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A NOTE ON THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF THE
MYSTICAL LIFE THE NAMELESS DEPTH OF THE SOUL AND THE DEITY
Tauler describes as follows the highest degree of the
mystical life
in the servants of God:
The peace of the highest degree is the essential peace of
which it is written: "Seek after peace and pursue it." (1) They seek
peace, and it follows them. This peace, "which surpasseth all
understanding," (2) follows upon the essential conversion. When what
is unnamable and unnamed in the soul turns fully toward God,
everything in man that has a name follows this unnamed depth of the
soul and is likewise converted. To this
conversion always answers that which is nameless, that which is
Unnamed in God and also that which in God has a name; all this
answers to conversion. In such a man, God proclaims His true peace,
and man can then say: "I will hear what the Lord God will speak in
me; for He will speak peace unto His people. . . and unto them that
are converted unto the heart." (3) Dionysius says that these men are
formed in God. St. Paul must have been thinking of these men when he
said: "That being rooted and founded in charity, you may be able to
comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length,
and height, and depth. . . of God.'" Do not imagine that I claim to have arrived at this
degree. No master should, in truth, teach that which he himself has
not experienced. Strictly speaking, it suffices that he love that of
which he speaks, that he pursue it, and place no hindrance to it. .
. . Nature, which is too weak to bear such a life, must
necessarily be broken, with the result that this man no longer has a
single day of good health. . . . As St. Paul says: "Power is made
perfect in infirmity." (5) However, this weakness does not come from exterior
observances, but from the superabundant outpouring of the divinity,
which inundates this man to such a point that his poor body of clay
cannot bear it. For God has so drawn this man into Himself that man
thus becomes "deicolored," to such an extent that God Himself
performs the works of this man. . . . It is in such souls that God
finds His glory. . . . When they plunge into this bottomless sea, no longer do
they have definite words or thoughts. . . . At this time man buries
himself so deeply in his unfathomable nothingness that he retains
absolutely nothing for himself. . . and gives back all that he has
received from God, the Author of every good. . . . There the spirit
[of man] is lost in the spirit of God. . . . And yet this man
becomes so profoundly human a man. . . so good to all that no defect
can be found in him. . . . It is not to be believed that such souls
may ever be separated from God. May this be the portion of all of
us! May God help us to attain it! Amen.(6)
THE HOLY GHOST LIFTS UP THE SOUL AND
PRAYS IN IT In the Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent,(7) Tauler
also speaks
of the pursuit of God:
It provokes an appealing cry of immense power. . . . It
is a sigh coming from an endless depth and far exceeding nature.
The Holy Ghost Himself must utter this sigh in us, as St. Paul
says: "The Spirit Himself asketh for us with unspeakable
groanings." (8) . . . When the poor man thus pursued experiences
this immense anxiety and cries to God with inexpressible sighs
and with such a desire that his appeal penetrates even the
loftiest heavens, if God then acts as if He heard absolutely
nothing or wished to know nothing, how greatly at this moment in
the depths of the soul man's desire should reach out and become
more urgent! . . . Then the soul, while abasing and humbling
itself, should pray with confidence like the woman of Canaan:
"Yea, Lord; for the whelps also eat of the crumbs that fall from
the table of their masters." (9) . . . These roads, and these
alone, lead in truth, and without an intermediary station, even
to God.(10)
In a manuscript dealing with this subject, we read:
In this immensely powerful cry of appeal there is an act
of love of God which pierces the clouds, an act of love not obtained
by impetuous outbursts. It is Jesus who passes by and gives rise in
the soul to a movement which is extremely calm, tranquil like the
peace of God, but which issues from the most profound depths of the
heart, where love dwells, and goes forth and touches Jesus in the
unfathomable depths of eternity. This act of love is absolutely
distinct from the most fervent acts that we ourselves make. When
Jesus forms it in the soul, the soul perceives it because a little
of its life ascends toward God. It is not so much the Lord who, by a
divine touch, reaches the depths of the soul, but rather it is the
soul which, lifted up by Him, rushes rapidly toward Him, as by a
flight of incomparable gentleness, by an act of love which God alone
can produce in it.(11) These acts of love are always promptly followed by
crosses, by great crosses. But everything goes well in this way.
This is progressive configuration to our Lord. DETACHMENT FROM SELF AND ATTACHMENT TO
GOD A soul that seems to be approaching this state wrote the
following lines which are reminiscent of the pages we have just
quoted from Tauler:
In prayer I sometimes feel this tearing of myself away
from myself which carries all my being into "An Other," a tearing
away which is brought about without any violence, but with power and
gentleness, and with the sweet and complete consent of my will; this
is my part. But what is the Lord's part? . . . At the term of
this movement (if I may thus express myself, for in this prayer this
movement is continuous)
I have felt as if two great arms entwined me; it was the Abyss which
closed over and swallowed me up in its infinite depths. When a ship
sinks, the waters of the sea open up to receive it, then silently
close over it. This is something similar. . .
My whole being would break its bonds and cast itself into
the Other. Although often I do nothing in prayer, there is always,
more or less, this secret and imperceptible movement which would
draw me whither I cannot go. . . . All graces, all supernatural
impulsions emanate from this innermost depth wherein God acts, and
literally bear me away into this infinite abyss. It is God within me
who bears me away in Himself out of myself. Sometimes I feel that
the grace is not completed, that it stops at the threshold of a
grace of full union. . . . Were the grace to attain its normal term
each time, the result would be the embrace of two spirits in a
silence like that of eternity; but I remain on the threshold. When a grace of this kind is given to me, my active
intellect and will are warned by the substance of my very soul, as,
for example, when it is extremely cold, I feel the cold before
thinking that the weather is cold. This physical experience precedes
the judgment of the mind; similarly, the experience felt in the
substance of the soul (evidently, it is from the experimental and
mystical point of view and not from the philosophical point of view
that I speak of the substance of the soul) precedes the idea of the
gift received. Inversely, if I deliberately propose to touch an
object that I know is very cold, the thought of the cold precedes
the physical experience of the cold that I am about to feel.
Likewise, my will and intellect can in an instant awaken the
inert experience in the depths of my soul which awaits but a
stimulus to be revived. When my soul is powerless and empty, I do
indeed deliberately intensify my oblation, and this act provokes at
long intervals as it were an awakening.
DIFFERENT MEANINGS OF THE TITLE
"SPOUSE" In view of certain observations that have been made to
us, we believe it advisable in a discussion of the transforming
union to signalize the following points. Some very loving, greatly tried, and extremely generous
souls live closely united to God in the world, and their director
may early believe that they have entered the transforming union.
This judgment may, however, be precipitate, for, before attaining to
the spiritual marriage, the chosen soul must first become a spouse,
as a simple religious is who has made profession after the trials
and generous acts of the novitiate. There may be a notable error of interpretation in this
decision if the director or the directed soul attributes to the
title of spouse, received occasionally in an interior locution, the
same meaning as that of the far superior title of spouse in the
transforming union. There is a great difference between the term
spouse, used to denote a religious who has made profession, and the
title spouse, as applied to St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa.
Moreover, even in the second sense, the perfect soul, though
confirmed in grace, may not believe that it has attained the goal,
for until its last sigh it will remain on the royal road, seeing
this goal in a very consoling light, while recalling the words of
St. Paul: "Not as though I had already attained or were already
perfect; but I follow after." (12) Again, a soul much loved by God is drawn to Him, and
gives itself. It is very generous, wholly loving, pure, and its
crosses become heavy. After an interior locution, the Lord seems to
choose it as a spouse. May this soul believe that it is in the
transforming union? Is this not simply the normal state of a good
religious after profession? For this chosen soul still has numerous
defects and imperfections, which seem incompatible with the
spiritual marriage. But the director may believe that this soul will
attain to this state when its charity is wholly true and its life
completely impregnated with God. The life of St. Gemma Galgani, for example, shows clearly
what the Lord required of her before permitting her to call herself
His spouse. This valiant saint, who never refused anything to grace,
complained at times of these demands. Another case is that of a married woman, who is partly
emancipated from what has become for her humiliating servitude and
who is generous in her sacrifices. Our Lord holds her soul captive
and urges her to belong to Him alone. As a result she is somewhat
inclined to believe that she is in the transforming union. In our
opinion she is accepted as a spouse in the sense that a religious is
after final profession, and we believe that if the mystical marriage
is granted to this person, it will be only later on, for this
beautiful soul is still too much encumbered with herself. All
worldly nets are not odious to her. Her charity does not at all
measure up to that of a soul united to God by the spiritual
marriage. More profound trials will perhaps not delay in making this
evident. The transforming union is, undoubtedly, given in
different degrees, but the least degree requires perfect charity
toward God and one's neighbor. Who can tell it without having
attained to that state where there is no longer any insufficiency,
where an unknown food is served to the well-beloved who, filled but
still famished, utter ineffable groans? THE DESIRE OF THE TRANSFORMING UNION May a generous person, who truly seems to have passed
through at least a part of the night of the spirit, desire and ask
for the grace of the transforming union? Certainly. This grace is here on earth the term of the
more or less conscious aspirations of such a soul. If an explicit
desire is in question, however, it is advisable to give it a more
objective expression, that is, desiring the ever more profound reign
of God in our souls and their more perfect configuration to our
Lord. Besides, it is also advisable to keep in mind what St. Teresa
points out in the epilogue to The Interior Castle: "It is
true you cannot enter all the mansions by your own power, however
great it may appear to you, unless the Lord of the castle Himself
admits you. 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. . . . When once you have
learned how to enjoy this castle, you will always find rest, however
painful your trials may be, in the hope of returning to your Lord,
which no one can prevent." Let us also remember what St. John of the Cross says in
The Living Flame: "O souls that seek your own ease and
comfort, if you knew how necessary for this high state is suffering,
and how profitable suffering and mortification are for attaining to
these great blessings." (13) He likewise writes in A Spiritual
Canticle: "O that men would understand how impossible it is to
enter the thicket, the manifold riches of the wisdom of God, without
entering into the thicket of manifold suffering making it the desire
and consolation of the soul; and how that the soul which really
longs for the divine wisdom, longs first of all for the sufferings
of the cross, that it may enter in. . . . They who desire to enter
in that way are few, while those who desire the joys that come by it
are many." (14) In the following stanza, St. John of the Cross says: "One
of the reasons which most influence the soul to enter into the
'thicket' of the wisdom of God, and to have a more intimate
knowledge of the beauty of the divine wisdom, is, as I have said,
that it may unite the understanding with God in the knowledge of the
mysteries of the Incarnation, as of all His works the highest and
most full of sweetness, and the most delicious knowledge. . . . But
the soul cannot reach these hidden treasures unless it first passes
through the thicket of interior and exterior suffering." (15) Certainly this end, the prelude of heaven, is highly
desirable; but the soul must be willing to take the royal road which
leads to it.(16) THE INTIMACY OF THE TRANSFORMING UNION The intimacy of the transforming union, it should be
noted, is due to an absolutely eminent operating grace. Of operating
grace in general, in contradistinction to cooperating grace, St.
Thomas says: "The operation of an affect is not attributed to the
thing moved but to the mover. Hence in that effect in which our mind
is moved and does not move, but in which God is the sole mover, the
operation is attributed to God, and it is with reference to this
that we speak of operating grace." (17) The will, however, freely
consents to be moved. The human will indubitably continues to exist, since it
will subsist even in beatific love; it is not physically absorbed in
God, as the pantheists would say in this case. We must hold what St.
John of the Cross so well expresses in A Spiritual Canticle:
"Though in heaven the will of the soul is not destroyed, it is so
intimately united with the power of the will of God, who loves it,
that it loves Him as strongly and as perfectly as it is loved by
Him. . . . Thus the soul loves God with the will and strength of God
Himself, being made one with that very strength of love wherewith
itself is loved by God. This strength is of the Holy Ghost, in whom
the soul is there transformed. He is given to the soul to strengthen
its love; ministering to it, and supplying in it, because of its
transformation in glory, that which is defective in it." (18) THE EQUALITY OF LOVE Consequently, as Father Gabriel of St. Magdalen (19) well explains,
one can understand that the soul reaches a certain equality of love
with God. St. John says in The Living Flame:
Thus, then, the soul, by reason of its transformation,
being a shadow of God, effects through God in God what He effects
within it Himself by Himself, because the will of both is one. And
as God is giving Himself with a free and gracious will, so the soul
also with a will, the more free and the more generous the more it is
united with God in God, is, as it were, giving back to God - in that
loving complacency with which it regards the divine essence and
perfections - God Himself. . . . The soul gives to the Beloved, who
is God Himself, what He had given to it. Herein it pays the whole debt, for the soul gives as much
voluntarily with inestimable joy and delight, giving the Holy Spirit
as its own of its own free will, so that God may be loved as He
deserves to be. Herein consists the inestimable joy of the soul, for
it sees that it offers to God what becomes Him in His infinite
Being.(20)
This is truly the prelude of the life of heaven. CONCLUSION Whence A Spiritual Canticle concludes: "O souls
created for this [such grandeurs] and called thereto, what are you
doing? What are your occupations? Your aim is meanness, and your
enjoyments misery. Oh, wretched blindness of the children of Adam,
blind to so great a light and deaf to so clear a voice!" (21) As Father Gabriel of St. Magdalen says: "This call,
addressed by the saint to souls in general, shows us that he cannot
regard as 'extraordinary' the sublime things he has just described
for us. . . . That state, the flowering of the seed of supernatural
life, which is sanctifying grace in the soul, should be within the
reach of all those who are endowed with this grace." (22) |
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1. Ps. 33: 15.
2. Phil. 4: 17. 3. Ps. 84:9. 4. Eph.3:17-19. 5. Cf. II Cor. 12:9. 6.
Second Sermon for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (transl. Hugueny,
II,
222 ff.). 7. Ibid., I, 241 ff. 8. Rom. 8:26. 9. Matt. 15:27. 10 Transl. Hugueny, I, 241 ff.
11. This is clearly an eminent operating grace, sharply distinct from
co-operating grace, as St. Thomas points out (Ia IIae, q. 111, a. 2).
Thus is heard and granted the prayer: "Take me from myself, Lord,
and give me completely to Thyself." 12. Phil. 3:12. 13. St.
2, v. 5.
14. St. 36, v. 5. 15. St. 37, v. I f. This passage and the preceding one are almost the
same in the two editions of A Spiritual Canticle, although the numbering of
the stanzas is not identical. The stanza, numbered thirty-five in
one is number thirty-six in the other. We are inclined to believe,
as Father Gabriel of St. Magdalen does (Angelicum, 1937, fasc. I-2,
p. 264), that these two editions of A Spiritual Canticle are the
work of St. John of the Cross. In the second, the saint denies
nothing of what he said in the first, but his thought is more
precise; it shows more clearly that the plenitude attained by the
transforming union on earth is still only relative, and he compares
it more with that of the union of heaven. On the desire of the
transforming union in the soul undergoing the
night of the spirit, see A Spiritual Canticle (2nd ed.; st. 37, v.
3, par. 5): "The soul longs to enter in earnest into these caverns
of Christ, that it may be absorbed, transformed, and inebriated in
the love and knowledge of His mysteries, hiding itself in the bosom
of the Beloved. It is into these caverns that, in the Canticle of
Canticles (2: 13 f.), He invites the bride to enter, saying: 'Arise,
My love, My beautiful one, and come; My dove in the clefts of the
rock, in the hollow places of the wall' These clefts of the rock are
the caverns of which we are here speaking, and to which the bride
refers, saying: 'And there we shall enter in.' . . . To say 'we
shall enter,' is as much as to say, 'there shall we transform
ourselves,' that is, 'I shall be transformed in Thee through the
love of Thy divine and sweet judgments.' " 16. Cf. the text from
A Spiritual Canticle quoted at the end of this
appendix. 17. Summa, Ia IIae, q.111, a.2. 18. Second edition (1909), st. 38, par. 3 f.
19. Art. cit., Angelicum,
1937, p. 275. 20. St. 3, par. 89-91. 21. St. 39, par. 8. 22.
Art. cit., p. 278.
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