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"In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin."
Ecclus. 7:40
What we have said of the active purification of the senses and of the
sensible appetites has already demonstrated that exterior
mortification is not the most important; yet he who neglects it will
also neglect all interior mortification and end by losing completely
the spirit of abnegation. This loss would occur especially if a
person deliberately wished no longer to trouble himself about
mortification. He would thus fall, as frequently happens, into
practical naturalism substituted for the spirit of faith, and finally
he would no longer keep practically anything of Christ's precept: "If
any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross." (1) If anyone deliberately wishes to take as food all that
is pleasing and always to be at his ease, without any spirit of
Christian temperance, he no longer tends toward perfection and forgets
the loftiness of the supreme precept: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy
strength and with all thy mind." (2) A religious who acts in this
manner loses sight of the special obligation of the religious life.
But the exterior mortification of the body and senses would be without
great result if it were not accompanied by the interior mortification
of the imagination and the memory, of which we are going to speak, and
by the active purification of the intellect and will, which we shall
treat of next. THE ACTIVE PURIFICATION OF THE IMAGINATION The
imagination is a faculty that is undeniably very useful to us, since
the soul united to the body cannot think without images; B an image
always accompanies the idea. This fact explains why Christ spoke to
the multitudes in parables, that He might lift them gently from the
sensible image to the spiritual idea of the kingdom of God; in like
manner, to make the Samaritan woman understand the value of divine
grace, He did not tell her about it in abstract terms, but used the
figure of the "fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.
" But, to be useful, the imagination must be directed by right
reason illumined by faith; otherwise it may become, as someone has
said "the mad woman in the house." It diverts us from the
consideration of divine things and inclines us toward vain,
inconsistent, and fantastic, or even forbidden things. At the very
least, it leads us to daydreaming that gives rise to sentimentality,
which is opposed to true piety. It is not always in our power,
especially in periods of fatigue, to dispel at once vain or dangerous
images; but, with the help of grace, we can will not to grant them the
attention of the mind, and we can gradually diminish their number and
their attraction. Even perfect souls continue to suffer certain
involuntary ramblings of the imagination aroused occasionally by the
devil, as St. Teresa points out in the fifth mansion and even in the
sixth.(4) But, as the interior soul advances, it gradually frees
itself from these wanderings of the fancy and ends by contemplating
God and His infinite goodness, scarcely paying any attention to the
images which accompany this act of penetrating and sweet faith. Thus
we write with a pen without noticing its form, and frequently we
converse with a person without paying any attention to the shape or
color of his garments, unless there is something strange or unusual
about them. Consequently the imagination ceases little by little to
trouble the exercise of the intellect, and finally is placed
positively at its service that it may occasionally express in
beautiful images those things that pertain to the interior life,
somewhat as Christ expressed them in parables or in His conversations
with Nicodemus or the Samaritan woman. These images ought, therefore,
to be unimpassioned and discreet in order to draw attention not to
themselves, but to the superior idea which they express. Then, as a
well-born person wears a garment that is simple and in good taste
without according it any more attention than is necessary, so the
thought makes use of the figure without dwelling on it. The image is
there only for the thought, and the thought only for the expression of
truth. But such a harmony of our faculties is not realized without
true discipline of the imagination in order that it may cease to be
the mad woman in the house and may truly be placed at the service of
the intellect illumined by faith. In this way alone can we gradually
re-establish the order that existed in the state of original justice,
in which the superior part of the soul retained the direction of the
imagination and the different emotions of the sensibility as long as
it obeyed God whom it contemplated and loved above all. According to
these principles, we must brush aside at once dangerous images and
memories, put away also useless reading and vain reveries that would
make us lose precious time and might expose us to all sorts of
illusions in which the enemy would make sport of us in order to ruin
us. To effect this discipline, we must apply ourselves to the duty
of the moment (age quod agis) with a healthy realism, directing
the accomplishment of this duty to God, who should be loved above all.
Thus will our intellect and will gradually dominate our imagination
and sensibility; and our obedient imagination will find in the
beauties of the liturgy food for our interior life. St. John of the
Cross points out that true devotion is concerned with the spiritual
and invisible object, represented by sensible images, without pausing
at these, and that the nearer a soul draws to divine union, the less
it depends on images.(5) However, it is important at this point to
speak more particularly of the mortification of the memory, which
exposes us to live in the unreal and which only too often recalls to
us what ought to be forgotten. THE ACTIVE PURIFICATION OF THE MEMORY
St. John of the Cross discusses this subject at length.(6) Here we are
concerned at the same time with the sensible memory, which exists in
animals, and the intellectual memory that is common to men and
angels.(7) The intellectual memory is not a faculty really distinct
from the intellect; it is the intellect in so far as it retains
ideas.(8) Why does our memory need to be purified? Because, since
original sin and as a result of our repeated personal sins, it is full
of useless and sometimes dangerous memories. In particular, we often
recall the wrongs our neighbor has done us, the harsh words for which
we have not yet completely pardoned him, although he himself may have
keenly regretted them. We remember less the favors we have received
from our neighbor than what we have had to suffer from him, and a
harsh word often makes us forget all the kindnesses that have come to
us from him in the course of several years. But the chief defect of
our memory is what Scripture calls the proneness to forget God. Our
memory, which is made to recall to us what is most important, often
forgets the one thing necessary, which is above time and does not
pass. What St. John of the Cross says (9) about the necessity of the
purification of the memory may seem exaggerated at first reading; but
our impression changes if we read first of all what the Scriptures say
on the subject. Scripture often speaks of man's proneness to forget
God. Isaias writes: "Truth hath been forgotten: and he that departed
from evil, lay open to be a prey. And the Lord saw, and it appeared
evil in His eyes, because there is no judgment." (10) Jeremias,
speaking in the name of God, says: "Will a virgin forget her ornament?
. . . But My people hath forgotten Me days without number." (11)
Recalling the mercies of God in regard to the people of Israel saved
by Him in their passage through the Red Sea, the Psalmist writes:
"They forgot His works. . . . They forgot God, who saved them, who had
done great things." (12) Several times Scripture adds that especially
in tribulation we should recall the mercies of God and implore His
aid. If we forget God and do not appreciate His immense benefits,
those of the redemptive Incarnation, the institution of the Holy
Eucharist, daily Mass, we are guilty of ingratitude and lose the time
of the present life which ought to tend toward eternal life.
Proneness to forget God causes our memory to be as if immersed in
time, whose relation to eternity, to the benefits and promises of God,
it no longer sees. This defect inclines our memory to see all things
horizontally on the line of time that flees, of which the present
alone is real, between the past that is gone and the future that is
not yet. Forgetfulness of God prevents us from seeing that the present
moment is also on a vertical line which attaches it to the single
instant of immobile eternity, and that there is a divine manner of
living the present moment in order that by merit it may enter into
eternity. Whereas forgetfulness of God leaves us in this banal and
horizontal view of things on the line of time which passes, the
contemplation of God is like a vertical view of things which pass and
of their bond with God who does not pass. To be immersed in time, is
to forget the value of time, that is to say, its relation to eternity.
By what virtue must this great defect of forgetfulness of God be
cured? St. John of the Cross (18) answers that the memory which
forgets God must be healed by the hope of eternal beatitude, as the
intellect must be purified by the progress of faith, and the will by
the progress of charity. This doctrine is based on numerous sayings
of Holy Scripture relative to the remembrance of the benefits of God
and His promises. The Psalmist often says: "In the day of my trouble I
sought God. . . . I remembered the works of the Lord." (14) "I will be
mindful of Thy justice alone." (15) "The proud did iniquitously
altogether: but I declined not from Thy law. I remembered, 0 Lord, Thy
judgments of old: and I was comforted." (16) We read in Ecclesiasticus
also: "In all thy works remember thy last end, and thou shalt never
sin." (17) Holy Scripture often says also that we must ceaselessly
remember the divine promises, which are the foundation of our hope.
The patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament lived by the promise
of the Messias who was to come; and we should live daily more
profoundly by the promise of eternal beatitude. It is one of the great
recurrent themes in Holy Scripture. On this point, as on so many
others, The Imitation of Christ preserves admirably for us the
spirit of St. Augustine, often using his very words. (18) This
teaching helps us to understand clearly what St. John of the Cross
wrote later. The author of The Imitation often treats of the
purification of the memory in the passages where he speaks of the
forgetfulness of all creatures in order to find the Creator,(19) of
meditation on death,(20) of anxiety to be avoided about one's
affairs,(21) of vain and worldly learning,(22) of the remembrance of
the benefits of God,(23) of liberty of heart, which is acquired by
prayer rather than by reading.(24) We shall quote only the most
characteristic passages which show how the purification of the memory
prepares the soul for contemplation and union with God. Of the
contempt of everything created in order to find the Creator. For
as long as any thing holds me back, I cannot freely fly to Thee. . . .
And what can be more free than he who desires nothing upon earth? A
man ought, therefore, to soar above everything created, and perfectly
to forsake himself, and in ecstasy of mind to stand and see that Thou,
the Creator of all, hast nothing like to Thee among creatures. And
unless a man be disengaged from all things created (for their sake or
for himself), he cannot freely attend to things divine. And this is
the reason why there are found so few contemplative persons, because
there are few that know how to sequester themselves entirely from
perishable creatures. . . .(2)5 Of the thoughts of death. Oh,
the dullness and the hardness of the human heart, that dwelleth only
upon things present, instead rather of providing for those which are
to come! Thou shouldst so order thyself in every deed and thought as
if thou wert immediately to die. . . . Now is the time very precious,
now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation. . . . And
man's life passeth away suddenly like a shadow. . . . Whilst thou hast
time, amass for thyself immortal riches. Think of nothing but thy
salvation; care only for the things of God. Make to thyself friends
now, by venerating the saints of God and imitating their actions, that
when thou shalt fail in this life they may receive thee into
everlasting dwellings. Keep thyself as a pilgrim and a stranger upon
earth, that hath no concern with the business of the world. Keep thy
heart free and lifted up to God, for thou hast not here a lasting
city.(26) We should not settle ourselves on earth; people do not
settle themselves on the road, or go to sleep there, but rather use it
as a means of advancing toward a given end. That a man must not
be too anxious about his affairs. Son, commit thy cause to Me
always; I will dispose of it well in its due season. Await My
appointment, and thence thou shalt experience success therefrom. . .
.(27) Against vain and worldly learning. Son, let not the
beautiful and subtle sayings of men affect thee; for the kingdom of
God consisteth not in speech, but in virtue, Attend to My words, which
inflame hearts and enlighten minds, which excite to compunction and
afford manifold consolations. . . . When thou shalt have read and
shalt know many things, thou must always revert to the one beginning.
I am He who teacheth men knowledge, arid who giveth a more clear
understanding to little ones than can be taught by man. He to whom I
speak will quickly be wise and will profit greatly in spirit. Woe to
them that inquire after many curious things of men, and are little
curious of the way to serve Me. The time will come when Christ, the
Master of masters, the Lord of Angels, shall appear to hear the
lessons of all men, that is, to examine the conscience of everyone.
And then will He search Jerusalem with lamps, and the hidden things of
darkness shall be brought to light, and the argument of tongues shall
be silent. I am He that in an instant elevateth the humble mind to
comprehend more reasons of the eternal truth than if anyone had
studied ten years in the schools. I teach without noise of words,
without confusion of opinions, without ambition of honor, without
strife of arguments. I am He who teacheth to despise earthly things,
to loathe things present, to seek the things eternal, to relish the
things eternal, to fly honors, to endure scandals, to repose all hope
in Me, to desire nothing out of Me, and above all things ardently to
love Me. . . . I within am the Teacher of truth, the Searcher of the
heart, the Understander of thoughts, the Mover of actions,
distributing to everyone as I judge fitting. . . .(28) Of the
remembrance of the manifold benefits of God. Give me to understand
Thy will, and to commemorate with great reverence and diligent
consideration all Thy benefits, as well in general as in particular,
that so henceforward I may be able worthily to return thanks for them.
. . . All things that we have in soul and body. . . are Thy benefits.
. . . He who hath received greater things, cannot glory of his own
merit, nor extol himself above others, nor exult over the lesser. . .
. For Thou, 0 God, hast chosen the poor and the humble, and those that
are despised by this world, for Thy familiar friends and domestics. .
. .(29) Of liberty of heart. Lord, this is the work of a
perfect man, never to let the mind slacken from attending to heavenly
things, and amidst many cares to pass on as it were without care; not
after the manner of an indolent person, but by a certain prerogative
of a free mind, not cleaving with an inordinate affection to anything
created.(30) Here we have truly the purification of the memory, which prepares for
the infused contemplation of the great mysteries of faith. On this
contemplation of the purified and liberated soul, The Imitation says:
For this a great grace is required, such as may elevate the soul, and
lift it up above itself. And unless a man be elevated in spirit and
freed from attachment to all creatures and wholly united to God,
whatever he knows and whatever he has is of no great importance.(31)
Is this not equivalent to saying that the infused contemplation of the
mysteries of faith and the union with God resulting from it are in the
normal way of sanctity? The Imitation adds:
Whatsoever is not God is nothing, and ought to be accounted as
nothing. There is a great difference between the wisdom of an
illuminated and devout man, and the knowledge of a learned and
studious cleric. Far more noble is that learning which flows from
above from the divine influence than that which is laboriously
acquired by the industry of man. Many are found to desire
contemplation, but they are not careful to practice those things which
are required for its attainment. . . . From a pure heart proceedeth
the fruit of a good life.(32)
This teaching on the purification of the memory was particularly
developed by St. John of the Cross, especially in relation to the
remembrance of exceptional and so to speak exterior graces on which we
must not dwell too much. The memory of them, accompanied by vain
complacency, would turn us away from union with God. Hope lifts us up
more to the love of God than experience of extraordinary graces. "What
we have to do, then," says the holy doctor, "in order to live in the
simple and perfect hope of God, whenever these forms, knowledge, and
distinct images occur, is not to fix our minds upon them but to turn
immediately to God, emptying the memory of all such matters, in loving
affection, without regarding or considering them more than suffices to enable us
to understand and perform our obligations, if they have any reference
thereto." (33) Here we have truly the active purification of the memory
which
is too preoccupied with useless or dangerous memories. We should
put this teaching into practice that our memory may no longer be,
so to speak, immersed in ephemeral things, that it may no longer see
them only on the horizontal line of fleeting time, but on the vertical
line which attaches them to the single instant of immobile eternity. Thus, little by little the soul rises often to the thought of God, recalling the great benefits of the redemptive Incarnation and the Holy
Eucharist. Often, on the contrary, we enter a church to ask for some
urgent grace, and we forget to thank God for the measureless blessing
of the Eucharist. Its institution demands a special thanksgiving; this
sacrament reminds us of the promises of eternal life. |
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1. Matt. 16:24; Luke 9:23.
2. Luke 10:27.
3. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia, q.78, a.4; q.84, a.7.
4. The Interior Castle, fifth mansion, chap. 4; sixth mansion,
chap. I.
5. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. III, chaps. 12, 34. Cf. St.
Thomas, IIa IIae, q. 180, a.5 ad 2um.
6. Ibid., Bk. III, chaps. 1-15. Chapter 15 sums up the preceding
chapters.
7. St. Thomas, Ia, q.77, a.8; q.78, a.4; q.79, a.6 f.
8. St. Thomas (Ia, q.79, a. 7) explains it well, for he says that the
faculties are specified by their formal object, and that there is no
difference between the formal object of the intellect (specified by
intelligible being or the true) and the intellectual memory which
retains ideas and judgment.
In the first objection stated in this seventh article, St. Thomas
notes that St. Augustine (De Trinitate, Bk. X, chaps. 10 f.)
"assigns to the soul memory, understanding, and will" and thereby
seems to distinguish between them. Then he replies that St. Augustine,
as is indicated in De Trinitate, Bk. XIV, chap. 7, understood by
memory the soul's habit of retention; by intelligence, the act of the
intellect; and by will, the act of the will.
In other words, St. Augustine takes the descriptive point of view of
experimental psychology, or of introspection (it is thus that St. John
of the Cross speaks), whereas St. Thomas, as a metaphysician, takes
the ontological point of view of the real distinction of the faculties
according to their formal object. But such a distinction does not
exist between the intellect and the intellectual memory.
9. Loc. cit.
10. Isa. 59: 15.
11. Jer. 2:32.
12. Ps. 105:13,21.
13. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. III, chaps. 6 f. Hope, he
says, is so much the greater as the memory is empty of notions of
created things.
14. Ps. 76:3, 12.
15. Ps. 70: 16.
16. Ps. 118: 51 f.
17. Ecclus. 7:40.
18. The Imitation seems to have been written by a holy
religious who culled from the works of St. Augustine what is most
applicable to the interior life. It matters little whether we know the
name of its author; this book somewhat resembles Melchisedech, a type
of the Messias, of whom it is said that "he had neither father nor
mother" because he belonged, so to speak, to a supratemporal order.
Likewise, many sublime hymns of the liturgy bear the name of no
author; the same is true of many famous melodies. Among anonymous
writings, some are debasing, others sublime. There are two classes of
people who hide themselves: the criminal who flees punishment, and the
saint who through humility wishes to remain unknown.
19. The Imitation of Christ, Bk. III, chap. 31.
20. Ibid., Bk. I, chap. 23.
21. Ibid., Bk. III, chap. 39.
22. Ibid., chap. 43.
23 Ibid., chap. 22.
24. Ibid., chap. 26.
25. Ibid., chap. 31.
26. Ibid., Bk. I, chap. 23.
27. Ibid., Bk. III, chap. 39.
28. Ibid., chap. 43.
29. Ibid., chap. 22.
30 Ibid., chap. 26.
81 Ibid., chap. 31.
32. Ibid.
33. The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. III, chap. 14. On this
subject we must recall what St. John of the Cross says in The
Ascent of Mount Carmel, Bk. III, chap. I passim: "When the reader
observes that I teach the annihilation of these powers in the matter
of their operations, he will perhaps imagine that I am destroying and
not building up the spiritual edifice. This objection would be valid
if my purpose here were to instruct only beginners, who are to be led
onwards by means of these discursive and tangible apprehensions. But
as I am teaching how to advance by contemplation to the divine union,
for which end all these means, and the sensible exertion of the powers
of the soul must cease and be silent, in order that God in His own way
may bring that union to pass - it is necessary to release the
faculties and to empty them, and to make them renounce their natural
jurisdiction and operations, that the supernatural may fill and
enlighten them; seeing that their powers cannot compass so great a
matter, but rather, unless suppressed, prove a difficulty in the way.
. . . .
"You will, perhaps, object and say: All this is very well, but the
principle involves the destruction of the natural use and course of
our faculties. . . . Surely God does not destroy nature, but rather
perfects it; but its destruction is the natural issue of this
doctrine. . . .
"To this I reply: The more the memory is united to God the more it
loses all distinct knowledge, and at last all such fades utterly away
when the state of perfection is reached. In the beginning, when this
is going on, great forgetfulness ensues, for these forms and knowledge
fall into oblivion, men neglect themselves in outward things,
forgetting to eat or drink; . . . and all this because the memory is
lost in God. But he who has attained to the habit of union does not
forget in this way that which relates to moral and natural reason; he
performs in much greater perfection all necessary and befitting
actions, though by the ministry of forms and knowledge in the memory,
supplied in a special manner by God. . . . The operations of the
memory, therefore, and of the other powers in this state are, as it
were, divine. . . . Therefore the operations of the soul in the state
of union are the operations of the Holy Ghost, and consequently,
divine." The soul is then clearly under the regime of the seven gifts
of the Holy Ghost, and the special inspirations of the Holy Ghost
incline it to the superior acts of the infused virtues which the gifts
accompany. "The actions and the prayers of such souls," says St. John
of the Cross (ibid.), "always attain their end."
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