I Introduction
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
THIS work is based on the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas and of St. John of the Cross. St. Thomas, "Doctor Communis" as he is called in Pius XI's encyclical Studiorum ducem, is preeminent among theologians because he attained to the heights of acquired and infused wisdom. To explain the secrets of this twofold wisdom, he received in a very high degree the special grace which St. Paul calls sermo sapientiae. By acquired wisdom he marvelously synthesized the knowledge of the philosopher and that of the theologian, and the gift of wisdom raised him to the highest degree of infused contemplation. Often accompanied by ecstasy and the gift of tears, it taught him what human language could not express. It was this infused contemplation which prevented him from dictating the end of the Summa theologica; what he could put in words seemed to him only straw in comparison with what he beheld.1
The encyclical Studiorum ducem, by presenting St. Thomas to us as the undisputed master of dogmatic and moral theology, and also of ascetical and mystical theology, draws particular attention to a beautiful doctrine, which we have developed at length in this book (chaps. 4-6), namely, that the precept of the love of God has no limit and that the perfection of charity falls under this precept, not, of course, as something to be realized immediately, but as the end toward which every Christian must tend according to his condition.2
St. Francis de Sales taught the same doctrine, which has often been misunderstood, although it was clearly formulated by the fathers of the Church, in particular by St Augustine.3
St. Thomas, in his treatise on the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, sets forth particularly their nature and properties. St. John of the Cross explains the various phases of their progress, up to their perfect development. Among spiritual authors, we have taken him as our guide: (1) He is certainly one of the greatest Catholic mystics. (2) He is canonized, and his doctrine, which underwent the test of criticism and was examined by the Church, is perfectly sound. (3) Coming as he did in the sixteenth century, he benefited by all the earlier tradition, especially by the works of St. Teresa, which he knew thoroughly and explained by connecting the mystical states she experienced and described with the supernatural principles from which they proceeded; especially with the theological virtues and with the gifts of the Holy Ghost, which had attained their full development in her. Thus he goes beyond even St. Teresa and as a theologian treats very lofty problems on which she wrote but little. In so doing, he unites the data of descriptive mysticism and the speculative theology of the virtues and gifts. (4) St. John of the Cross, like all Carmelite theologians, is fully in accord with St. Thomas on the great questions of predestination and grace.4
The doctrine of these teachers is the safe expression of tradition, as we shall see by comparing it with that of the doctors who preceded them and of those who followed them.
Our aim is to explain the unitive way, that we may lead souls to aspire to it, and may encourage them to make generous efforts to attain it.
Some persons talk about mysticism, but misunderstand it and abuse it. These persons must be enlightened by the sound teaching of theology. Others, far greater in number, are altogether ignorant of mysticism and apparently wish to remain so. They rely only on their own efforts, aided by ordinary grace; consequently they aim only at common virtues, and do not tend to perfection which they consider too lofty. Hence religious and priestly lives, which might be very fruitful, do not pass beyond a certain mediocrity that is often due, at least in part, to their early imperfect training and to inexact ideas about the union with God to which every Christian can and must aspire.
Some, who should be well acquainted with the writings of the great saints, rarely consult them, under the pretext that their teaching on mysticism is beyond reach, that it leads to divergent interpretations, and that according to several theologians it is not possible as yet to determine in what their teaching consists, even along broad lines, and in particular on this fundamental question: Is the contemplation, which they speak of, in the normal way of sanctity or not?
Consequently in the matter of mystical theology a certain agnosticism exists, just as there is an agnosticism which maintains that true miracles cannot be discerned because not all the laws of nature are known, and that one cannot rely on the Scriptures because certain obscure passages of the Old and New Testaments have not been fully elucidated. We believe that this agnosticism about mystical theology is false, that it can do no good, and that it ends disastrously.
The teaching of St. Thomas and of St. John of the Cross on this problem seems very clear to us. If these great masters had left this important problem unsolved, the very elements of mystical theology would still have to be constituted.
Pope Benedict XV congratulated the editor of La vie spirituelle for making this doctrine known, and wrote to him as follows (September 15, 1921) : "In our day many neglect the supernatural life and cultivate in its place an inconsistent and vague sentimentalism. Hence it is absolutely necessary to recall more often what the fathers of the Church, together with Holy Scripture, have taught us on the subject, and to do so by taking St. Thomas Aquinas especially as our guide, because he has so clearly set forth their doctrine on the elevation of the supernatural life. We must also earnestly draw the attention of souls to the conditions required for the progress of the grace of the virtues and of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, the perfect development of which is found in the mystical life. This is exactly what you and your collaborators have undertaken in your review, in a manner at once learned and solid."
In the delicate questions that we have had to consider, in combating an error, it is not always easy to avoid alining oneself with the contrary error, and to formulate the doctrine which rises above these opposing deviations and which is a just mean only because it is a summit. If we have inadvertently employed any inexact expressions in this study, we retract them here and now, and declare that we reject all spirituality that deviates ever so little from that of the saints, which has been approved by Holy Church. That is why, as a rule, we have quoted only canonized mystics whose teaching is commonly received.
Our conclusions may be summed up in the table on the following page.5
This table gives some idea of the progress of doctrine on this subject from St. Augustine to St. Teresa, passing as it does from the general to the particular. St. Augustine made a distinction between the beginners, the proficients, and the perfect, a classification which, according to the terminology of Dionysius, corresponds to the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways. St. Thomas several times in his writings noted the corresponding progress of the virtues and the gifts, which are the principle of supernatural acts, in particular the degrees of humility.6 The passive purifications of the senses and of the spirit indicated by St. Gregory the Great were described by Tauler and especially by St. John of the Cross. The latter tells us 7 that in the passive purification of the senses "God begins to communicate Himself no longer by the senses as formerly, by means of reasoning . . . but in a manner purely spiritual, in an act of simple contemplation." Evidently we are here considering infused contemplation, as the saint already declared.8 We can understand why St. John says: "The proficients are in the illuminative way. It is therein God nourishes and fortifies the soul by infused contemplation."9
In another place he says: "The passive purification of the senses is common. It takes place in the greater number of beginners." 10 It is indeed the threshold of the mystical life, like the prayer of supernatural recollection described by St. Teresa.11 This prayer is often preceded by isolated acts of infused contemplation in the course of the acquired prayer of recollection described by the saint.12 In the illuminative way, the gifts of fear and of knowledge are clearly manifested (passive purification of the senses in which one recognizes the emptiness of created things) and also the gift of piety (quiet of the will in which this gift is found).
In this approximate table, we consider the ideal soul in an abstract manner. The illuminative and unitive ways are therein considered, not only in their imperfect form but in their plenitude, in the same way as they are considered by St. John of the Cross, who is a faithful echo of tradition.
This lofty perfection is that described by St. Augustine and St. Gregory; the perfection to which the twelve degrees of humility enumerated by St. Benedict or the seven degrees counseled by St. Anselm lead: (1) to acknowledge ourselves contemptible; (2) to grieve on account of this; (3) to admit that we are so; (4) to wish our neighbor to believe it; (5) patiently to endure people saying it; (6) willingly to be treated as a person worthy of contempt; (7) to love to be treated in this fashion.13
This great conception of Christian perfection and of the illuminative and unitive ways is the only one which seems to us to preserve all the grandeur of the Gospel and of the Epistles of St. John and St. Paul.
As we have just said, the precept of love knows no limit. "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; and thy neighbor as thyself." 14 Christ adds for all of us: "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect"; 15 and the whole Sermon on the Mount, which begins with the beatitudes, is a sort of commentary on this exhortation. To raise us to this perfection, "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, . . . and of His fulness we all have received." 16 The life of grace, which has been given to us, is the seed of the life of heaven, and is the same life in its essence. "Amen, amen I say unto you: He that believeth in Me, hath everlasting life." 17 The contemplation of the mysteries of Christ's life will be given to those who follow Him faithfully. "He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me. And he that loveth Me, shall be loved of My Father. And I will love him, and I will manifest Myself to him." 18 "I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you forever. . . . The Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you." 19
Love of neighbor, too, must go far. "A new commandment I give unto you: that you love one another, as I have loved you." 20 "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends." 21
Our Savior, to make us understand in what the perfection of charity consists, prayed for us thus: "Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, whom Thou hast given Me; that they may be one, as We also are. . . . And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have given to them; that they may be one, as We also are one." 22
St. Matthew's Gospel is not less sublime when it recalls these words of Christ: "I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones." 23
Lastly, St. Paul shows us all that the mystical body of Christ is and should be; how the Christian must be incorporated into Christ by a progressive sanctification, which gives a very broad idea of the three phases distinguished later on.
The purgative way. Incorporated in Christ, the faithful must orient their lives toward heaven and die more and more to sin. "Mortify therefore your members which are upon earth . . . stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds." 24 "For we are buried together with Him by baptism unto death. . . . For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed to the end that we may serve sin no longer." 25 "And they that are Christ's have crucified their flesh with the vices and concupiscences." 26 Moreover, the Apostles bore in their bodies "the mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in their bodies." 27 He who sacrifices his life, finds it again transfigured. "Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." 28
The illuminative way is also indicated by St. Paul, when he tells us that the Christian, by the light of faith and under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, must put "on the new, him who is renewed unto knowledge, according to the image of Him that created him. . . . Put ye on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience. . . . But above all these things have charity, which is the bond of perfection"29 We must imitate Jesus Christ and those who resemble Him; 30 we must have His sentiments, catch the spirit of His mysteries, of His passion,31 crucifixion,32 death, burial,33 resurrection,34 and ascension.35 St. Paul, moreover, suffers the pains of labor until Christ be formed in the souls of the faithful,36 until they be perfectly illuminated by the light of life. "Furthermore, I count all things to be but loss for the excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ, my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but as dung, that I may gain Christ." 37
The unitive way is that followed by the supernaturally enlightened Christian who lives in a union that is, so to speak, continual with Christ. "Therefore, if you be risen with Christ, seek the things that are above; where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. Mind the things that are above, not the things that are upon the earth. For you are dead (to the world); and your life is hid with Christ in God." 38 "And let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts, wherein also you are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God. All whatsoever you do in word or in work, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him." 39 Under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, such is indeed union with God, through Christ and the loving and delightful contemplation of the great mysteries of faith.40 It is the normal prelude to the beatific vision. "When Christ shall appear, who is your life, then you also shall appear with Him in glory." 41