as We also are one." This intellectual vision of the Blessed Trinity, which is
inferior to the beatific vision, is of varying and intermittent
clarity. It does not seem necessarily linked to the transforming
union according to the description given of it by St. John of the
Cross.(8) He does not say that this state requires essentially
extraordinary graces, although it implies a very lofty contemplation
of the divine perfections. THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF THE
TRANSFORMING UNION St. Teresa notes that in this stage ecstasies cease as a
rule: "The infirmity [of ecstasy] formerly so troublesome to the
mind and impossible to get over, disappears at once. Probably this
is because our Lord has now strengthened, dilated, and developed the
soul." (9) Thus union with God, which can now take place without
troubling the exercise of the faculties, becomes almost continual.
It seems indeed that the Blessed Virgin was always in this state,
and it is also said that St. Hildegarde never knew the weakness of
ecstasy. According to St. John of the Cross,(10) the essential
basis of this wholly eminent state is in no way miraculous; it is,
says the saint, "the perfect state of the spiritual life," being
here on earth the culminating point of the development of the life
of grace and of the love of God, and the closest union with the
Blessed Trinity, which dwells in every soul in the state of grace. In the transforming union the higher faculties are drawn
to the innermost center of the soul where the Blessed Trinity
dwells. (11) Under this grace the soul cannot doubt the presence in
it of the divine Persons and is almost never deprived of Their
company. "The soul learns that it is God who gives it 'life,' by
certain secret intuitions," says St. Teresa.(12) St. John of the Cross, in The Living Flame of Love,
explains this union by several images:
Thus fire or a stone tend by their natural force to the
center of their sphere. . . . When a stone shall have reached the
center of the earth and is incapable of further motion of its own,
we say of it that it is then in its inmost or deepest center. The center of the soul is God. When the soul shall have
reached Him according to its essence, and according to the power of
its operations, it will then have attained to its ultimate and
deepest center in God. This will be when the soul shall love Him,
comprehend Him, and enjoy Him with all its strength. When, however,
the soul has not attained to this state, . . . it is not in the
deepest center, because there is still room for it to advance. . . .
But if the soul shall have attained to the highest degree of love,
the love of God will then wound it in its inmost depth or center,
and the soul will be transformed and enlightened in the highest
degree in its substance, faculties, and strength, until it shall
become most like unto God. The soul in this state may be compared to
crystal, lucid and pure; the greater the light thrown upon it, the
more luminous it becomes by the concentration thereof, until at last
it seems to be all light and indistinguishable from it; it being
then so illumined, and to the utmost extent, that it seems to be one
with the light itself.(13)
A little farther on, St. John of the Cross uses another image: "It
is the same fire that first disposes the wood for combustion and
afterward consumes it." (14) It is still wood, but incandescent wood,
which has taken on the properties of fire. Thus from the purified
heart a flame rises almost ceaselessly toward God. St. Teresa uses still another figure for this spiritual state,
comparing it to rain: "Thus rain which falls from heaven into a
river is so mingled with it that it can no longer be distinguished
from it." The figure of two candles whose flames unite to form a
single flame, has also been used to describe this union, which is
like a fusion of the soul's life and God's. As a result, we
understand why St. John of the Cross describes the transforming
union as the state of spiritual perfection, the full development of
the grace of the virtues and the
gifts: "The perfect spiritual life," he says, "consists in the
possession of God by the union of love." (15) The transforming union is, therefore, most intimate; it brings with
it great, inalterable peace, at least to the summit of the higher
faculties. Yet the soul thus favored may still at times be
"sorrowful unto death" if Jesus wishes to associate it with His life
of reparation and lead it to Gethsemane for the salvation of
sinners. In the Garden of Olives, He himself had more than the
transforming union; with the hypostatic union, He had the beatific
vision, and yet He willed to experience mortal sadness that His
holocaust might be perfect. THE THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THIS STATE In A Spiritual Canticle, St. John of the Cross writes of the
interior cellars thus: "These cellars are seven in number, and the
soul has entered into them all when it has in perfection the seven
gifts of the Holy Ghost, so far as it is possible for it. . . . Many
souls reach and enter the first cellar, each according to the
perfection of its love, but the last and inmost cellar is entered by
few in this world, because therein is wrought the perfect union with
God, the union of the spiritual marriage." (16) In other words, when the soul perfectly possesses the gift of
wisdom, the highest of the seven gifts received in baptism with
sanctifying grace, it has reached its inner sanctuary where the
Blessed Trinity dwells, and union with God is no longer only
habitual, but actual and in some measure transforming. In spite of
the infinite distance separating the creature's being from that of
the Creator, it is a union of quasi-experimental knowledge and very
intimate love, in which the soul is deified by receiving perfect
participation in the divine nature. In this sense, St. Paul could
write:
"He who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit." (17) In this case union is transforming because the soul, while keeping
its created nature, receives a great increase of sanctifying grace
and charity, and because it is the characteristic of ardent love to
transform us morally into the person loved who is like another self,
alter ego, for whom we wish, as we do for ourselves, all suitable
goods. If this person is divine, holy souls wish Him to reign ever
more profoundly in them, to be closer to them than they are to
themselves, closer than the air they breathe is to their lungs, and
the freshened blood to their hearts.(18) St. John of the Cross himself, therefore, gives the theological
explanation of this state, which he sums up in a principle
enunciated in the Ascent of Mount Carmel: "The more pure and clean
the soul in the perfection of a living faith, the greater is the
infusion of charity, and the greater the charity, the greater the
illumination and the more abundant the graces." (19) St. Thomas says likewise that the seven gifts are connected with
charity; consequently, just as the infused virtues, they grow with
it, like the parts of one and the same organism, or "like the five
fingers of the hand." (20) Evidently there are many degrees in the transforming union. St. John
of the Cross points out this fact in A Spiritual Canticle,(21) apropos
of the spiritual betrothals, in which the soul enjoys perfect union
in a transitory way, whereas in the spiritual marriage the soul
possesses it in a quasi-continual manner. According to St. Teresa, (22) the fruitive union of the betrothal
lasts scarcely more than half an hour, during which the soul has
experimental knowledge of God really present in it and of His
embrace. In the spiritual marriage, which is ratified on earth and will be
consummated in heaven, the actual union of love with God
experimentally known in the center of the soul becomes more
constant. According to several authors, this state is, as it were,
the equivalent of a special revelation which gives the soul the
certitude of being in the state of grace and, some writers add, a
certitude of its predestination. This last point may be verified in many cases, but, as
we shall see, it is not certain that it is verified as a rule. St. John of the Cross says in A Spiritual Canticle: "We are not to
suppose that all souls, thus far advanced, receive all that is here
described, either in the same way or in the same degree of knowledge
and of consciousness. Some souls receive more, others less; some in
one way, some in another; and yet all may be in the state of
spiritual betrothal." (23) Likewise, there are many degrees in
the quasi-continual transforming union, under a more or less manifest
form, up to the highest degree which the Blessed Virgin Mary enjoyed
on earth. In these different degrees, it may be truthfully said that
souls, according to their predestination, have attained here on
earth their
deepest center. This is the perfect realization of Christ's prayer:
"That they may be one, as We also are one: I in them, and Thou in
Me; . . . that the world may know that Thou. . . hast loved them, as
Thou hast also loved Me." (24) THE EFFECTS OF THE TRANSFORMING UNION The effects of this state of perfection are those of the theological
virtues and of the gifts which have attained their full development.
One of the fruits of this union is that which was granted to the
apostles on Pentecost, confirmation in grace. St. John of the Cross
says: "I believe that no soul ever attains to this state without
being confirmed in grace." (25) The Carmelites of Salamanca explain this confirmation in grace as a
certain participation in the impeccability of the blessed through a
great increase in charity whose progress turns us more and more away
from sin. This notable increase of divine love is completed by a
special protection of God, who removes the occasions of sin and
strengthens the soul when necessary, so that it is henceforth always
preserved from mortal sin and even almost always from deliberate
venial sin.(26) Is the soul that has reached this state certain of no longer
offending God and of obtaining the grace of final perseverance? St.
Teresa simply says that it is almost freed from the disturbance of
the passions, that as long as it is under the actual grace of the
transforming
union it does not sin venially with full deliberation. She writes:
"The accustomed movements of the faculties and imagination do not
appear to take place in any way that can injure the soul or disturb
its peace. Do I seem to imply that after God has brought the
soul thus far it is certain to be saved and cannot fall into sin
again? I do not mean this; whenever I say that the soul seems in
security, I must be understood to imply for as long as His Majesty
thus holds it in His care and it does not offend Him." (27) This text shows that St. Teresa is less categorical than St. John of
the Cross, who goes so far as to say in A Spiritual Canticle: "The
soul has left on one side and forgotten all temptations, trials,
sorrows, anxieties, and cares." (28) St. Teresa's manner
of speaking seems more conformable to that of
theology, which teaches that the grace of final perseverance cannot
be merited, and that to be assured of salvation one would have to
have a special revelation about one's own predestination. This last
point was even defined by the Council of Trent. (29) Now we cannot
affirm as certain that the transforming union implies in all its
degrees and in every case the equivalent of such a revelation.
Moreover, after receiving a revelation, one may, under certain
temptations, doubt its divine origin. We should not forget the unusually significant example of the great
St. Paul of the Cross, founder of the Passionists, who passed
through the purifying night of the spirit about the age of twenty-six,
and received the grace of the transforming union at twenty-nine.
Destined to reach the age of eighty-one and to found an order vowed
to reparation, he lived from the time he was thirty-one until he was
seventy-five in an almost continual reparatory night of the spirit,
during which several times he questioned whether he would be
saved.(30) Perhaps with the reservation "under the actual
grace of union," the
following statement of St. John of the Cross should be
understood: "Finally, all the motions and acts of the soul, proceeding
from the principle of its natural and imperfect life, are now changed in
this union with God into divine motions. For the soul, as the true
child of God, is moved by the Spirit of God, as it is written:
'Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God'
(Rom.8:14)" (31) We are not ignorant of the fact that in speaking of the transforming
union Philip of the Blessed Trinity (32) and Scaramelli (33) consider
that so sublime a state requires that God reveal to the soul the
indissoluble friendship that exists between them. According to these
authors, if the person thus favored does not receive a special
revelation of his predestination, there is, as it were, an
equivalent of this special revelation. We believe that it suffices to affirm that the Holy Ghost then
greatly confirms the certitude of hope. This certitude is, as St.
Thomas says,(34) a certitude of tending toward salvation without being
as yet the certitude of salvation itself. Now the Holy Ghost
confirms this security of hope by the increasingly filial and strong
affection which He excites in us. Then is fully verified St. Paul's
statement: "The Spirit Himself giveth testimony to our spirit that
we are the sons of God." (35) In this state there are at times divine touches so profound that
they are, the mystics say, "impressed on the substance of the soul."
What is the meaning of this expression in the light of the
principles of theology as St. Thomas understood them? The divine touch is a most profound supernatural motion which acts
on the very depth of the will and the intellect where these
faculties take root in the substance of the soul, from which they
emanate. God is closer to us than we are to ourselves, inasmuch as
He immediately preserves the substance of our soul by a divine act
which is the continuation of the creative act. Likewise He preserves
sanctifying grace in the very essence of the soul, and at certain
moments, by a special inspiration, He moves the very depths of our
will and intellect from within in order to incline them toward
Himself. Therein is a contact, not quantitative and spatial but
supraspatial, spiritual, and absolutely immediate, of the divine essence
with the substance of our soul, and from this contact proceed in the
depths of our higher faculties direct acts to which God alone can
move us and which we would never produce without this special
inspiration. The soul can act only through its faculties, that is,
it can know only by its intellect, love and will only by its will;
but in this case, under the divine touch, it acts by the most
intimate depth of its faculties, there where they take root in the
essence of the soul. In it there is a spiritual embrace of God, which at
certain moments is extremely strong. There is also at times in the
depths of the higher faculties a wound of love, a delicious
spiritual wound, which is occasionally accompanied, as in the
stigmatics, by a painful wound of the body, in particular in the
region of the heart.(36) It is God who wounds the soul while drawing
it strongly to Himself and giving it a very ardent desire to see Him
immediately and never again to be separated from Him. This burning
desire of the beatific vision is the normal disposition to receive
it without delay. A similar desire also exists in its way in the
souls in purgatory when they are approaching the end of their
purification. In the epilogue to The Interior Castle, St. Teresa
invites her sisters humbly to desire this intimate union with God,
but not to wish to force their entrance into this mansion:
"Therefore I advise you to use no violence if you meet with any
obstacle, for that would displease Him so much that He would never
give you admission to them. He dearly loves humility: if you think
yourselves unworthy to enter the third mansion, He will grant you
all the sooner the favor of entering the fifth. Then, if you serve
Him well there and often repair to it, He will draw you into the
mansion where He dwells Himself." (37) The saint's words make clear that the state of spiritual
perfection of which we are speaking is on earth the summit of the
normal development of the life of grace, considered not precisely in
a given person, but in itself. This summit should, in fact, imply
this aspiration, that is, this very ardent desire for the beatific
vision, which up to this stage did not exist in this degree. It is
inconceivable that God should reveal Himself to souls not yet keenly
desirous of possessing Him forever, of seeing Him immediately and
forever. He prepares them for the immediate vision by a divine touch
which has a savor of eternal life. St. John of the Cross speaks
admirably of this favor, saying that divine touches are attained
only by the practice of complete detachment from everything
created,(38) and that by one of these touches of love the soul is
rewarded for all its labors.(39) About the wound of love, St. John of the Cross writes in
A Spiritual Canticle, which he explains in The Living
Flame:
O Living Flame of Love,
That woundest tenderly
My soul in its inmost depth!
As thou art no longer grievous,
Perfect thy work, if it be thy will,
Break the web of this sweet encounter.(40)
In other words, complete the work of our union; break the
thread of my earthly existence, which is the final obstacle to my
meeting with the Well-Beloved. This veil allows me to see God
imperfectly, but it is still an obstacle to immediate and definitive
union. The living flame is the Holy Ghost who excites in the
soul acts of love which are more meritorious than all it has
elicited before it reached this state, says the saint in the
explanation of this first stanza. He adds: "O how wonderful the fire
of God! though so vehement and so consuming, though it can destroy a
thousand worlds with more ease than material fire can destroy a
single straw, it consumes not the spirit wherein it burns. . . .
Thus on the day of Pentecost the fire descended with great vehemence
upon the Apostles, who . . . sweetly burned interiorly." (41) In his explanation of verse five of the second stanza of
The Living Flame, St. John of the Cross wrote this
significant passage: "Why is it that so few ever attain to this
state [of perfection and of union with God]? The reason is that in
this marvelous work which God Himself begins, so many are weak,
shrinking from trouble, and unwilling to endure the least discomfort
or mortification, or to labor with constant patience. Hence it is
that God, not finding them diligent in cultivating the graces He has
given them when He began to try them, proceeds no further with their
purification, neither does He lift them up out of the dust of the
earth, because it required greater courage and resolution for this
than they possessed. . . . They are few in number who deserve to be
made perfect through sufferings so as to attain to so high a state
as this." (42) The soul must pass through many tribulations to reach
"the perfect spiritual life, which consists in the possession of God
by the union of love." (43) Truly spiritual delights come from the cross, from the
spirit of sacrifice which puts to death all that is inordinate in us
in order to assure the first place to the love of God and of souls
in God. When the heart thus burns with love for its God, the soul
contemplates lamps of fire which illumine all things from above.
These lamps are the divine perfections: wisdom, goodness, mercy,
justice, providence, eternity, omnipotence. They are, so to speak,
the colors of the divine rainbow, which are identical without
destroying each other in the intimate life of God, in the Deity, as
the seven colors of the earthly rainbow fuse in the white light from
which they proceed. "God, therefore," says St. John of the Cross,
"according to this knowledge of Him in unity, is to the soul as many
lamps, because it has the knowledge of each of them [these
attributes], and because they minister to it the warmth of love,
each in its own way, and yet all of one subject, all one lamp." (44) These souls are characterized by great forgetfulness of
self, a great desire to suffer in imitation of the example of our
Lord. The soul participates in the very strength of Christ, in His
immense love for men; it succeeds in practicing simultaneously
virtues that apparently are most contradictory: justice and mercy,
fortitude and meekness, the simplicity of the dove and the prudence
of the serpent. It unites the most sublime contemplation to the most
circumspect common sense in matters of which it must judge. Thus
these souls are definitively marked with the image of Christ. The
apostolic life (manifest or hidden) or the life of reparation
overflows from the plenitude of their contemplation and union with
God.(45) Such is manifestly the perfect disposition of the truly
purified soul to pass immediately at the moment of death from earth
to heaven without having to go through purgatory. The perfect order
is to be purified before death with merit, in order not to have to
be purified after death without merit. Only in the close union we
have described does the soul have an ardent desire to see God. It is
inconceivable that God should show Himself immediately and forever
to a soul not ardently desirous of seeing Him. This doctrine would be too lofty for us if in baptism we
had not received the life of grace, which should develop in us also
into eternal life, nor often received Holy Communion, which has as
its principal purpose to increase the love of God in us. Let us
remember that each of our Communions should be substantially more
fervent and fruitful than the preceding one. We shall then see that,
as St. John of the Cross says, interior souls would reach the close
union which we have just discussed if they did not flee from the
trials which God sends them for their purification.(46) In the transforming union we see the full development of
grace, which is eternal life begun, quaedam inchoatio vitae
aeternae.(47) |
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1. Bk. II. 2. Sixth mansion, chap. I.
3. Ibid., chap. 6.
4. Ibid., chap. 9.
5. Ibid.
6. Seventh mansion, chap. 2.
7. Sixth mansion, chap. 7.
8. The Living Flame, st. 2; A Spiritual Canticle, Part III, st. 22
ff.
9. Seventh mansion, chap. 3. 10. The Living Flame, st. 2;
A Spiritual Canticle, Part III, st. 22
ff.
11. The Living Flame, loco cit. 12. Seventh mansion, chap. 2.
13. The Living Flame, st. I, v. 3.
14.
Ibid., v. 4. 15. Ibid., st. 2, v. 6. Cf. Father Gabriel of St. Magdalen,
C.D., "L'union
transformante selon saint Jean de la Croix," La Vie spirituelle, March,
1917, pp. 87 ff. G. L. Strena, "Les Sommets de la vie d'amour,"
Angelicum,
January, 1937, pp. 264-80. 16. St. 16, par. 2, 3.
17. Cf. I Cor. 6: 17. 18. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 28, a. I, 2:
Union is the effect of love, which itself consists in the union of affection, and desires real union by vision
which is like the possession of the object loved. Mutual inherence is also an
effect of love; for the loved one is in the lover, in his affection, and this
affection inclines the lover toward the beloved. 19. Bk. II, chap.
29; A Spiritual Canticle, st. 30. 20. Summa, Ia IIae,
q.68, a.5; q.66, a.2. 21. St. 14. 22. Life, chap. 18, par. 16. 23. St. 14. 24. John 17:
22 f. 25. A Spiritual Canticle, st. 22. 26. Cf. Salrnanticences,
De gratia, q. 110, disp. III, dub. XI, no.
259. 27. The Interior Castle, seventh mansion, chap. 2. 28. St.
22. 29. Denzinger, no. 805.
30. Cf. Father Cajetan of the Holy Name of Mary, Oraison et ascension
mystique de saint Paul de la Croix (Louvain, (930), pp. II5-177. Cf.
infra, the appendix to chap. 49. 31. The Living Flame, st. 2, v. 6.
32. Theol. myst. Proaemium, a.8. 33. Direttorio mistico, tr. II, chap. 22, no. 258.
34. Summa, IIa IIae, q. 18, a.4. 35. Rom. 8: 16. 36. Cf. The Living Flame (st.
2, v.
2): "God confers no favors on the body which He does not confer in
the first place chiefly on the soul. In that case, the greater the
joy and violence of the love which is the cause of the interior
wound, the greater will be the pain of the visible wound, and as the
former grows so does the latter. The reason is this: such souls as
these, being already purified and strong in God, their spirit, strong and sound, delights
in the strong and sweet Spirit of God, who, however, causes pain and
suffering in their weak and corruptible flesh." Cf. infra, chap.
56, "Stigmatization." 37. The Interior Castle, Epilogue.
38. The Dark Night, Bk. II, chap.
23. 39. The Living Flame, st. 2, v. 5.
40. Ibid., st. I. 41. Ibid., st. 2, par. 4. 42. Ibid., st. 2.
v. 5. 43. Ibid., st. 2. V. 6.
44. Ibid., st. 3. V. I. 45. Cf. St. Catherine of
Siena, Dialogue (transl. E. Cartier, Paris, 1855), II,
chap. 145. 46. The Living Flame, st. 2, v. 5. 47. What St. John of the Cross says of the transforming union in The Living Flame should be compared with what Tauler wrote about it. Cf.
Sermons de Tauler: Second sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity
Sunday (transl. Hugueny, II, 222-26).
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