| SPIRITUAL CONSEQUENCES OF THIS DOCTRINE A
consequence of primary importance springs from these considerations.
If the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in us cannot be conceived
unless the just man can have a "quasi-experimental knowledge" of God
present in him, what follows? That this knowledge, far from being
something essentially extraordinary, like visions, revelations, or the
stigmata, is in the normal way of sanctity.28 This quasi-experimental
knowledge of God present in us springs from faith illumined by the
gifts of wisdom and understanding, which are connected with charity;
whence it follows that this knowledge ought normally to grow with the
progress of charity, either under a clearly contemplative form, or
under a form more directly oriented toward action. Farther on, we
shall also declare that infused contemplation, in which this
quasi-experience develops, begins, according to St. John of the Cross,
with the illuminative way and
develops in the unitive way.(29) This quasi-experimental knowledge of
God, of His goodness, will grow with the knowledge of our nothingness
and wretchedness, according to the divine words spoken to St.
Catherine of Siena: "I am who am; thou art she who is not."
It also follows that, when our charity increases notably, the
divine persons are sent anew, says St. Thomas,(30) for They become
more intimately present in us according to a new mode or degree of
intimacy. This is true, for example, at the time of the second
conversion, which marks the entrance into the illuminative way.
Finally, They are in us not only as an object of supernatural
knowledge and love, but as principles of supernatural operations.
Christ Himself said: "My Father worketh until now; and I work,"
especially in the intimacy of the heart, in the center of the soul.
We should, moreover, remember in a practical way that ordinarily
God communicates Himself to His creature only in the measure of the
creature's dispositions. When these become more pure, the divine
persons also become more intimately present and active. Then God
belongs to us and we to Him, and we desire above all to make progress
in His love. "This doctrine of the invisible missions of the divine
persons in us is one of the most powerful motives for spiritual
advancement," says Father Chardon, "because it keeps the soul ever on
the alert in regard to its progress, awake to produce incessantly ever
stronger and more fervent acts of all the virtues, that, growing in
grace, this new growth may bring God anew to it . . . for a union. . .
which is characterized by greater intimacy, purity, and vigor." (31)
OUR DUTIES TOWARD THE DIVINE GUEST
In Proverbs we read: "My son, give Me thy heart." (32) And in the
Apocalypse we are told: "Behold, I stand at the gate, and knock. If
any man shall hear My voice and open to Me the door, I will come in to
him, and will sup with him, and he with Me." (33) The soul of a just
man is like a heaven that is still obscure, since the Blessed Trinity
is in him, and some day he will see It there unveiled.
Our duties toward the interior Guest may be summed up in the
following suggestions: that we think often of Him and tell ourselves
that God lives in us; that we consecrate our day, our hour, to the
divine persons by saying, "In the name of the Father and of the Son
and of the Holy Ghost"; that we remember that the interior Guest is
for us the source of light, consolation, and strength; that we pray to
Him as Christ suggests: "Pray to thy Father in secret (in thy soul):
and thy Father who seeth in secret, will repay thee"; (34) that we
adore the interior Guest saying: "My soul doth magnify the Lord"; that
we believe in Him; that we trust absolutely in Him, and love Him with
an increasingly pure, generous, and strong love; that we love Him by
imitating Him, especially by goodness, according to the words of our
Savior: "Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is
perfect"; (35) "That they all may be one, as Thou, Father, in Me, and
I in Thee; that they also may be one in Us." (36)
As we shall see more clearly in the following pages, all this leads
us to think that far from being essentially extraordinary, the
mystical life alone, which is characterized by the reality of the
quasi-experimental knowledge of God present in us, is completely
normal. Only the saints, all of whom live this sort of life, are fully
in order. Before experiencing this intimate union with God present in
us, we are somewhat like souls still half-asleep, souls not yet
spiritually awakened. Our knowledge of the consoling mystery of the
indwelling of the Blessed Trinity is still too superficial and
bookish, and yet overflowing life is offered to us.
Before entering into the intimacy of union with God, our adoration
and love of Him are not what they ought to be, and frequently we
consider the "one thing necessary" as if it were not the most
important thing for us. Likewise we have not yet become profoundly
cognizant of the gift that has been given us in the Eucharist, and we
have only a superficial knowledge of the nature of the mystical body
of Christ.
The Holy Ghost is the soul of the mystical body, of which Christ is
the head. As in our body the soul is entirely in the whole body and
entirely in each part, and exercises its superior functions in the
head, so the Holy Ghost is entirely in all the mystical body, entirely
in each just soul, and exercises His highest functions in the holy
soul of the Savior, and through it on us. The vital principle which
thus constitutes the unity of the mystical body is singularly more
unitive than the soul which unifies our body, than the spirit of a
family or of a nation. The spirit of a family is a certain manner of
seeing, judging, feeling, loving, willing, and acting. The spirit of
the mystical body is infinitely more unifying; it is the Holy Ghost
the Sanctifier, source of all graces, source of living water springing
up into eternal life. The stream of grace, which comes from the Holy
Ghost, unceasingly reascends toward God under the form of adoration,
prayer, merit, and sacrifice; it is the elevation toward God, the
prelude of the life of heaven. Such are the supernatural realities of
which we should become increasingly more conscious. Only in the
mystical life does the soul truly awaken completely, and have that
lively, profound, radiating consciousness of the gift of God that is
necessary if the soul is to correspond fully with the love of God for
us.
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