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The entrance into the illuminative way, which is the second
conversion described by St. Catherine of Siena, Blessed Henry Suso,
Tauler, and Father Lallemant, is called by St. John of the Cross the
passive purification of the senses or the night of the senses. At
this point in our study we must see what St. John of the Cross says
about: (I) the necessity of this purification; (2) the way it is
produced; (3) the conduct to be observed at this difficult time; (4)
the trials which ordinarily accompany the purifying divine action.
These points will be the subject of this chapter and the following
one.
THE NECESSITY OF THIS PURIFICATION
In The Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross says:
"The night of sense is common, and the lot of many: these are the
beginners"; (1) and he adds farther on, after discussing this trial:
"The soul began to set out on the way of the spirit, the way of
proficients, which is also called the illuminative way, or the way
of infused contemplation, wherein God Himself teaches and refreshes
the soul without meditation or any active efforts that itself may
deliberately make." (2) Nevertheless the soul must always struggle
to remove the obstacles to this grace and to be faithful to it.
These two texts are extremely important, for they mark the age of
the spiritual life in which the purifying trial we are considering
is ordinarily produced.
The necessity of this purification, as the saint shows in the same
book,(3) arises from the defects of beginners, which may be reduced
to three: spiritual pride, spiritual sensuality, and spiritual
sloth. St. John of the Cross teaches that remains of the seven
capital sins, like so many deviations of the spiritual life, are
found even here. And yet the mystical doctor considers only the
disorder that results from them in our relations with God; he does not speak of all that taints
our dealings with our neighbor and the apostolate which may be under
our care.
Spiritual sensuality, with which we are especially concerned here
under the name of spiritual gluttony, consists in being immoderately
attached to the sensible consolations that God sometimes grants in
prayer. The soul seeks these consolations for themselves, forgetting
that they are not an end, but a means; it prefers the savor of
spiritual things to their purity, and thus seeks itself in the
things of God rather than God Himself, as it should. In others, this selfseeking is in the exterior apostolate, in some form or other of
activity.
Spiritual sloth comes as a rule then from the fact that, when
spiritual gluttony or some other form of selfishness is not
satisfied to the desired extent, one falls into impatience and a
certain disgust for the work of sanctification as soon as it is a
question of advancing by the "narrow way." The early writers spoke
much of this spiritual sloth and of this disgust, which they called acedia.(4) They even declared that acedia, when accentuated, leads
to malice, rancor, pusillanimity, discouragement, sluggishness, and
dissipation of spirit in regard to forbidden things. (5)
Spiritual pride manifests itself quite frequently when spiritual
gluttony or some other self-seeking is satisfied, when things go as
one wishes; then a man boasts of his perfection, judges others
severely, sets himself up as a master, while he is still only a poor
disciple. This spiritual pride, says St. John of the Cross,(6) leads
beginners to flee masters who do not approve of their spirit; "they
even end by bearing them rancor." They seek a guide favorable to
their inclinations, desire to be on intimate terms with him, confess
their sins to him in such a way as not to lower themselves in his
esteem. As St. John of the Cross says: "They go about palliating
their sins, that they may not seem so bad: which is excusing rather
than accusing themselves. Sometimes they go to a stranger to confess
their sin, that their usual confessor may think that they are not
sinners, but good people. And so they always take pleasure in
telling him of their goodness." (7)
This spiritual pride leads, as is evident, to a certain pharisaical
hypocrisy, which shows that the beginners, whom St. John of the
Cross is speaking of, are still very imperfect; they are, therefore,
beginners in the sense in which this word is generally understood by
spiritual authors.(8) And yet it is of them that St. John of the
Cross says here that they need to undergo the passive purification
of the senses, which therefore marks clearly the entrance into the
illuminative way of proficients, according to the traditional
meaning of these terms.
To the defects of spiritual gluttony, spiritual sloth, and spiritual
pride, are added many others: curiosity, which decreases love of the
truth; sufficiency, which leads us to exaggerate our personal worth,
to become irritated when it is not recognized; jealousy and envy,
which lead to disparagement, intrigues, and unhappy conflicts, which
more or less seriously injure the general good. Likewise in the
apostolate, the defect rather frequent at this time is natural
eagerness in self-seeking, in making oneself a center, in drawing
souls to oneself or to the group to which one belongs instead of
leading them to our Lord. Finally, let trial, a rebuff, a disgrace
come, and one is, in consequence, inclined to discouragement,
discontent, sulkiness, pusillanimity, which seeks more or less to
assume the external appearances of humility. All these defects show
the necessity of a profound purification.
Several of these defects may, without doubt, be corrected by
exterior mortification and especially by interior mortification
which we should impose on ourselves; but such mortification does not
suffice to extirpate their roots, which penetrate to the very center
of our faculties.(9) "The soul, however," says St. John of the
Cross, "cannot be perfectly purified from these imperfections, any
more than from the others, until God shall have led it into the
passive purgation of the dark night, which I shall speak of
immediately. But it is expedient that the soul, so far as it can,
should labor, on its own part, to purify and perfect itself, that it
may merit from God to be taken under His divine care, and be healed
from those imperfections which of itself it cannot remedy. For,
after all the efforts of the soul, it cannot by any exertions of its
own actively purify itself so as to be in the slightest degree fit
for the divine union of perfection in the love of God, if God
Himself does not take it into His own hands and purify it in the
fire, dark to the soul." (10)
In other words, the cross sent by God to purify us must complete the
work of mortification which we impose on ourselves. Consequently, as
St. Luke relates: "He [Jesus] said to all: If any man will come
after Me, let him deny himself [this is the law of mortification or
abnegation], and take up his cross daily, and follow Me"; (11)
per crucem ad lucem. This road leads to the light of life, to
intimate union with God, the normal prelude of the life of heaven.
HOW THE PASSIVE PURIFICATION OF THE SENSES IS
PRODUCED
This state is manifested by three signs which St. John of the
Cross describes as follows:
The first is this: when we find no comfort in the things of God, and
none also in created things. For when God brings the soul into the
dark night in order to wean it from sweetness and to purge the desire of
sense, He does not allow it to find sweetness or comfort anywhere.
It is then probable, in such a case, that this dryness is not the
result of sins or of imperfections recently committed; for if it were, we should feel
some inclination or desire for other things than those of God. . . .
But still, inasmuch as this absence of pleasure in the things of
heaven and of earth may proceed from bodily indisposition or a
melancholy temperament, which frequently causes dissatisfaction with
all things, the second test and condition become necessary.
The second test and condition of this purgation are that the memory
dwells ordinarily upon God with a painful anxiety and carefulness,
the soul thinks it is not serving God, but going backwards, because
it is no longer conscious of any sweetness in the things of God. . .
. The true purgative aridity is accompanied in general by a painful
anxiety, because the soul thinks that it is not serving God. Though
this be occasionally increased by melancholy or other infirmity - so
it sometimes happens yet it is not for that reason without its
purgative effects on the desires, because the soul is deprived of
all sweetness, and its sole anxieties are referred to God. For when
mere bodily indisposition is the cause, all that it does is to
produce disgust and the ruin of bodily health, without the desire of
serving God which belongs to the purgative aridity. In this aridity,
though the sensual part of man be greatly depressed, weak and
sluggish in good works, by reason of the little satisfaction they
furnish, the spirit is, nevertheless, ready and strong.
The cause of this dryness is that God is transferring to the spirit
the goods and energies of the senses, which, having no natural
fitness for them, become dry, parched up, and empty; for the sensual
nature of man is helpless in those things which belong to the spirit
simply. Thus the spirit having been tasted, the flesh becomes weak
and remiss; but the spirit, having received its proper nourishment,
becomes strong, more vigilant and careful than before, lest there
should be any negligence in serving God. At first it is not
conscious of any spiritual sweetness and delight, but rather of
aridities and distaste, because of the novelty of the change. The
palate accustomed to sensible sweetness looks for it still. And the
spiritual palate is not prepared and purified for so delicious a
taste until it shall have been for some time disposed for it in this
arid and dark night. . . .(12)
But when these aridities arise in the purgative way of the sensual
appetite the spirit though at first without any sweetness, for the
reasons I have given, is conscious of strength and energy to act
because of the substantial nature of its interior food, which is the
commencement of contemplation, dim and dry to the senses. This
contemplation is in general secret, and unknown to him who is
admitted into it, and with the aridity and emptiness which it
produces in the senses, it makes the soul long for solitude and
quiet, without the power of reflecting on anything distinctly, or
even desiring to do so.
Now, if they who are in this state knew how to be quiet, . . . they
would have, in this tranquillity, a most delicious sense of this
interior food. This food is so delicate that, in general, it eludes
our perceptions if we make any special effort to feel it; it is like
the air which vanishes when we shut our hands to grasp it. For this
is God's way of bringing the soul into this state; the road by which
He leads it is so different from the first, that if it will do
anything in its own strength, it will hinder rather than aid His
work. Therefore, at this time, all that the soul can do of itself
ends, as I have said, in disturbing the peace and the work of God in
the spirit amid the dryness of sense.(13)
The third sign we have for ascertaining whether this dryness be the
purgation of sense, is inability to meditate and make reflections,
and to excite the imagination, as before, notwithstanding all the
efforts we may make; for God begins now to communicate Himself, no
longer through the channel of sense, as formerly, in consecutive
reflections, by which we arranged and divided our knowledge, but in
pure spirit, which admits not of successive reflections, and in the
act of pure contemplation (to which the special inspiration of the
Holy Ghost gives rise in us).(14)
In regard to this third sign, St. John of the Cross points out that
this inability to meditate in a reasoned or discursive manner "does
not arise out of any bodily ailment. When it arises from this, the
indisposition, which is always changeable, having ceased, the powers
of the soul recover their former energies and find their previous
satisfactions at once. It is otherwise in the purgation of the
appetite, for as soon as we enter upon this, the inability to make
our meditations continually grows. It is true that this purgation at
first is not continuous in some persons." (15)
Though this state is manifested by two negative characteristics
(sensible aridity and great difficulty in meditating according to a
reasoned manner), evidently the most important element in it is the
positive side, that is, initial infused contemplation and the keen
desire for God to which it gives rise in us. It must even be
admitted that then sensible aridity and the difficulty in meditating
come precisely from the fact that grace takes a new, purely
spiritual form, superior to the senses and to the discourse of
reason, which makes use of the imagination. Here the Lord seems to
take from the soul, for He deprives it of sensible consolation, but
in reality He bestows a precious gift, nascent contemplation and a
love that is more spiritual, pure, and strong. Only, we must keep
in mind the saying: "The roots of knowledge are bitter and the
fruits sweet"; the same must be said in a higher order of the roots
and fruits of contemplation.
THE CAUSE OF THIS STATE
The theological explanation of this state is to be found in four
causes. We already know its formal and material causes from the fact
that St. John of the Cross tells us that it is a passive
purification of the sensibility. Several authors insist on its final
cause or end, which is easily discovered, and do not give sufficient
attention to its efficient cause.
The passage just quoted from St. John of the Cross indicates the
efficient cause. It is, in fact, a special and purifying action of
God, from which comes, says the saint, a beginning of infused
contemplation. In this contemplation we have the explanation of the
keen desire for God experienced by the soul, since man ardently
desires only that of which he experimentally knows the charm. This
keen desire for God and for perfection is itself the explanation of
the fear of falling back (filial fear). Finally, sensible aridity is
explained by the fact that the special grace then given is purely
spiritual and not sensible; it is a higher form of life. St. John's
text explains this state rationally.
On penetrating more deeply into the theological explanation of this
state, we observe that in it there is a special inspiration of the
Holy Ghost, whose influence then becomes more manifest. Theology
teaches that every just soul possesses the seven gifts of the Holy
Ghost, which enable it to receive His inspirations with docility and
promptness.(16) Here, therefore, the influence of the gifts is quite
manifest, especially those gifts of knowledge, filial fear, and
fortitude.
The gift of knowledge, in fact, explains the first sign pointed out
by St. John of the Cross: "No comfort in the things of God and none
also in created things." The gift of knowledge, according to St.
Augustine (17) and St. Thomas,(18) makes us know experimentally the
emptiness of created things, all that is defectible and deficient in
them and in ourselves. Knowledge indeed differs from wisdom inasmuch
as it knows things not by their supreme cause, but by their proximate, defectible, and deficient cause. For this reason,
according to St. Augustine, the gift of knowledge corresponds to the
beatitude of tears. The tears of contrition come actually from the
knowledge of the gravity of sin and the nothingness of creatures.
The gift of knowledge reminds us of what Ecclesiastes says: "Vanity
of vanities, . . . and all things are vanity," except to love God
and to serve Him.(19) This thought is repeatedly expressed in The
Imitation (20) and in the works of great mystics like Ruysbroeck.
(21)
Before St. John of the Cross, Ruysbroeck pointed out the relations
of the gift of knowledge to the passive purification of the senses,
in which the soul knows by experience the emptiness of created
things and is led thereby to a keen desire for God.(22)
In the passive purification of the senses which we are speaking of,
there is also a manifest influence of the gifts of fear and
fortitude, as the second sign given by St. John of the Cross
indicates: "The true purgative aridity is accompanied in general by
a painful anxiety because the soul thinks that it is not serving
God. . . . For when mere bodily indisposition is the cause, all that
it does is to produce disgust and the ruin of bodily health, without
the desire of serving God which belongs to the purgative aridity. In
this aridity, though the sensual part of man is greatly depressed,
weak and sluggish in good works, by reason of the little
satisfaction they furnish, the spirit is, nevertheless, ready and
strong." (23)
The second sign manifests, therefore, an effect of the gift of fear,
of filial fear, not the fear of punishment but that of sin. Filial
fear evidently grows with the progress of charity, whereas servile
fear, or that of punishment, diminishes.(24) By the special
inspiration of this gift the soul resists the strong temptations
against chastity and patience which often accompany the passive
purification of the senses. The Christian, who then experiences his
indigence, repeats the words of the Psalmist: "Pierce Thou my flesh with Thy fear: for
I am afraid of Thy judgments." (25) According to St. Augustine, the
gift of fear corresponds to the beatitude of the poor,(26) of those
who do not pose as masters, but who begin to love seriously the
humility of the hidden life that they may become more like our Lord.
In this poverty they find true riches: "Theirs is the kingdom of
heaven."
In the keen desire to serve God which St. John of the Cross speaks
of here, a desire that subsists in spite of aridity, temptations,
difficulties, there is, at the same time, a manifest effect of the
gift of fortitude, corresponding to the fourth beatitude: "Blessed
are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have
their fill." (27) The ardent desire to serve God at no matter what
cost is truly this hunger, which the Lord arouses in us. He gives
rise to it and He satisfies it; as was said to Daniel: "I am come to
show it to thee, because thou art a man of desires." (28) The gift of
fortitude comes here, in the midst of difficulties and
contradictions, to the assistance of the virtues of patience and longanimity; without it spiritual enthusiasm would die away like
sensible enthusiasm. This is the time when man must give heed to
what The Imitation says about the holy way of the cross: "Follow
Jesus, and thou shalt go into life everlasting. He is gone before
thee, carrying His cross. . . . If thou carry the cross willingly,
it will carry thee and bring thee to thy desired end. . . . And
sometimes he gaineth such strength through affection to tribulation
and adversity, by his love of conformity to the cross of Christ, as
not to be willing to be without suffering and affliction. . . . This
is not man's power but the grace of Christ, which doth and can
effect such great things in frail flesh, and that what it naturally
abhors and flies, even this, through fervor of spirit, it now
embraces and loves [i.e., to bear the cross]." (29)
Finally, the third sign which St. John of the Cross speaks of, "the
growing difficulty in meditating discursively," shows the influence
of the gift of understanding, the source of initial infused
contemplation, above reasoning.(30) In the same chapter of The Dark
Night,(31) the saint speaks in exact terms of this "beginning of
obscure and arid contemplation" by which God nourishes the soul
while purifying it and giving it strength to go beyond the figures,
to penetrate the meaning of the formulas of faith that it may reach
the superior simplicity which characterizes contemplation.(32)
St. Thomas also speaks clearly on this subject: "The other cleanness
of heart is a kind of complement to the sight of God; such is the
cleanness of the mind that is purged of phantasms and errors, so as
to receive the truths which are proposed to it about God, no longer
by way of corporeal phantasms, nor infected with heretical
misrepresentations; and this cleanness is the result of the gift of
understanding." (33) Thereby this gift preserves us from possible
deviations and makes us go beyond the letter of the Gospel to attain
its spirit; it begins to make us penetrate, beyond the formulas of
faith, the depths of the mysteries that they express. The formula is
no longer a term but a point of departure. This purifying influence
of the gift of understanding will be exercised especially in the
passive purification of the spirit, but even at this stage it is
manifest. Under the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, the soul
now makes an act of penetrating faith, which is called an infused
act, for it cannot be produced without this special inspiration.(34)
Thus there begins to be realized what St. Thomas also points out:
"But on the part of the soul, before it arrives at this uniformity
(of contemplation, symbolized by the uniformity of circular
movement, without beginning or end), its twofold lack of uniformity
needs to be removed. First, that which arises from the variety of
external things. . . and from the discoursing of reason. This is
done by directing all the soul's operations to the simple
contemplation of the intelligible truth," (35) a process which
begins to be realized in the passive purification of the senses.
Here, for example, a theologian will see the entire tract on
predestination and that on grace reduced to this simple principle:
"Since God's love is the cause of goodness in things, no one thing
would be better than another if God did not will greater good for
one than for another." (36)
St. Augustine, in treating of the degrees of the life of the soul,(37)
pointed out that the life of true virtue begins by a purification,
which he called "purificationis negotium. . . , opus tam difficile
mundationis animae." Such is, we believe, according to the great
masters,(38) the explanation of this state or period of transition,
which is manifested by the subtraction of sensible graces, but which
is in reality the beginning of infused contemplation, the threshold
of the mystical life, in which grace is given under a new form, more
freed from the senses, that it may spiritualize us, make us attain
the vivifying spirit under the letter of the Gospel, and cause us
truly to live by it.(39)
NOTE
To distinguish neurasthenia from the passive purifications, we
should note that the most frequent symptoms in neurasthenics are the
following: almost continual fatigue, even when they have not worked,
accompanied by a feeling of prostration, of discouragement; habitual
headaches (the sensation of wearing a helmet, a leaden cap; dull
pains at the nape of the neck or in the spinal column); insomnia, to
such an extent that the neurasthenic wakes up more tired than when
he went to bed; difficulty in exercising the intellectual faculties
and in maintaining attention; impressionability
(intense emotions for very slight causes), which leads the sufferer
to believe that he has illnesses that he does not really have;
excessive self-analysis even to minute details, continual
preoccupation not to become ill.(40)
Neurasthenics are, however, not imaginary invalids; the
powerlessness they experience is real, and it would be very
imprudent to urge them to disregard their fatigue and work to the
limit of their strength. What they lack is not will, but power.
The causes of neurasthenia may be organic like infections, endocrine
or liver troubles, pre-paralysis; but often the causes are also
psychical: intellectual overloading, moral worries, painful
emotions, which constitute too heavy a load for the nervous system.
Even in these last cases, where the cause of the disease is mental,
the illness itself affects the organism. For this reason
neurasthenics must absolutely be made to rest; and they must be
progressively led to perform easy tasks proportionate to their
strength, and be encouraged.
We should also note that psychoneuroses may be associated with a
developed intellectual life and a lofty moral life. Consequently we
see, as St. John of the Cross pointed out in speaking of the three
signs of the passive night of the senses, that this night may exist
simultaneously with melancholia, or neurasthenia as it is called
today. But we see also that the passive night is distinguished from
this state of nervous fatigue by the second sign (the soul
ordinarily keeps the memory of God with solicitude and painful
anxiety for fear it may be falling back), and by the third sign (the
quasi-impossibility to meditate, but the ability to keep a simple
and loving gaze on God, the beginning of infused contemplation). The
ardent desire for God and for perfection, which is manifested by
these signs, distinguishes notably this passive purification from
neurasthenia which may sometimes co-exist with it.
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1. The Dark Night of the Soul, Bk. I, chap. 8.
2.
Ibid., chap. 14.
3. Ibid., chaps. 2-9.
4. Cf. St. Thomas, IIa IIae, q.35.
5. Ibid., a.4; q.36, a.4.
6. The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 2.
7. Ibid.
8. We cannot admit, as some have held, that the beginners in question
here
have already reached the ordinary unitive way by active purification,
and that they merit the name of beginners only from a special point of
view, since they are setting out, not on the interior way but on the
passive ways, considered as more or less extraordinary, outside the
normal way. The defects of which St. John of the Cross has just spoken
show that real beginners are meant here. He does not employ a special
vocabulary; his is the traditional terminology, taken in its full and
undiminished meaning.
In these chapters of The Dark Night (Bk. I, chaps. 9 f.), where he
deals with the passive night of the senses, St. John of the Cross
always says "the beginners who are thus tried." We see thereby how
greatly deceived they are who wish to place this passive purification
of the senses not at the entrance to the illuminative way, as St. John
of the Cross himself says it is (ibid., chap. 14), but in the middle
of the unitive way and after one has been following this way for a
notable period of time.
9. They are what St. Thomas calls reliquiae peccati, which extreme
unction
should cause to disappear before death. Cf. Supplement, q. 30, a. I.
10. The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 3.
11. Luke 9:23.
12. This period of transition has been rightly compared to what
happens in children when they are weaned in order that they may have
more solid food. They miss the savor of the milk which they are deprived of, and they are not yet accustomed to the taste of the new food
that is given them.
13. Evidently all that St. John says links up rationally; it is also
clear that we
have to do here with a normal progress of the spiritual life and not
something
extraordinary, like visions, revelations, or the stigmata.
It is likewise patent that the soul, which until now has meditated
according
to a reasoned and somewhat mechanical method, should experience the
need of a more simple, profound, lively, and loving view of the things of
God. It is explicable that it is hardly possible for the soul to return, at
least habitually,
to a reasoned meditation in three points. Likewise if, after a child
begins to
read little poems and stories, they are taken away from him and he is
put at deciphering the alphabet or spelling out words, he would be unable
to tolerate this. He has gone beyond the simple stage. There is no longer
any interest for him or any life in spelling since he knows how to read
fluently.
Life advances, and a man's life cannot be reduced to what it was ten
years
earlier; the same is true in the spiritual life.
14. The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 9.
15. Ibid. In The Ascent of Mount Carmel (Bk. II, chaps. 13f.), St.
John of the Cross had already indicated these three signs in order to
point out the suitable time to pass from discursive meditation to
contemplation; and even in the Ascent he was speaking of infused
contemplation, for in chapter 14 he says that contemplation "is that
general knowledge, wherein the spiritual powers of the soul, memory,
understanding, and will, are exerted. This general knowledge. . . is
at times so subtle and delicate. . . that the soul, though in the
practice thereof, is not observant or conscious of it." In chapter 15
the saint says: "But when this state is attained to, meditation
ceases, and the faculties labor no more; for then we may rather say
that intelligence and sweetness are wrought in the soul, and that it
itself abstains from every effort, except only that it attends
lovingly upon God, without any desire to feel or see anything further
than to be in the hands of God, who now communicates Himself to the
soul, thus passive, as the light of the sun to Him whose eyes are
opened." The state described in the passage just quoted is not
different from that described in The Dark Night (Bk. I, chap. 9).
As is increasingly admitted today, and as the first commentators held
(d. "Saint Jean de la Croix," Diet. de theol. cath.), these chapters
of The Ascent do not describe a state which precedes in time that
which The Dark Night speaks of (ibid.); rather, they show its active
aspect, the conduct to be followed then, whereas The Dark Night shows
its passive aspect.
16. Cf. St. Thomas, Ia IIae, q. 68, a. 1-3.
17. Lib. I de sermone Domini in monte, chap. 4: "Those who weep are
they
who know by what evils they have been conquered, because they desired
them as goods." They weep over all that concupiscence and pride have
made them lose.
18. See IIa IIae, q.9, a.4.
19. Eccles. 12: 8.
20. Cf. The Imitation, Bk. III, chap. 42: "That peace is not to be
placed in
men; Without Me friendship can neither profit nor endure." Chap. 43:
"Against vain and worldly learning; Never read anything in order that
thou mayest appear more learned or more wise."
21. Le Royaume des amants de Dieu, chap. 18; L'Ornement des notes
spirituelles, Bk. II, chap. 5.
22. Cf. L'Ornement des notes spirituelles, Bk II, chap. 63, in which
the gifts
of fear, piety, and knowledge, and their purifying influence are
discussed.
23. The Dark Night, Bk. I, chap. 9.
24.Cf. IIa IIae, q. 19, a.9, 12.
25. Ps. 118: 120.
26. Cf. IIa IIae, q. 19, a. 12.
27. Ibid., q. 139, a.2.
28. Dan. 9:23.
29. Bk. II, chap. 12. Ruysbroeck speaks in the same manner of the gift
of
fortitude in L'Ornement des noces spirituelles (Bk. II, chap. 64):
"By It man
wills to surmount every obstacle and to disregard all consolation in
order to
find Him whom he loves."
30. The beginning of superdiscursive contemplation interrupts
reasoning, which made use of the imagination. Then are produced
involuntary distractions of the imagination, which, not being
methodically occupied, wanders more or less until it grows drowsy,
falls asleep, when the power of the mind
(vis animae) will be wholly inclined toward loving contemplation in
the higher faculties.
These distractions of the imagination are not produced in the
theologian while he is reasoning, or in the preacher while he is
preaching; their reasoning would be arrested. They are produced at the
beginning of superdiscursive contemplation, which does not make use of
the linking of images, and the unoccupied imagination cannot by itself
become interested in the wholly spiritual object which is then in a
confused manner the object of the intellect.
31 Cf. Bk. I, chap. 9.
32. Cf. Ruysbroeck, op. cit., Bk. II, chap. 66: "The first radiation of
the gift
of understanding creates simplicity in the spirit," a participation in
the eminent simplicity of God.
33. Cf. IIa IIae, q.8, a.7.
34. Cf. Ia IIae, q.61, a.5: "Whether the cardinal virtues are fittingly
divided into social virtues, perfecting, perfect, and exemplar
virtues."
35. See IIa IIae, q. 180, a.6 ad 2um.
36. Cf. Ia, q.20, a.3 f.
37. De quantitate animae, Bk. I, chap. 33, fourth step: The life of
true virtue. De sermone in monte, where he compares the seven gifts with the
evangelical
beatitudes.
38. Cf. St. Gregory, Moral., XXIV, chap. 6; X, chaps. 10, 17;
In Ezech.,
Bk. II, homil. II, 2, 3, 13. Hugh of St. Victor, Homil. I in Eccli. The
Imitation of
Christ Bk. III, chap. 31: This chapter offers a good summary of what
we have
just said and shows why there are so few contemplatives: because there
are
so few men detached from the things of the world.
39. What we have just said may be summed up in the following table,
which
should be read from the bottom up:
|
Signs of the passive purification
of the senses |
Psychological Description
According to St. John of the Cross |
Theological Explanation By the Gifts of the Holy Ghost |
| 3. Great difficulty in meditating
discursively, an attraction for the simple affective gaze toward God. |
Inspiration of the gift of understanding, beginning of infused
contemplation. |
| 2. Keen desire to serve God, thirst
for justice, and fear of sin. Resistance to temptations. |
Inspiration of the gift of fortitude,
which in the midst of difficulties preserves the hunger and thrist
for justice, and influence of the gift of fear to resist
temptations. |
| 1. Sensible aridity, no consolation
in the things of God, or in created things. |
Inspiration of the gift of knowledge,
which shows the vanity and emptiness of everthing created, the
gravity of sin, whence the tears of true contrition. |
40. Cf. R. de Sinety, Psychopathologie et direction, 1934, pp. 66-87.
|
