THE THREE WAYS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange 

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 : THE LIFE OF GRACE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FIRST 
CONVERSION

The necessity of the interior life. 
The principle of the interior life. 
The beginning of eternal life. 
The importance of true conversion. 
The three periods of the spiritual life. 

CHAPTER 2 : THE SECOND CONVERSION: ENTRANCE INTO THE ILLUMINATIVE 
WAY

The second conversion of the Apostles. 
What our second conversion ought to be. The defects which render 
it necessary. 
The motives which must inspire the second conversion, and the 
fruits that derive therefrom. 

CHAPTER 3 : THE THIRD CONVERSION OR TRANSFORMATION OF THE SOUL: 
ENTRANCE INTO THE UNITIVE WAY

The Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles. 
The effects of the descent of the Holy Ghost. 
The purification of the spirit necessary for Christian perfection. 
Create A Clean Heart In Me, O Lord. []
The necessity of the purification of the spirit. 
How does God purify the soul in this third conversion?

PRAYER TO THE HOLY GHOST

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION TO THE HOLY GHOST

CHAPTER 4 : THE PROBLEM OF THE THREE STAGES OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
IN ASCETICAL AND MYSTICAL THEOLOGY

Statement of the Problem. 
Proposed Division of the Three Stages of The Spiritual Life. 
The transition from one stage to another in the Spiritual Life. 

CHAPTER 5 : CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE STAGES OF THE SPIRITUAL 
LIFE

Beginners. 
Proficients or progressives
The Perfect. 

CHAPTER 6 : THE PEACE OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD: A PRELUDE TO THE LIFE 
OF HEAVEN

The divine awakening. 
The Living Flame. 
Pax in veritate. 

NOTE ON THE CALL TO THE INFUSED CONTEMPLATION OF THE MYSTERIES OF 
FAITH

THE THREE WAYS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

BY Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

CHAPTER 1 : THE LIFE OF GRACE AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FIRST 
CONVERSION

THE interior life is for all the one thing necessary. It ought to 
be constantly developing in our souls; more so than what we call 
our intellectual life, more so than our scientific, artistic or 
literary life. The interior life is lived in the depths of the 
soul; it is the life of the whole man, not merely of one or other 
of his faculties. And our intellectual life would gain 
immeasurably by appreciating this; it would receive an inestimable 
advantage if, instead of attempting to supplant the spiritual 
life, it recognized its necessity and importance, and welcomed its 
beneficial influence -- the influence of the theological virtues 
and the gifts of the Holy Ghost. How deeply important our subject 
is may be seen in the very words we have used: Intellectuality and 
Spirituality. And it is important to us not only as individuals, 
but also in our social relations, for it is evident that we can 
exert no real or profound influence upon our fellow-men unless we 
live a truly interior life ourselves. 

The necessity of the interior life. 

The pressing need of devoting ourselves to the consideration of 
the one thing necessary is especially manifest in these days of 
general chaos and unrest, when so many men and nations, neglecting 
their true destiny, give themselves up entirely to acquiring 
earthly possessions, failing to realize how inferior these are to 
the everlasting riches of the spirit. 

And yet St. Augustine's saying is so clearly true, that 'material 
goods, unlike those of the spirit, cannot belong wholly and 
simultaneously to more than one person.' [1] The same house, the 
same land, cannot belong completely to several people at once, nor 
the same territory to several nations. And herein lies the reason 
of that unhappy conflict of interests which arises from the 
feverish quest of these earthly possessions. 

On the other hand, as St. Augustine often reminds us, the same 
spiritual treasure can belong in its entirety to all men, and at 
the same time to each, without any disturbance of peace between 
them. Indeed, the more there are to enjoy them in common the more 
completely do we possess them. The same truth, the same virtue, 
the same God, can belong to us all in like manner, and yet none of 
us embarrasses his fellow-possessors. Such are the inexhaustible 
riches of the spirit that they can be the property of all and yet 
satisfy the desires of each. Indeed, only then do we possess a 
truth completely when we teach it to others, when we make others 
share our contemplation; only then do we truly love a virtue when 
we wish others to love it also; only then do we wholly love God 
when we desire to make Him loved by all. Give money away, or spend 
it, and it is no longer yours. But give God to others, and you 
possess Him more fully for yourself. We may go even further and 
say that, if we desired only one soul to be deprived of Him, if we 
excluded only one soul -- even the soul of one who persecutes and 
calumniates us -- from our own love, then God Himself would be 
lost to us. 

This truth, so simple and yet so sublime, gives rise to an 
illuminating principle: it is that whereas material goods, the 
more they are sought for their own sake, tend to cause disunion 
among men, spiritual goods unite men more closely in proportion as 
they are more greatly loved. This principle helps us to appreciate 
how necessary is the interior life; and, incidentally, it 
virtually contains the solution of the social question and of the 
economic crisis which afflicts the world to-day. The Gospel puts 
it very simply: 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his justice, 
and all these things shall be added unto you.' If the world to-day 
is on its death-bed, it is because it has lost sight of a 
fundamental truth which for every Christian is elementary. 

The profoundest truths of all, and the most vital, are in fact 
those elementary verities which, through long meditation and deep 
thought, have become the norm of our lives; those truths, in other 
words, which are the object of our habitual contemplation. 

God is now showing men what a great mistake they make when they 
try to do without Him, when they regard earthly enjoyment as their 
highest good, and thus reverse the whole scale of values, or, as 
the ancient philosophers put it, the subordination of ends. As 
though in the hope of compensating for the poor quality of earthly 
goods, men are striving to increase their quantity; they are 
trying to produce as much as possible in the order of material 
enjoyment. They are constructing machinery with the object of 
increasing production at a greater profit. This is the ultimate 
objective. But what is the consequence? The surplus cannot be 
disposed of; it is wasted, and unemployment is the result. The 
worker starves in enforced idleness while others die of surfeit. 
The present state of the world is called a crisis. But in fact it 
is more than a crisis; it is a condition of affairs which, if men 
only had eyes to see, ought to be revealing, it ought to show men 
that they have sought their last end where it is not to be found, 
in earthly enjoyment -- instead of God. They are seeking happiness 
in an abundance of material possessions which are incapable of 
giving it; possessions which sow discord among those that seek 
them, and a greater discord according as they are sought with 
greater avidity. 

Do what you will with these material goods: share them out 
equally, make them the common property of all. It will be no 
remedy for the evil; for, so long as earthly possessions retain 
their nature and man retains the nature which is his, he will 
never find his happiness in them. The remedy is this, and this 
only: to consider the one thing necessary, and to ask God to give 
us saints who live only on this thought, saints who will give the 
world the spirit that it needs. God has always sent us saints in 
troubled times. We need them especially to-day. 

The principle of the interior life. 

It is all the more important to recall the necessity and the true 
nature of the interior life, because the true conception of it, as 
given to us in the Gospel, in the Epistles of St. Paul and in the 
whole of Tradition, has been partially obscured by many false 
ideas. In particular it is evident that the notion of the interior 
life is radically corrupted in the Lutheran theory of 
justification or conversion. According to this theory the mortal 
sins of the convert are not positively blotted out by the infusion 
of the new life of grace and charity; they are simply covered 
over, veiled by faith in the Redeemer, and they cease to be 
imputed to the person who has committed them. There is no 
intrinsic justification, no interior renewal of the soul; a man is 
reputed just merely by the extrinsic imputation of the justice of 
Christ. According to this view, in order to be just in the eyes of 
God it is not necessary to possess that infused charity by which 
we love God supernaturally and our fellowmen for God's sake. 
Actually, according to this conception, however firmly the just 
man may believe in Christ the Redeemer, he remains in his sin, in 
his corruption or spiritual death. [2]

This grave misconception concerning our supernatural life, 
reducing it essentially to faith in Christ and excluding 
sanctifying grace, charity and meritorious works, was destined to 
lead gradually to Naturalism; it was to result finally in 
considering as 'just' the man who, whatever his beliefs, valued 
and practised those natural virtues which were known even to the 
pagan philosophers who lived before Christ. [3]

In such an outlook, the question which is actually of the first 
importance does not even arise: Is man capable in his present 
state, without divine grace, of observing all the precepts of the 
natural law, including those that relate to God? Is he able 
without grace to love God the sovereign Good, the author of our 
nature, and to love Him, not with a merely inoperative affection, 
but with a truly efficacious love, more than he loves himself and 
more than he loves anything else? The early Protestants would have 
answered in the negative, as Catholic theologians have always 
done. [4] Liberal Protestantism, the offspring of Luther's 
theology, does not even ask the question; because it does not 
admit the necessity of grace, the necessity of an infused 
supernatural life. 

Nevertheless, the question still recurs under a more general form: 
Is man able, without some help from on high, to get beyond 
himself, and truly and efficaciously to love Truth and Goodness 
more than he loves himself?

Clearly, these problems are essentially connected with that of the 
nature of our interior life; for our interior life is nothing else 
than a knowledge of the True and a love of the Good; or better, a 
knowledge and love of God. 

In order fully to appreciate the lofty conception which the 
Scriptures, and especially the Gospels, give us of the interior 
life, it would be necessary to study a theological treatise on 
justification and sanctifying grace. Nevertheless, we may here 
emphasize a fundamental truth of the Christian spiritual life, or 
of Christian mysticism, which has always been taught by the 
Catholic Church. 

In the first place it is clear that according to the Scriptures 
the justification or conversion of the sinner does not merely 
cover his sins as with a mantle; it blots them out by the infusion 
of a new life. 'Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great 
mercy,' so the Psalmist implores; 'and according to the multitude 
of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity. Wash me yet more from 
my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.... Thou shalt sprinkle me 
with hyssop and I shall be cleansed; thou shalt wash me and I 
shall be made whiter than snow.... Blot out all my iniquities. 
Create a clean heart in me, O God; and renew a right spirit within 
my bowels. Cast me not away from thy face, and take not thy holy 
spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and 
strengthen me with a perfect spirit.' [5]

The Prophets use similar language. Thus God says, through the 
prophet Isaias: 'I am he that blot out thy iniquities for my own 
sake.' [6] And the same expression recurs throughout the Bible: 
God is not content merely to cover our sins; He blots them out, He 
takes them away. And therefore, when John the Baptist sees Jesus 
coming towards him, he says:' Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him 
who taketh away the sin of the world!' We find the same idea in 
St. John's first Epistle: [7] 'The blood of Jesus Christ... 
cleanseth us from all sin.' St. Paul writes, similarly, in his 
first Epistle to the Corinthians :[8] 'Not the effeminate nor the 
impure nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor railers nor 
extortioners shall possess the kingdom of God. And such some of 
you were. But you are washed; but you are sanctified; but you are 
justified; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of 
our God.' 

If it were true that by conversion sins were only veiled, and not 
blotted out, it would follow that a man is at once both just and 
ungodly, both justified, and yet still in the state of sin. God 
would love the sinner as His friend, despite the corruption of his 
soul, which He is apparently incapable of healing. The Saviour 
would not have taken away the sins of the world if He had not 
delivered the just man from the servitude of sin. Again, for the 
Christian these truths are elementary; the profound understanding 
of them, the continual and quasi-experimental living of them, is 
what we call the contemplation of the saints. 

The blotting out and remission of sins thus described by the 
Scriptures can be effected only by the infusion of sanctifying 
grace and charity -- which is the supernatural love of God and of 
men for God's sake. Ezechiel, speaking in the name of God, tells 
us that this is so: 'I will pour upon you clean water, and you 
shall be cleansed from all your filthiness; and I will cleanse you 
from all your idols. And I will give you a new heart, and put a 
new spirit within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of 
your flesh and will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my 
spirit in the midst of you; and I will cause you to walk in my 
commandments.' [9]

This pure water which regenerates is the water of grace, of which 
it is said in the Gospel of St. John: [10] 'Of his fulness we have 
all received; and grace for grace.' 'By (our Lord Jesus Christ) we 
have received grace,' we read in the Epistle to the Romans 
;[11]... 'the charity of God is poured forth in our hearts, by the 
Holy Ghost who is given to us' ;[12] and in the Epistle to the 
Ephesians: 'To every one of us is given grace, according to the 
measure of the giving of Christ.' [13]

If it were otherwise, God's uncreated love for the man whom He 
converts would be merely an idle affection, and not an effective 
and operative love. But God's uncreated love for us, as St. Thomas 
shows, is a love which, far from presupposing in us any 
lovableness, actually produces that lovableness within us. His 
creative love gives and preserves in us our nature and our 
existence; but his life-giving love gives and preserves in us the 
life of grace which makes us lovable in His eyes, and lovable not 
merely as His servants but as His sons. (I, Q. xx, art. 2). 

Sanctifying grace, the principle of our interior life, makes us 
truly the children of God because it makes us partakers of His 
nature. We cannot be sons of God by nature, as the Word is; but we 
are truly sons of God by grace and by adoption. And whereas a man 
who adopts a child brings about no interior change in him, but 
simply declares him his heir, God, when He loves us as adoptive 
sons, transforms us inwardly, giving us a share in His own 
intimate divine life. 

Hence we read in the Gospel of St. John: [14] '(The Word) came 
unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as 
received him, to them he gave the power to be made the sons of 
God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, 
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.' 
And our Lord Himself said to Nicodemus [15] 'Amen, amen, I say to 
thee, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he 
cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the 
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 
Wonder not that I said to thee: You must be born again.'

St. John himself, moreover, writes in his first Epistle [16] 
'Whosoever is born of God committeth not sin; for God's seed 
abideth in him. And he cannot sin because he is born of God.' In 
other words, the seed of God, which is grace -- accompanied by 
charity, or the love of God -- cannot exist together with mortal 
sin which turns a man away from God; and, though it can exist 
together with venial sin, of which St. John had spoken earlier, 
[17] yet grace is not the source of venial sins; on the contrary, 
it makes them gradually disappear. 

Still clearer, if possible, is the language of St. Peter, who 
writes :[18] 'By (Christ) he hath given us most great and precious 
promises, that by these you may be made partakers of the divine 
nature' ; and St. James [19] thus expresses the same idea: 'Every 
best gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from 
the Father of lights, with whom there is no change nor shadow of 
alteration. For of his own will hath he begotten us by the word of 
truth, that we might be some beginning of his creature.' 

Truly sanctifying grace is a real and formal participation of the 
divine nature, for it is the principle of operations which are 
specifically divine. When in heaven it has reached its full 
development, and can no longer be lost, it will be the source of 
operations which will have absolutely the same formal object as 
the eternal and uncreated operations of God's own inner life; it 
will make us able to see Him immediately as He sees Himself, and 
to love Him as He loves Himself: 'Dearly beloved,' says St. John, 
[20] 'we are now the sons of God; and it hath not yet appeared 
what we shall be. We know that when it shall appear we shall be 
like to him, for we shall see him as he is.' 

This is what shows us, better than anything else, in what the true 
nature of sanctifying grace, the true nature of our interior life, 
consists. We cannot emphasize it too much. It is one of the most 
consoling truths of our faith; it is one of those vital truths 
which serve best to encourage us in the midst of the trials of our 
life on earth. 

The beginning of eternal life. 

To understand what our interior life is in itself and in its 
various phases, we must consider it not merely in its seed, but in 
its full and complete development. Now, if we ask the Gospel what 
our interior life is, it tells us that the life of grace, given to 
us in Baptism and nourished by the Eucharist, is the seed or germ 
of eternal life. 

According to St. Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount, 
preached by Christ at the beginning of His ministry, our Lord says 
to His hearers (and it is the burden of the whole of His 
discourse): 'Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.' He 
does not say: 'Be ye as perfect as the angels,' but 'as your 
heavenly Father is perfect.' [21] It follows, therefore, that 
Christ brings to men a principle of life which is a participation 
of the very life of God. Immeasurably above the various kingdoms 
of nature: the mineral kingdom, the vegetable, the animal kingdom, 
and even above the kingdom of man and above the natural activity 
of the angels, is the life of the kingdom of God. And this life in 
its full development is called, not the future life -- of which 
even the better among the pre-Christian philosophers spoke-but 
eternal life; a life measured, like that of God, not by future 
time, but by the one instant of motionless eternity. 

The future life of which the philosophers speak is a natural life, 
similar almost to the life of the angels; whereas eternal life, of 
which the Gospel speaks, is essentially supernatural, as much for 
the angels as for us. It is not merely superhuman, it is 
superangelic, truly divine. It consists in seeing God immediately 
as He sees Himself, and in loving Him as He loves Himself. This is 
the reason why our Lord can say to you: 'Be ye perfect as your 
heavenly Father is perfect' ; because you have received a 
participation in His inner life. 

While the Old Testament speaks of eternal life only in figure, 
under the symbol of the Promised Land, the New Testament, and 
especially the Gospel of St. John, speaks of it continually; and 
from that time forth it has become almost impossible to conclude a 
sermon without mentioning eternal life, as that supreme beatitude 
to which we are called and destined. 

But the Gospels, and especially the Gospel of St. John, tell us 
more about grace; we are told that grace is eternal life already 
begun. 

In the fourth Gospel our Lord is recorded as saying no fewer than 
six times: 'He that believeth in me hath eternal life.' [22] And 
it is not only in the future that he will have it, if he 
perseveres; in a sense he possesses it already: 'He that eateth my 
flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise 
him up in the last day.' [23] What is the meaning of these words? 
Our Lord explains them later: 'Amen, amen, I say to you: If any 
man keep my word he shall not see death for ever. The Jews 
therefore said: Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is 
dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest: If any man keep my word 
he shall not taste death for ever.... Whom dost thou make 
thyself?' It was then that Jesus said: 'Before Abraham was, I am.' 
[24]

What, then, does our Lord mean when He says: 'He that believeth in 
me hath eternal life'? He means: He that believes in Me with a 
living faith, that is, with a faith which is united with charity, 
with the love of God and the love of his neighbour, possesses 
eternal life already begun. In other words: He who believes in Me 
has within himself in germ a supernatural life which is 
fundamentally the same as eternal life. Our spiritual progress 
cannot tend in the direction of the life of eternity unless it 
presupposes the seed of it already existing in us, a seed of the 
same nature as the life towards which we are tending. In the 
natural order, the germ which is contained in the acorn could 
never grow into an oak tree unless it were of the same nature as 
the oak, if it did not contain the life of the oak in a latent 
state. The little child, likewise, could never become a man if it 
had not a rational soul, if reason were not already latent within 
it. In the same way, a Christian on earth could never become one 
of the blessed in heaven unless he had already received the divine 
life in Baptism. 

And just as it is impossible to know the nature of the germ 
enclosed within the acorn unless we study it in its perfect state 
in the oak tree, so we cannot know the life of grace unless we 
consider it in its ultimate development, in that glory which is 
the consummation of grace.' Grace, 'says the whole of Tradition,' 
is the seed of glory.' 

Fundamentally, it is always the same supernatural life, the same 
sanctifying grace and the same charity, but with two differences. 
Here on earth we know God supernaturally, but not in the clearness 
of vision; we know Him in the obscurity of faith. Moreover, while 
we hope one day to possess Him finally and definitively, here on 
earth it is always possible for us to lose Him by a mortal sin. 
But, in spite of these two differences, relating to faith and 
hope, it is the same life, the same sanctifying grace, and the 
same charity. And so our Lord said to the Samaritan woman: 'If 
thou didst know the gift of God and who he is that saith to thee: 
Give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he 
would have given thee living water.... He that shall drink of the 
water that I will give him shall not thirst for ever. But the 
water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water 
springing up into life everlasting.' [25] And in the Temple, on 
the last day of the feast of Tabernacles, Jesus stood and said in 
a loud voice, not merely for the benefit of privileged souls, but 
for all: 'If any man thirst let him come to me and drink He that 
believeth in me... out of his belly shall flow rivers of living 
water.' [26] 'Now this he said,' adds St. John, 'of the Spirit 
which they should receive who believed in him.' And in fact the 
Holy Ghost is called fons vivus fons vitae: the living fountain, 
the fountain of life. 

Again Jesus says: 'If any one love me he will keep my word (faith 
alone, then, is not enough), and my Father will love him, and we 
will come to him and will make our abode with him.' [27] Who will 
come? Not only grace, God's created gift, but the divine Persons 
will come: the Father and the Son, and also the promised Holy 
Spirit. Thus the Holy Trinity dwells in us, in the obscurity of 
faith, in very much the same way as It dwells in the souls of the 
saints in heaven who see It face to face. 'He that abideth in 
charity abideth in God, and God in him.' [28]

It is much more wonderful than any miracle, this supernatural 
life. A miracle is an exercise of the divine omnipotence by which 
God signifies that one of His servants speaks in His name, or that 
he is of eminent sanctity. But even the raising of the dead to 
life, the miracle by which a corpse is reanimated with its natural 
life, is almost nothing in comparison with the resurrection of a 
soul, which has been lying spiritually dead in sin and has now 
been raised to the essentially supernatural life of grace. 

Grace, then, is eternal life already begun within us, and this is 
why Christ says: 'The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. 
Neither shall they say: Behold here or behold there. For lo, the 
kingdom of God is within you.'[29] It is there, hidden within you, 
like the grain of mustard seed, like the leaven which will cause 
the whole of the meal to rise, like the treasure hidden in a 
field, like the source from which gushes a river of water that 
will never fail. 'We know,' says St. John, 'that we have passed 
from death to life, because we love the brethren' ; [30] and 
'these things I write to you that you may know that you have 
eternal life, you that believe in the name of the Son of God.' 
[31] And Christ, His beloved master, had said: 'This is eternal 
life: that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ 
whom thou hast sent.' [32]

St. Thomas expresses this doctrine in the brief statement: 'Gratia 
nihil aliud est quam quaedam inchoatio gloriae in nobis' : Grace 
is nothing else but a certain beginning of glory within us.' [33] 
And Bossuet says the same thing: 'Eternal life in its beginnings 
consists in knowing God by faith (united with charity); in its 
consummation eternal life consists in seeing God face to face, 
unveiled. Jesus Christ gives us both the one and the other, 
because He has merited it for us and because He is the source of 
it in all the members to which He gives life.' [34]

And therefore the Liturgy tells us, in the Preface used for the 
Mass of the Dead. 'Tuis enim fidelibus, Domine, vita mutatur, non 
tollitur' : 'From them that believe in thee, O Lord, life is not 
taken away; it is changed and transformed.' 

The importance of true conversion. 

We are thus able to appreciate something of the importance of true 
conversion, by which a man passes from the state of mortal sin to 
the state of grace. In the former state his energies were 
dissipated and he was indifferent in regard to God; now he loves 
God more than he loves himself, more than he loves anything else; 
at any rate he esteems God beyond all earthly things, even though 
his love of God may not be free from all selfish motives. The 
state of sin was a state of spiritual death; a state in which, 
more or less consciously, he made himself the centre of all his 
activities and the end of all his desires; in which he was 
actually the slave of everything, the slave of his passions, of 
the spirit of the world, of the spirit of evil. The state of 
grace, on the other hand, is a state of life in which man begins 
seriously to tend beyond himself and to make God the centre of his 
activities, loving God more than himself. The state of grace is 
entrance into the kingdom of God, where the docile soul begins to 
reign with God over its own passions, over the spirit of the world 
and the spirit of evil. 

We may well understand, therefore, how St. Thomas could write: 
'Bonum gratiae unius majus est quam bonum naturae totius universi' 
The lowest degree of grace in a soul, for example in that of a 
small child after its baptism, is of greater value than the 
natural goodness of the whole universe. This grace alone is worth 
more than all created natures together, including even the angelic 
natures. For the angels, too, stood in need, not of redemption, 
but of the gratuitous gift of grace in order to tend to the 
supernatural beatitude to which God called them. St. Augustine 
says that when God created the nature of the angels He also gave 
them the gift of grace: 'Simul in eis condens naturam et largiens 
gratiam ';[35] and he maintains that 'the justification of the 
ungodly is something greater than the creation of heaven and 
earth, greater even than the creation of the angels.' [36]

St. Thomas adds. 'The justification of the sinner is 
proportionately more precious than the glorification of the just; 
because the gift of grace more greatly transcends the state of the 
sinner, who is deserving of punishment, than the gift of glory 
transcends the state of the just man, who, by reason of his 
justification, is worthy of the gift of glory.' [37] There is a 
much greater distance between the nature of man, or even between 
the nature of the highest of the angels, and grace, than there is 
between grace itself and glory. No created nature, however 
perfect, is the germ of grace, whereas grace is indeed the germ or 
the seed of eternal life, semen gloriae. Hence when a sinner is 
absolved in the confessional, an event occurs which is 
proportionately of greater importance than the entrance of a just 
soul into heaven. 

This doctrine is expressed by Pascal in one of the finest pages of 
his Pensees, a page which summarises the teaching of St. Augustine 
and St. Thomas on this point: 'The infinite distance which 
separates bodies from spirits is a symbol of the infinitely more 
infinite distance which separates spirits from charity, for 
charity is supernatural. [38] The whole of the material creation 
together, the firmament, the stars, the earth and its kingdoms, is 
inferior to the least of the spirits; for he knows all this and he 
knows himself, whereas bodies know nothing. All bodies together, 
and all spirits together, and all that they can produce, are of 
less value than the smallest act of charity, because this is of an 
infinitely higher order. From all bodies together it would be 
impossible to extract a single thought, because a thought is of a 
higher order than they. From all bodies and all spirits together 
it would be impossible to extract one single act of true charity, 
because an act of charity is of the supernatural order.' [39]

Luther erred fundamentally, therefore, when he tried to explain 
justification, not by the infusion of a grace and charity which 
remit sin, but merely by faith in Christ, without works and 
without love; making it consist simply in the extrinsic imputation 
of the merits of Christ, an imputation which covers sins without 
destroying them, and thus leaves the sinner in his filth and 
corruption. According to his view there was no regeneration of the 
will by the supernatural love of God and men. We have seen, on the 
contrary, what is the teaching of the Scriptures and of Tradition. 
Faith and the extrinsic imputation of the justice of Christ are 
not sufficient for the justification or conversion of the sinner. 
He must be willing, in addition, to observe the commandments, 
above all the two great commandments of the love of God and the 
love of one's neighbour: 'If any one love me he will keep my word, 
and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our 
abode with him.' [40] 'He that abideth in charity abideth in God, 
and God in him.' [41]

According to the true teaching of Christ we are in an order far 
transcending natural morality. Our unaided reason tells us that it 
is our duty to love God, the author of our nature, and to love Him 
effectively, that is, by observing His commandments. But even this 
natural duty we are unable to fulfil without the help of God's 
grace, so weakened are our wills in consequence of original sin. 
Still less are we able by our natural powers alone to love God, 
the author of grace; for this love is of an essentially 
supernatural order, as supernatural for the angels as it is for 
us. 

Such is the supernatural life which we received in Baptism; and 
this is what constitutes our interior life. 

This beginning of eternal life, as we have called it, is a 
complete spiritual organism, which has to grow and develop until 
we enter heaven. The root principle of this undying organism is 
sanctifying grace, received in the very essence of the soul; and 
this grace would last for ever, were it not that sin, a radical 
disorder in the soul, sometimes destroys it. [42] From sanctifying 
grace, which is the germ of glory, proceed the infused virtues. 
First, the theological virtues, the greatest of which, charity, is 
destined to last for ever- 'Charity never falleth away,' says St. 
Paul, ... 'Now there remain faith, hope and charity, these three; 
but the greatest of these is charity.' [43] Charity will remain 
for ever, after faith has disappeared to make room for vision; 
after hope has been displaced by the everlasting possession of 
God, seen face to face. 

In addition to the theological virtues there are also the infused 
moral virtues, which perfect man in his use of the means of 
salvation, just as the former dispose him rightly in regard to his 
end. The infused moral virtues are like so many functions 
admirably adapted one to another, infinitely surpassing in 
perfection those of our physical organism; they are called- 
prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance... together with the 
other virtues which are associated with them. 

Finally, in order to supply the deficiencies of these virtues 
which, in the twilight of faith and under the direction of 
prudence, still act in too human a fashion, we are given the seven 
gifts of the Holy Ghost, who dwells in us. These are like the 
sails on a ship; they dispose us to receive obediently and 
promptly the breathing that comes from on high, the special 
inspirations of God; inspirations which enable us to act, no 
longer in merely human fashion, but divinely, with that alacrity 
which we need in order to run in the way of God, undismayed by any 
obstacles. 

All these infused virtues and gifts grow with sanctifying grace 
and charity, says St. Thomas ;[44] they increase together just as 
the five fingers of the hand, or the organs of our body, develop 
simultaneously. Thus it is inconceivable that a soul should 
possess a high degree of charity without possessing at the same 
time a proportionate degree of the gift of wisdom; whether this 
exist under a definitely contemplative form, or in a practical 
guise, more directly adapted to action. The wisdom of a St. 
Vincent de Paul is unlike that of a St. Augustine; but the one and 
the other are equally infused. 

In this way the whole of the spiritual organism develops 
simultaneously, though it may manifest its activity under various 
forms. And, from this point of view, since the infused 
contemplation of the mysteries of faith is an act of the gifts of 
the Holy Ghost, an act which disposes the soul to the beatific 
vision, must we not admit that such contemplation is in the normal 
way of sanctity?. -- We merely mention the question here, without 
insisting further upon it. [45]

Let us now examine more closely the full development of our 
eternal life in heaven, in order that we may better appreciate the 
value of that sanctifying grace which is its beginning. In 
particular let us compare it with what would have been our 
beatitude and our reward if we had been created in a purely 
natural state. 

If we had been created in a state of pure nature, with a spiritual 
and immortal soul, but without the life of grace, even then our 
intellect would have been made for the knowledge of the True and 
our will for the love of the Good. Our end would have been to know 
God, the Sovereign Good, the author of our nature, and to love Him 
above all things. But we should have known Him only in the 
reflection of His goodness in creatures, in the same way as the 
greatest among the pagan philosophers knew Him, though our 
knowledge would have been more certain than theirs, and free from 
any admixture of error. God would have been for us the First Cause 
and the Supreme Intelligence that orders all the things of 
creation. 

We should have loved Him as the author of our nature, with that 
love which a subject has for his superior. It would not have been 
a love of friendship, but rather a sentiment compounded of 
admiration, respect and gratitude, yet lacking that happy and 
simple familiarity which rejoices the hearts of the children of 
God. We should have been God's servants, but not His children. 

This natural end is already a sublime destiny. It could never 
bring satiety, just as the eye never tires of contemplating the 
blue vault of heaven. Moreover, it is a spiritual end, and 
therefore, unlike material goods, can be possessed at once by all 
and by each, without possession on the part of one being 
prejudicial to possession on the part of another, and thus without 
causing jealousy or discord. 

But this abstract and mediate knowledge of God would have left 
many obscurities in the human mind, especially as regards the 
mutual compatibility of the divine perfections. We should forever 
have remained at the stage of counting singly and enumerating 
these absolute perfections; we should forever have wondered how it 
was possible to reconcile the almighty goodness of God with His 
permission that evil should exist; an evil, too, which is 
sometimes so great as to disconcert the human mind. We should have 
asked ourselves, moreover, how His infinite mercy could be truly 
consistent with His infinite justice. Even though we enjoyed this 
natural beatitude, we should still be urged to say: 'If only I 
could see this God, who is the source of all truth and goodness; 
if I could see Him as He sees Himself!'

What the most brilliant of human minds, what even the intelligence 
of the angels could never have discovered, divine Revelation has 
disclosed to us. Revelation tells us that our last end is 
essentially supernatural and that it consists in seeing God 
immediately, face to face, as He is: sicuti est' (God) has 
predestinated (us) to be made conformable to the image of his Son; 
that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.' [46] 'Eye 
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the 
heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love 
him. [47]

We are destined to see God, not merely in the mirror of creatures, 
however perfect these may be, but to see Him immediately, without 
the intermediary of any creature, and even without the medium of 
any created idea; for no created idea, however perfect, could ever 
represent as He really is One who is Thought itself, infinite 
Truth, the eternally subsistent brightness of intelligence and the 
living flame of measureless Love. 

We are destined to see all the divine perfections concentrated and 
intimately united in their common source: Deity. We are destined 
to see how the tenderest Mercy and the most inexorable Justice 
proceed from the one Love which is infinitely generous and 
infinitely holy; how this Love, even in its freest choice, is 
identically one with pure Wisdom, how there is nothing in the 
divine Love which is not wise, nothing in the divine Wisdom which 
is not synonymous with Love. We are destined to contemplate the 
eminent simplicity of God, His absolute purity and sanctity; to 
see the infinite fecundity of the divine nature in the procession 
of the Three Persons: to contemplate the eternal generation of the 
Word, the 'brightness of (the Father's) glory and the figure of 
his substance,' [48] to see the ineffable breathing of the Holy 
Spirit, the issue of the common Love of the Father and the Son, 
which unites them in the most complete outpouring of themselves. 
The Good tends naturally to diffuse itself, and the greater the 
Good the more abundant and intimate is its self-giving. 

None can tell the joy and the love which this vision will produce 
in us, a love of God so pure and so strong that nothing will ever 
be able to destroy or in the slightest degree to diminish it. 

In no way, therefore, can we express more clearly the preciousness 
of sanctifying grace, or of the true interior life, than by saying 
that it is a beginning of eternal life. Here on earth we know God 
only by faith, and, while we hope one day to possess Him, we are 
able, unfortunately, to lose Him by sin. But, apart from these two 
differences, it is fundamentally the same life, the same 
sanctifying grace and the same charity, which is to last through 
all eternity. 

This is the fundamental truth of Christian spirituality. 
Consequently our interior life must be a life of humility, for we 
must remember always that the principle of that life, sanctifying 
grace, is a gratuitous gift, and that we need an actual grace for 
the slightest salutary act, for the shortest step forward in the 
way of salvation. It must be also a life of mortification; as St. 
Paul says, we must be 'always bearing about in our body the 
mortification of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be made 
manifest in our bodies' ; [49] that is to say: we must daily more 
and more die to sin and to the relics that sin leaves in us, so 
that God may reign more completely in us, even to the depth of the 
soul. But, above all, our interior life must be a life of faith, 
hope, charity, and union with God by unceasing prayer; it is above 
all the life of the three theological virtues and of the gifts of 
the Holy Ghost which accompany them: the gifts of wisdom, 
understanding, knowledge, piety, counsel, fortitude and fear of 
the Lord. In this way we shall enter into the mysteries of faith 
and relish them more and more. In other words, our whole interior 
life tends towards the supernatural contemplation of the mysteries 
of the inner life of God and of the Incarnation and Redemption; it 
tends, above all, towards a more intimate union with God, a 
preliminary to that union with Him, ever actual and perpetual, 
which will be the consummation of eternal life. 

The three periods of the spiritual life. 

If such is the life of grace, if such is the spiritual organism of 
the infused virtues and the gifts, it is not surprising to find 
that the development of the interior life has often been compared 
to the three periods or stages of physical life: childhood, youth, 
and manhood. St. Thomas himself has indicated this analogy: and it 
is an analogy which is worth pursuing, particular attention being 
paid to the transition from one period to the other. 

It is generally admitted that childhood lasts until the age of 
puberty, about fourteen; though early childhood, or infancy, 
ceases at the dawn of reason, about the age of seven. Youth, or 
adolescence, lasts from the age of fourteen to twenty. Then 
follows manhood, in which we may distinguish the period which 
precedes full maturity, about the age of thirty-five, and that 
which follows it, before the decline of old age sets in. 

A man's mentality changes with the development of the organism: 
the activity of the child, it has been said, is not that of a man 
in miniature, or of a fatigued adult; the dominant element in 
childhood is different. The child has as yet no discernment, it is 
unable to organize in a rational manner; it follows the lead of 
the imagination and the impulses of sense. And even when its 
reason begins to awaken it still remains to a great extent 
dependent upon the senses. So, for example, a child asked me one 
day: 'What are you lecturing on this year?' 'On man,' I replied. 

'On what man?' was the next inquiry. The child's intelligence was 
as yet unable to grasp the abstract and universal idea of man as 
such. 

Most important to be noticed, for the purposes of our present 
subject, is the transition from childhood to adolescence and from 
youth to manhood. 

The period of puberty, which is the end of childhood, about the 
age of fourteen, is characterized by a transformation which is not 
only organic but also psychological, intellectual and moral. The 
youth is no longer content to follow his imagination, as the child 
was; he begins 10 reflect on the things of human life, on the need 
to prepare himself for some career or occupation in the future. He 
has no longer the child's attitude towards family, social and 
religious matters; his moral personality begins to take shape, and 
he acquires the sense of honour and of good repute. Or else, on 
the contrary, if he passes unsuccessfully through this difficult 
period, he deteriorates and follows evil courses. The law of 
nature so ordains that the transition from childhood to youth must 
follow a normal development; otherwise the subject will assume a 
positive bias to evil, or else he will remain a half-wit, perhaps 
even a complete idiot, for the rest of his life. 'He who makes no 
progress loses ground.' 

It is at this point that the analogy becomes illuminating for the 
spiritual life. We shall see that the beginner who fails to become 
a proficient, either turns to sin or else presents an example of 
arrested spiritual development. Here, too, it is true that 'he who 
makes no progress loses ground,' as the Fathers of the Church have 
so often pointed out. 

Let us pursue the analogy further. If the physical and moral 
crisis of puberty is a difficult transition, the same is to be 
said of another crisis, which we may call the crisis of the first 
freedom, and which occurs at the stage where the youth enters 
manhood, about the age of twenty. The young man, having now 
reached his complete physical development, has to begin to take 
his place in social life. It will soon be time for him to marry 
and to become an educator in his turn, unless he has received from 
God a higher vocation still. Many fail to surmount this crisis of 
the first freedom, and, like the prodigal son, depart from their 
father's house and confuse liberty with licence. Here again the 
law ordains that the transition must be made normally; otherwise 
the young man either takes the wrong road, or else his development 
is arrested and he becomes one of those of whom it is said: 'He 
will be a child for the whole of his life.' 

The true adult is not merely a young man grown a little older. He 
has a new mentality; he is preoccupied with wider questions, 
questions to which the youth does not yet advert. He understands 
the younger generation, but the younger generation does not 
understand him; conversation between them on certain subjects, 
except of a very superficial kind, is impossible. 

There is a somewhat similar relation, in the spiritual life, 
between the proficient and the perfect. He who is perfect 
understands the earlier stages through which he has himself 
already passed; but he cannot expect to be understood by those who 
are still passing through them. 

The important thing to be noticed is that, just as there is the 
crisis of puberty, more or less manifest and more or less 
successfully surpassed, between childhood and adolescence, so in 
the spiritual life there is an analogous crisis for the transition 
from the purgative life of beginners to the illuminative life of 
proficients. This crisis has been described by several great 
spiritual writers, in particular by Tauler [50] and especially by 
St. John of the Cross, under the name of the passive purgation of 
the senses, [51] and by Pere Lallemant, S. J., [52] and several 
others under the name of the second conversion. 

Moreover, just as the youth has to pass through a second crisis, 
that of the first freedom, in order to reach manhood, so in the 
transition from the illuminative way of the proficients to the 
true life of union, there is a second spiritual crisis, mentioned 
by Tauler, [53] and described by St. John of the Cross under the 
name of the passive purgation of the spirit. [54] This, likewise, 
may be called a third conversion, or better, a transformation of 
the soul. 

None has better described these crises which mark the transition 
from one spiritual period to another than St. John of the Cross. 
It will be noticed that they correspond to the two parts of the 
human soul, the sensitive and the spiritual. they correspond also 
to the nature of the divine seed, sanctifying grace, that germ of 
eternal life which must ever more and more animate all our 
faculties and inspire all our actions, until the depth of the soul 
is purged of all egoism and surrendered entirely to God. 

St. John of the Cross, it is true, describes spiritual progress as 
it appears especially in contemplatives, and in the most generous 
among contemplatives, who are striving to reach union with God by 
the most direct way possible. He therefore shows us what are the 
higher laws of the spiritual life at their maximum of sublimity. 
But these laws apply in a lesser degree also to many other souls 
who do not reach so high a state of perfection, but are 
nevertheless making devoted progress, and not looking back. 

In the chapters which follow it will be our object to show that, 
according to the traditional teaching, beginners in the spiritual 
life must, after a certain period, undergo a second conversion, 
similar to the second conversion of the Apostles at the end of our 
Lord's Passion, and that, still later, before entering upon the 
life of perfect union, there must be a third conversion or 
transformation of the soul, similar to that which took place in 
the souls of the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. 

This distinction between the three periods or stages of the 
spiritual life is clearly of great importance, as those who are 
charged with the direction of souls well know. An old and 
experienced director who has himself reached the age of the 
perfect may have read but little of the writings of the mystics, 
and yet he will be able to answer well and readily the most 
delicate questions on the most sublime subjects, and he will 
answer in the words of the Scriptures, perhaps by quoting a 
passage from the Gospel of the day, without even suspecting for a 
moment how truly profound his answers are. On the other hand a 
young and inexperienced priest, himself only at the age of a 
beginner, will have little more than a book-knowledge and a verbal 
acquaintance with the spiritual life. 

The question with which we are concerned is thus in the highest 
sense a vital question; and it is important that we should 
consider it from the traditional point of view. If we do so 
consider it, we shall see how true is the saying of the ancients, 
that 'in the way of God he who makes no progress loses ground' ; 
and it will appear also that our interior life must, already here 
on earth, become the normal prelude to the beatific vision. In 
this deep sense our interior life is, as we have said, eternal 
life already begun: 'inchoatio vitae aeternae.' [55] 'Amen, amen I 
say to you, he that believeth in me hath eternal life, and I will 
raise him up in the last day.'[56]

CHAPTER 2 : THE SECOND CONVERSION: ENTRANCE INTO THE ILLUMINATIVE 
WAY

WE have seen that, comparable with the two crises which mark the 
transition from childhood to youth and from youth to manhood, 
there are also in the spiritual life two crises, one by which 
proficients pass into the illuminative way, and another by which 
the perfect reach the state of union. 

The first of these crises has been called a second conversion, and 
it is of this that we have now to speak. 

The liturgy, especially at periods such as Advent and Lent, speaks 
often of the need of conversion, even for those who are leading a 
Christian life. Spiritual writers also refer often to this second 
conversion, necessary for the Christian who, though he has thought 
seriously of his salvation and made an effort to walk in the way 
of God, has nevertheless begun once more to follow the bent of his 
nature and to fall into a state of tepidity -- like an engrafted 
plant reverting to its wild state. Some of these writers, such as 
the Blessed Henry Suso or Tauler, have insisted especially upon 
the necessity of this second conversion, a necessity which they 
have learned from their own experience. St. John of the Cross has 
profoundly pointed out that the entrance into the illuminative way 
is marked by a passive purgation of the senses, which is a second 
conversion, and that the entrance into the unitive way is preceded 
by a passive purgation of the spirit, a further and a deeper 
conversion affecting the soul in its most intimate depths. Among 
the writers of the Society of Jesus we may quote Pere Lallemant, 
who writes: 'Saints and religious who reach perfection pass 
ordinarily through two conversions: one by which they devote 
themselves to the service of God, and another by which they 
surrender themselves entirely to perfection. We find this in the 
case of the Apostles, first when our Lord called them, and then 
when He sent the Holy Ghost upon them; we find it in the case of 
St. Teresa, of her confessor, P. Alvarez, and of many others. This 
second conversion is not granted to all religious, and it is due 
to their negligence.' [57]

This question is of the greatest interest for every spiritual 
soul. Among those who dealt with it before St. John of the Cross 
we must count St. Catherine of Siena, who touches upon the subject 
repeatedly in her Dialogue and in her Letters. Her treatment, 
which is very realistic and practical, throws a great light upon 
the teaching which is commonly received in the Church. [58]

Following St. Catherine, we shall speak first of this second 
conversion as it took place in the Apostles, and then as it should 
take place in us; we shall say what defects render this conversion 
necessary, what great motives ought to inspire it, and finally 
what fruits it should produce in us. 

The second conversion of the Apostles. 

St. Catherine of Siena speaks explicitly of the second conversion 
of the Apostles in the 63rd chapter of her Dialogue. 

Their first conversion had taken place when Jesus called them, 
with the words: 'I will make you fishers of men.' They followed 
our Lord, listened with admiration to His teaching, saw His 
miracles and took part in His ministry. Three of them saw Him 
transfigured on Thabor. All were present at the institution of the 
Eucharist, were ordained priests and received Holy Communion. But 
when the hour of the Passion arrived, an hour which Jesus had so 
often foretold, the Apostles abandoned their Master Even Peter, 
though he loved his Master devotedly; went so far as to deny Him 
thrice. Our Lord had told Peter after the Supper, in words that 
recall the prologue of the Book of Job. 'Simon, Simon, behold 
Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But 
I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not; and thou being 
once converted confirm thy brethren.' To which Peter replied: 
'Lord, I am ready to go with thee both into prison and to death.' 
But Jesus warned him: 'I say to thee, Peter, the cock shall not 
crow this day till thou thrice deniest that thou knowest me.' [59]

And, in fact, Peter fell; he denied his Master, swearing that he 
did not know Him. 

When did his second conversion begin? Immediately after his triple 
denial, as we are told in the Gospel of St. Luke [60] 
'Immediately, as he was yet speaking, the cock crew. And the Lord 
turning, looked on Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the 
Lord, as he had said: Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me 
thrice. And Peter going out, wept bitterly.' Under the glance of 
Jesus and the grace which accompanied it, Peter's repentance must 
have been deep indeed and must have been the beginning of a new 
life for him

In connection with this second conversion of St. Peter it is well 
to recall the words of St. Thomas; [61] 'Even after a grave sin, 
if the soul has a sorrow which is truly fervent and proportionate 
to the degree of grace which it has lost, it will recover this 
same degree of grace; grace may even revive in the soul in a 
higher degree, if the contrition is still more fervent. Thus the 
soul has not to begin again completely from the beginning, but it 
continues from the point which it had reached at the moment of the 
fall.' In the same way, the climber who falls when he has reached 
half-way up the mountain-side, rises immediately and continues his 
ascent from the point at which he has fallen. [62]

Everything leads us to suppose that Peter's repentance was so 
fervent that he not only recovered the degree of grace which he 
possessed before, but was raised to a higher degree of 
supernatural life. Our Lord had allowed him to fall in this way in 
order to cure him of his presumption, so that he might be more 
humble and place his confidence in God and not in himself. 

St. Catherine writes in her Dialogue :[63] 'Peter... after the sin 
of denying My Son, began to weep. Yet his lamentations were 
imperfect, and remained so until after the forty days, that is 
until after the Ascension. (They remained imperfect in spite of 
the appearances of our Lord.) But when my Truth returned to me, in 
His humanity, Peter and the others concealed themselves in the 
house, awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit which my Truth had 
promised them. They remained barred in through fear, because the 
soul always fears until it arrives at true love. 'It was only at 
Pentecost that they were truly transformed. 

Yet even before the end of the Passion of Christ there was clearly 
a second conversion in Peter and the other Apostles, a conversion 
which was consolidated during the days that followed. After His 
resurrection our Lord appeared to them several times, enlightening 
them, as He did when He taught the disciples of Emmaus the 
understanding of the Scriptures; and in particular, after the 
miraculous draught of fishes, He made Peter compensate for his 
threefold denial by a threefold act of love. 'Simon, son of John,' 
He says to him, 'lovest thou me more than these? He saith to him: 
Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He saith to him: Feed my 
lambs. He saith to him again: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me. 
He saith to him: Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. He 
saith to him: Feed my lambs. He said to him the third time: Simon, 
son of John, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said to 
him the third time: Lovest thou me? And he said to him: Lord, thou 
knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. He said to him: 
Feed my sheep.' And then He foretold in veiled terms the martyrdom 
that Peter would undergo: 'When thou wast younger thou didst gird 
thyself and didst walk where thou wouldst. But when thou shalt be 
old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird 
thee and lead thee whither thou wouldst not.' [64]

The threefold act of love made reparation for the threefold 
denial. It was a consolidation of the second conversion, a measure 
of confirmation in grace before the transformation of Pentecost. 

For St. John, too, there had been something special just before 
the death of Christ. John, like the other Apostles, had abandoned 
his Master when Judas arrived with his band of armed men; but by 
an invisible and powerful grace Jesus drew the beloved disciple to 
the foot of the cross, and the second conversion of St. John took 
place when he heard the seven last words of the dying Saviour. 

What our second conversion ought to be. The defects which render 
it necessary. 

In the 60th and 63rd chapters of her Dialogue, St. Catherine shows 
that what happened in the case of the Apostles, our models formed 
immediately by the Saviour Himself, must happen, after a certain 
manner, in the case of each one of us. Indeed we may say that if 
even the Apostles stood in need of a second conversion, then still 
more do we. The Saint emphasizes especially the faults which make 
this second conversion necessary, in particular self-love. In 
varying degrees this egoism survives in all imperfect souls in 
spite of the state of grace, and it is the source of a multitude 
of venial sins, of habitual faults which become characteristic 
features of the soul, rendering necessary a veritable purging even 
in those who have, as it were, been present on Mount Thabor, or 
who have often partaken of the Eucharistic banquet, as the 
Apostles did at the Last Supper. 

In her Dialogue [65] St. Catherine of Siena speaks of this self-
love, describing it as 'the mercenary love of the imperfect,' of 
those who, without being conscious of it, serve God from self-
interest, because they are attached to temporal or spiritual 
consolations, and who shed tears of self-pity when they are 
deprived of them. 

It is a strange but not uncommon mixture of sincere love of God 
with an inordinate love of self. [66] The soul loves God more than 
itself, otherwise it would not be in the state of grace, it would 
not possess charity; but it still loves itself with an inordinate 
love. It has not yet reached the stage of loving itself in God and 
for His sake. Such a state of soul is neither white nor black; it 
is a light grey, in which there is more white than black. The soul 
is on the upward path, but it still has a tendency to slip 
downwards. 

We read in this 60th chapter of the Dialogue (it is God who 
speaks). 'Among those who have become My trusted servants there 
are some who serve Me with faith, without servile fear, it is not 
the mere fear of punishment, but love which attaches them to My 
service (thus Peter before the Passion). But this love is still 
imperfect, because what they seek in My service (at any rate to a 
great extent) is their own profit, their own satisfaction, or the 
pleasure that they find in Me. The same imperfection is found in 
the love which they bear towards their neighbour. And do you know 
what shows the imperfection of their love? It is that, as soon as 
they are deprived of the consolations which they find in Me, their 
love fails and can no longer survive. It becomes weak and 
gradually cools towards Me when, in order to exercise them in 
virtue and to detach them from their imperfection, I withdraw 
spiritual consolations from them and send them difficulties and 
afflictions. I act in this way in order to bring them to 
perfection, to teach them to know themselves, to realize that they 
are nothing and that of themselves they have no grace. [67] 
Adversity should have the effect of making them seek refuge in Me, 
recognize Me as their benefactor, and become attached to Me by a 
true humility.... 

' If they do not recognize their imperfection and desire to become 
perfect, it is impossible that they should not turn back.' This is 
what the Fathers have so often asserted: 'In the way of God he who 
makes no progress loses ground.' Just as the child who does not 
grow does not merely remain a child but becomes an idiot, so the 
beginner who does not enter upon the way of proficients when he 
ought to, does not merely remain a beginner, but becomes a stunted 
soul. It would seem, unhappily, that the great majority of souls 
do not belong to any of these three categories, of beginners, 
proficients or perfect, but rather to that of stunted souls! At 
what stage are we ourselves? This is often a very difficult 
question to answer, and it would perhaps be vain curiosity to 
inquire at what point we have arrived in our upward path; but at 
least we must take care not to mistake the road, not to take a 
path that leads downwards. 

It is important, therefore, to reach beyond the merely mercenary 
love, which often we unconsciously retain. We read in this same 
60th chapter: 'It was with this imperfect love that Peter loved 
the good and gentle Jesus, my only-begotten Son, when he 
experienced the delights of sweet intimacy with Him (on Mount 
Thabor). But as soon as the time of tribulation came all his 
courage forsook him. Not only did he not have the strength to 
suffer for Him, but at the first threat of danger his loyalty was 
overcome by the most servile fear, and he denied Him three times, 
swearing that he did not know Him.' 

St. Catherine of Siena, in the 63rd chapter of the same Dialogue, 
shows that the imperfect soul, which loves God with a love which 
is still mercenary, must do what Peter did after his denial. Not 
infrequently Providence allows us, too, at this stage to commit 
some very palpable fault, in order to humiliate us and cause us to 
take true measure of ourselves. 

' Then,' says the Lord, [68] 'having recognized the grievousness 
of its sin and repented of it, the soul begins to weep, for fear 
of punishment; then it rises to the consideration of my mercy, in 
which it finds satisfaction and comfort. But it is, I say, still 
imperfect, and in order to draw it on to perfection... I withdraw 
from it, not in grace but in feeling. [69]... This I do in order 
to humiliate that soul, and cause it to seek Me in truth... 
without thought of self and with lively faith and with hatred of 
its own sensuality.' And just as Peter compensated for his 
threefold denial by three acts of pure and devoted love, so the 
enlightened soul must do in like manner. 

St. John of the Cross, following Tauler, gives us three signs 
which mark this second conversion: 'The soul finds no pleasure or 
consolation in the things of God, but it also fails to find it in 
any thing created.... The second sign... is that ordinarily the 
memory is centred upon God, with painful care and solicitude, 
thinking that it is not serving God, but backsliding, because it 
finds itself without sweetness in the things of God.... The third 
sign... is that the soul can no longer meditate or reflect in its 
sense of the imagination.... For God now begins to communicate 
Himself to it, no longer through sense, as He did aforetime, by 
means of reflections which joined and sundered its knowledge, but 
by an act of simple contemplation, to which neither the exterior 
nor the interior senses of the lower part of the soul can attain.' 
[70]

Progressives or proficients thus enter, according to St. John of 
the Cross, 'upon the road and way of the spirit, which... is 
called the way of illumination or of infused contemplation, 
wherewith God Himself feeds and refreshes the soul.' [71]

While St. Catherine of Siena does not give so exact an analysis, 
she insists particularly upon one of the signs of this state: an 
experimental knowledge of our poverty and profound imperfection; a 
knowledge which is not precisely acquired, but granted by God, as 
it was granted to Peter when Jesus looked upon him immediately 
after his denial. At that moment Peter received a grace of 
enlightenment; he remembered, and going out he wept bitterly. [72]

At the end of this same 63rd chapter of her Dialogue we find a 
passage of which St. John of the Cross later gives a full 
development- 'I withdraw from the soul,' says the Lord, 'so that 
it may see and know its defects, so that, feeling itself deprived 
of consolation and afflicted by pain, it may recognize its own 
weakness, and learn how incapable it is of stability or 
perseverance, thus cutting down to the very root of spiritual 
self-love; for this should be the end and purpose of all its self-
knowledge, to rise above itself, mounting the throne of 
conscience, and not permitting the sentiment of imperfect love to 
turn again in its death-struggle, but, with correction and 
reproof, digging up the root of self-love, with the knife of self-
hatred and the love of virtue.' [73]

In this same connection the Saint speaks of the many dangers that 
lie in wait for a soul that is moved only by a mercenary love, 
saying that souls which are imperfect desire to follow the Father 
alone, without passing by the way of Christ crucified, because 
they have no desire to suffer. [74]

The motives which must inspire the second conversion, and the 
fruits that derive therefrom. 

The first motive is expressed in the greatest commandment, which 
knows no limits: '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.' [75] This commandment requires the love of God for 
His own sake, and not from self-interest or attachment to our own 
personal satisfaction; it demands, moreover, that we love God with 
all our strength in the hour of trial, so that we may finally 
arrive at the stage of loving Him with our whole mind, when our 
love will be unaffected by the ebb and flow of sensibility and we 
shall be of those who 'adore in spirit and in truth.' Furthermore, 
this commandment is absolute and without limits: the end for which 
all Christians are required to strive is the perfection of 
charity, each in his own condition and state of life, whether it 
be in the state of marriage or in the priestly or the religious 
life. 

St. Catherine of Siena emphasizes this in the 11th and 47th 
chapters of her Dialogue, reminding us that we can only perfectly 
fulfil the commandment of love towards God and our neighbour if we 
have the spirit of the counsels, that is to say, the spirit of 
detachment from earthly goods, which, in the words of St. Paul, we 
must use as though we used them not. 

The great motive of the second conversion is thus described in the 
60th chapter: 'Such souls should leave their mercenary love and 
become sons, and serve Me irrespective of their own personal 
advantage. I am the rewarder of every labour, and I render to 
every man according to his condition and according to his works. 
Wherefore, if these souls do not abandon the exercise of holy 
prayer and their other good works, but continue with perseverance 
to increase their virtues, they will arrive at the state of filial 
love, because I respond to them with the same love with which they 
love Me; so that if they love Me as a servant loves his master, I 
pay them their wages according to their deserts, but I do not 
reveal myself to them, because secrets are revealed to a friend 
who has become one thing with his friend, and not to a servant.... 

' But if My servants, through displeasure at their imperfection 
and through love of virtue, dig up with hatred the root of 
spiritual self-love, and mount to the throne of conscience, 
reasoning with themselves so as to quell the motions of servile 
fear in their heart, and to correct mercenary love by the light of 
holy faith, they will be so pleasing to Me that they will attain 
to the love of the friend. And I will manifest Myself to them, as 
My Truth said in these words- "He who loves me shall be one thing 
with me and I with him, and I will manifest myself to him and we 
will dwell together." [76]These last words refer to the knowledge 
of Himself which God grants by a special inspiration. This is 
contemplation, which proceeds from faith enlightened by the gifts, 
from faith united with love; it is a knowledge which savours 
mysteries and penetrates into their depths. 

A second motive which should inspire the second conversion is the 
price of the blood of the Saviour, which St. Peter failed to 
realize before the Passion, in spite of the words: 'This is my 
blood which is shed for you,' which Christ pronounced at the Last 
Supper. It was only after the Resurrection that he began to 
comprehend this. We read in the Dialogue 1 on this subject. 'My 
creatures should see and know that I wish nothing but their good, 
through the Blood of My only-begotten Son, in which they are 
washed from their iniquities. By this Blood they are enabled to 
know My truth, how in order to give them life I created them in My 
image and likeness and re-created them to grace with the Blood of 
My. Son, making them sons of adoption.' This is what St. Peter 
understood after his sin and after the Passion of Christ; it was 
only then that he appreciated the value of the Precious Blood 
which had been shed for our salvation, the Blood of Redemption. 

Here we have a glimpse of the greatness of Peter in his 
humiliation; he is much greater here than he was on Thabor, for 
here he has some understanding of his own poverty and of the 
infinite goodness of the most High. When Jesus for the first time 
foretold that he must go to Jerusalem to be crucified, Peter took 
his Master aside and said to Him: 'Lord, be it far from thee, this 
shall not be unto thee!' In speaking thus he had, all 
unconsciously, spoken against the whole economy of Redemption, 
against the whole plan of Providence, against the very motive of 
the Incarnation. And that is why Jesus answered him. 'Get behind 
me, Satan; thou savourest not the things that are of God but the 
things that are of men.' But now, after his sin and after his 
conversion, Peter in his humiliation has an understanding of the 
Cross, and he sees something of the price of the Precious Blood. 

And so we can understand why St. Catherine constantly speaks in 
her Dialogue and in her Letters of the Blood which gives efficacy 
to Baptism and to the other sacraments. At every Mass, when the 
priest raises the Precious Blood high above the altar, our faith 
in its redemptive power and virtue ought to become greater and 
more intense. 

A third motive which ought to inspire the second conversion is the 
love of souls which need to be saved, a love which is inseparable 
from the love of God, because it is at once the sign and the 
effect of that love. This love of souls ought in every Christian 
worthy of the name to become a zeal that inspires all the virtues. 
In St. Catherine it led her to offer herself as a victim for the 
salvation of sinners. In the last chapter but one of the Dialogue 
we read' Thou didst ask Me to do mercy to the world... Thou didst 
pray for the mystical body of Holy Church, that I would remove 
darkness and persecution from it, at thine own desire punishing in 
thy person the iniquities of certain of its ministers.... I have 
also told thee that I wish to do mercy to the world, proving to 
thee that mercy is My special attribute, for through the mercy and 
the inestimable love which I had for man I sent into the world the 
Word, My only-begotten Son.... 

' I also promised thee, and now again I promise thee, that through 
the long endurance of My servants I will reform My Spouse. 
Wherefore I invite thee to endure, Myself lamenting with thee over 
the iniquities of some of My ministers.... And I have spoken to 
thee also of the virtue of them that live like angels.... And now 
I urge thee and My other servants to grief, for by your grief and 
humble and continual prayer I will do mercy to the world.' 

The fruit of this second conversion, as in the case of Peter, is a 
beginning of contemplation by a progressive understanding of the 
great mystery of the Cross and the Redemption, a living 
appreciation of the infinite value of the Blood which Christ shed 
for us. This incipient contemplation is accompanied by a union 
with God less dependent upon the fluctuations of sensibility, a 
purer, a stronger, a more continuous union. Subsequently, if not 
joy, at all events peace, takes up its dwelling in the soul even 
in the midst of adversity. The soul becomes filled, no longer with 
a merely abstract, theoretical and vague persuasion, but with a 
concrete and living conviction, that in God's government all 
things are ordained towards the manifestation of His goodness. 
[77] At the end of the Dialogue God Himself declares this truth 
:[78] 'Nothing has ever happened and nothing happens save by the 
plan of My divine Providence. In all things that I permit, in all 
things that I give you, in tribulations and in consolations, 
temporal or spiritual, I do nothing save for your good, so that 
you may be sanctified in Me and that My Truth be fulfilled in 
you.' It is the same truth which St. Paul expresses in his epistle 
to the Romans: 'To them that love God all things work together 
unto good.' 

This is the conviction that was born in the soul of Peter and the 
Apostles after their second conversion, and also in the souls of 
the disciples of Emmaus when the risen Christ gave them a fuller 
understanding of the mystery of the Cross: 'O foolish,' He said to 
them, 'and slow of heart to believe in all things which the 
prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these 
things and so to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and 
all the prophets he expounded to them in all the Scriptures the 
things that were concerning him.' [79] They knew Him in the 
breaking of bread. 

What happened to these disciples on the way to Emmaus should 
happen to us too, if we are faithful, on the way to eternity. If 
for them and for the Apostles there had to be a second conversion, 
still more is such a conversion necessary for us. And under the 
influence of this new grace of God we too shall say: 'Was not our 
heart burning within us whilst he spoke in the way and opened to 
us the Scriptures?' Theology, too, helps us to discover the 
profound meaning of the Gospel. But the more theology progresses, 
the more, in a sense, it has to conceal itself; it has to 
disappear very much as St. John the Baptist disappears after 
announcing the coming of our Lord. It helps us to discover the 
deep significance of divine revelation contained in Scripture and 
Tradition, and when it has rendered this service it should stand 
aside. In order to restore our cathedrals, to set well-hewn stones 
into their proper place it is necessary to erect a scaffolding; 
but when once the stones have been replaced the scaffolding is 
removed and the cathedral once more appears in all its beauty. In 
a similar way theology helps us to demonstrate the solidity of the 
foundations of the doctrinal edifice, the firmness of its 
construction, the proportion of its parts; but when it has shown 
us this, it effaces itself to make place for that supernatural 
contemplation which proceeds from a faith enlightened by the gifts 
of the Holy Spirit, from a faith that penetrates and savours the 
truths of God, a faith that is united with love. [80]

And so it is with the question with which we are dealing, the 
truly vital question of our interior life in God. 

CHAPTER 3 : THE THIRD CONVERSION OR TRANSFORMATION OF THE SOUL: 
ENTRANCE INTO THE UNITIVE WAY

WE have spoken of the second conversion, which is necessary for 
the soul if it is to leave the way of beginners and enter upon the 
way of proficients, or the illuminative way. As we have seen, many 
authors hold that this second conversion took place for the 
Apostles at the end of the Passion of Christ, and for Peter in 
particular after his triple denial. 

St. Thomas remarks in his commentary on St. Matthew [81] that this 
repentance of St. Peter came about immediately, as soon as his 
Master had looked upon him, and that it was efficacious and 
definitive. 

Nevertheless, Peter and the Apostles were slow to believe in the 
resurrection of Christ, in spite of the account which the holy 
women gave them of this miracle so often foretold by Jesus 
Himself. The story they told seemed to them to be madness. [82]

Moreover, slow to believe the resurrection of the Saviour, they 
were correspondingly anxious, says St. Augustine, [83] to see the 
complete restoration of the kingdom of Israel such as they 
imagined would come to pass. This may be seen from the question 
which they put to our Lord on the very day of the Ascension: 'Lord 
wilt thou at this time again restore the kingdom of Israel?' But 
there was still much suffering to be undergone before the 
restoration of the kingdom; and that restoration would be far 
superior to anything that they suspected. 

And so spiritual writers have often spoken of a third conversion 
or transformation of the Apostles, which took place on the day of 
Pentecost. Let us see first what this transformation was in them, 
and then what it ought to be, proportionately, in us. 

The Apostles were prepared for their third transformation by the 
fact that from the time of the Ascension they were deprived of the 
perceptible presence of Jesus Himself. When our Lord deprived His 
Apostles forever of the sight of His sacred Humanity, they must 
have suffered a distress to which we do not perhaps sufficiently 
advert. When we consider that our Lord had become their very life 
-- as St. Paul says: 'Mihi vivere Christus est' -and that they had 
become daily more and more intimate with Him, they must have had a 
feeling of the greatest loneliness, like a feeling of desolation, 
even of death. And their desolation must have been the more 
intense since our Lord Himself had foretold all the sufferings 
that were in store. We experience something of the same dismay 
when, after having lived on a higher plane during the time of 
retreat, under the guidance of a priestly soul full of the spirit 
of God, we are plunged once again into our everyday life which 
seems to deprive us suddenly of this fulness. The Apostles stood 
there with their eyes raised up to heaven. This was no longer 
merely the crushing of their sensibility, as it was during the 
time of the Passion; it was a complete blank, which must have 
seemed to take from them all power of thinking. During the Passion 
our Lord was still there; now He had been taken away from them, 
and they seemed to be completely deprived of Him. 

It was in the night of the spirit that they were prepared for the 
outpouring of the graces of Pentecost. 

The Descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles. 

"All These Were Persevering In One Mind In Prayer, With The Women 
And Mary The Mother Of Jesus. 

The Acts of the Apostles give us an account of the event.' When 
the days of Pentecost were accomplished they were all together in 
one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a 
mighty wind coming; and it filled the whole house where they were 
sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues, as it were of 
fire, and it sat upon every one of them. And they were all filled 
with the Holy Ghost; and they began to speak with divers tongues 
according as the Holy Ghost gave them to speak.' [84]

The sound from heaven, like that of a mighty wind, was an external 
sign of the mysterious and powerful action of the Holy Spirit; and 
at the same time the tongues of fire which rested upon each of the 
Apostles symbolized what was to be accomplished in their souls. 

It happens not infrequently that a great grace is preceded by some 
striking perceptible sign which arouses us from our inertia; it is 
like a divine awakening. Here the symbolism is as clear as it can 
be. As fire purifies, enlightens and gives warmth, so the Holy 
Ghost in this moment most deeply purified, enlightened and 
inflamed the souls of the Apostles. This was truly the profound 
purging of the spirit. [85] And St. Peter explained that this was 
the fulfilment of what the prophet Joel had foretold: 'It shall 
come to pass in the last days (saith the Lord) I will pour out my 
Spirit on all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall 
prophesy.... And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call 
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.' [86]

the Holy Ghost already dwell in the souls of the Apostles, but by 
this visible mission [87] He came into them to increase the 
treasures of His grace, of the virtues and the gifts, giving them 
light and strength in order that they might be capable of 
witnessing to Christ even to the ends of the earth, and at the 
peril of their lives. The tongues of fire are a sign that the Holy 
Spirit enkindled in their souls that living flame of Love of which 
St. John of the Cross speaks. 

Then were the words of Christ fulfilled: 'The Holy Ghost whom the 
Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and 
will bring to your mind whatsoever I shall have said to you.' [88] 
Then the Apostles began to speak 'in divers tongues the wonderful 
works of God,' so that the foreigners who were witnesses of this 
marvel, 'Parthians and Medes, Elamites and inhabitants of 
Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia... Jews, 
Cretes and Arabians... were all amazed and wondered, saying... We 
have heard them speak in our own tongues.' [89] It was a sign that 
they were now to begin to preach the Gospel to the different 
nations, as our Lord had commanded them-' Go ye, and teach all 
nations.'[90]

The effects of the descent of the Holy Ghost. 

The Acts show us what were these effects: the Apostles were 
enlightened and fortified, and their sanctifying influence 
transformed the first Christians; there was a transport of intense 
fervour in the infant Church. 

First of all, the Apostles received a much greater enlightenment 
from the Holy Spirit regarding the price of the Blood of the 
Saviour, regarding the mystery of Redemption, foretold in the Old 
Testament and fulfilled in the New. They received the fulness of 
the contemplation of this mystery which they were now to preach to 
humanity for the salvation of men. St. Thomas says that 'the 
preaching of the word of God must proceed from the fulness of 
contemplation.' [91] This was most fully verified at that time, as 
we may see from the first sermons of St. Peter related in the Acts 
and from that of St. Stephen before his martyrdom. These words of 
St. Peter and St. Stephen recall the saying of the Psalmist: 'Thy 
word is exceedingly refined and thy servant hath loved it.' [92]

The Apostles and the disciples, men without education, were still 
asking on the day of the Ascension: 'Lord, wilt thou at this time 
restore the kingdom of Israel?' Jesus had answered: 'It is not for 
you to know the times or moments which the Father hath put in his 
own power. But you shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost 
coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem 
and in all Judaea and Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of 
the earth.' [93]

And now behold Peter. He who before the Passion had trembled at 
the word of a woman, who had been so slow to believe the 
resurrection of the Master, now stands before the Jews, saying to 
them with an authority that can come only from God: 'Jesus of 
Nazareth, a man approved of God by miracles and wonders and signs 
which God did by him in the midst of you... this same being 
delivered up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge [94] of 
God, you by the hands of wicked men have crucified and slain. Him 
God hath raised up [as David foretold].... This Jesus God hath 
raised again, whereof all we are witnesses... he hath poured forth 
this which you see and hear.... Therefore let all the house of 
Israel know most certainly that God hath made both Lord and Christ 
this same Jesus whom you have crucified.' [95] Herein lies the 
whole mystery of the Redemption. Peter now sees that Jesus was a 
willing victim, and he contemplates the infinite value of His 
merits and of the Blood which He shed. 

The Acts add that those who heard this discourse 'had compunction 
in their heart and said to Peter: What shall we do? Peter 
answered. Do penance and be baptized every one of you in the name 
of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins. And you shall receive 
the gift of the Holy Ghost. 'And so it came to pass, and on that 
day about three thousand persons were converted and received the 
sacrament of baptism. [96]

Some days later, Peter said to the Jews in the temple, after the 
cure of a man who had been lame from birth: 'The author of life 
you killed, whom God hath raised from the dead; of which we are 
witnesses.... Our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you 
crucified... this is the stone which was rejected by you the 
builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there 
salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven 
given to men, whereby we must be saved.' [97] In this enumeration 
of the graces of Pentecost we must notice chiefly, not the gift of 
tongues or other powers of this kind, but rather that special 
illumination which enabled the Apostles to enter into the depths 
of the mystery of the Incarnation, and more particularly of the 
Passion of Christ. This is the mystery of which Peter could not 
bear the prediction, when Jesus said that He was to be crucified: 
'Lord, be it far from thee; this shall not be unto thee.' And 
Jesus answered: 'Thou savourest not the things that are of God, 
but the things that are of men.' [98] Now Peter has an 
understanding of the things of God, and he contemplates the whole 
economy of the mystery of the redemptive Incarnation. And it is 
not only he who is thus enlightened. All the Apostles bear witness 
in like manner, and the disciples also, and the deacon, St. 
Stephen, who, before being stoned to death, reminded the Jews of 
all that God had done for the chosen people in the time of the 
Patriarchs, in the time of Moses and, since then, until the coming 
of the Saviour. [99]

But the Apostles were not only enlightened on the day of 
Pentecost, they were also strengthened and confirmed. Jesus had 
promised them: 'You shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost 
coming upon you.' [100] Fearful before Pentecost, they are now 
full of courage, even to the point of martyrdom. Peter and John, 
arrested and haled before the Sanhedrin, declare that 'there is no 
salvation in any other' than in Jesus Christ. Arrested again, and 
beaten with rods,' they went forth from the presence of the 
council rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer 
reproach for the name of Jesus. And every day they ceased not, in 
the temple and from house to house, to teach and preach Christ 
Jesus.' [101] They all bore testimony to Christ in their blood. 
Who had given them the strength to do this? The Holy Spirit, by 
enkindling the living fire of charity in their hearts. 

Such was their third conversion; it was a complete transformation 
of their souls. Their first conversion had made them disciples of 
the Master, attracted by the sublime beauty of His teaching; the 
second, at the end of the Passion, had enabled them to divine the 
fecundity of the mystery of the Cross, enlightened as it was by 
the Resurrection which followed it; the third conversion fills 
them with the profound conviction of this mystery, a mystery which 
they will constantly live until their martyrdom. 

The transformation which the Apostles had undergone is shown also 
in their sanctifying influence, in the transport of intense 
fervour which they communicated to the first Christians. As the 
Acts show, [102] the life of the infant Church was a life of 
marvellous sanctity; 'the multitude of the believers had but one 
heart and one soul'; they had all things in common, they sold 
their goods and brought the price of them to the Apostles that 
they might distribute to each according to his needs. They met 
together every day to pray, to hear the preaching of the Apostles, 
and to celebrate the Eucharist. They were often seen assembled 
together in prayer, and men wondered to see the charity that 
reigned among them.' By this,' our Lord had said, 'shall all men 
know that you are my disciples.' 

Bossuet has given an admirable description of the fervour of the 
first Christians, in his third sermon for the feast of Pentecost.' 
They are strong in the face of peril, but they are tender in the 
love of their brethren; the almighty Spirit who guides them well 
knows the secret of reconciling the most opposite tensions.... He 
gives them a heart of flesh... made tender by charity... and He 
makes them hard as iron or steel in the face of peril.... He 
strengthens and He softens, but in a manner all His own. For these 
are the same hearts of the disciples, which seem as diamonds in 
their invincible firmness, and which yet become human hearts and 
hearts of flesh by brotherly love. This is the effect of the 
heavenly fire that rests upon them this day. It has softened the 
hearts of the faithful, it has, so to speak, melted them into 
one.... 

' The Apostles of the Son of God had once disputed concerning the 
primacy; but now that the Holy Spirit has made them of one heart 
and one soul they are no longer jealous or quarrelsome. It seems 
to them that through Peter they all speak, that with him they all 
preside, and if his shadow heals the sick the whole Church has its 
part in this gift and praises our Lord for it.' In the same way we 
ought to regard one another as members of the same mystical body, 
of which Christ is the head, and, far from allowing ourselves to 
give way to jealousy or envy, we ought to rejoice with a holy joy 
in the good qualities of our neighbour; for we profit by them as 
the hand derives advantage from what the eye sees, or the ear 
hears. 

Such were the fruits of the transformation of the Apostles and the 
disciples by the Holy Spirit. 

But was the Holy Spirit sent to produce these marvellous fruits 
only in the infant Church? Evidently not. He continues the same 
work throughout the course of ages. His action in the Church is 
apparent in the invincible strength that He gives her; a strength 
which may be seen in the three centuries of persecution which she 
underwent, and in the victory that she won over so many heresies. 

Every Christian community, then, must conform to the example of 
the infant Church. What must we learn from her?

To be of but one heart and one soul, and to banish all divisions 
amongst us. To work for the extension of the kingdom of God in the 
world, despite the difficulties with which we are confronted. To 
believe firmly and practically in the indefectibility of the 
Church, which is always holy, and never ceases to give birth to 
saints. Like the early Christians we must bear with patience and 
love the sufferings which God sends us. Let us with all our hearts 
believe in the Holy Spirit who never ceases to give life to the 
Church, and in the Communion of Saints. 

If we saw the Church as she is in the most generous souls who live 
most truly the life of the Church, she would appear most beautiful 
in our sight, despite the human imperfections which are mingled 
with the activity of her children. We rightly lament certain 
blots, but let us not forget that if there is sometimes mud in the 
valley at the foot of the mountains, on the summits there is 
always snow of dazzling whiteness, air of great purity, and a 
wonderful view that ever leads the eye to God. 

The purification of the spirit necessary for Christian perfection. 

Create A Clean Heart In Me, O Lord. [103]

We have seen that the transformation of the Apostles on the day of 
Pentecost was like a third conversion for them. There must be 
something similar in the life of every Christian, if he is to pass 
from the way of proficients to that of the perfect. Here, says St. 
John of the Cross, there must be a radical purgation of the 
spirit, just as there had to be a purgation of the senses in order 
to pass from the way of beginners to that of proficients, commonly 
called the illuminative way. And just as the first conversion, by 
which we turn away from the world to begin to walk in the way of 
God, presupposes acts of faith, hope, charity and contrition, so 
it is also with the other two conversions. But here the acts of 
the theological virtues are much more profound: God, who makes us 
perform these acts, drives the furrow in our souls in the same 
direction, but much more deeply. 

Let us see now (I) why this conversion is necessary for 
proficients, (2) how God purifies the soul at this stage and (3) 
what are the fruits of this third conversion. 

The necessity of the purification of the spirit. 

Many imperfections remain even in those who have advanced in the 
way of God. If their sensibility has been to a great extent purged 
of the faults of spiritual sensuality, inertia, jealousy, 
impatience, yet there still remain in the spirit certain 'stains 
of the old man' which are like rust on the soul, a rust which will 
only disappear under the action of an intense fire, similar to 
that which came down upon the Apostles on the day of Pentecost. 
This comparison is made by St. John of the Cross. [104]

This rust remains deep down in the spiritual faculties of the 
soul, in the intelligence and the will; and it consists in an 
attachment to self which prevents the soul from being completely 
united to God. Hence it is that we are often distracted in prayer, 
that we are subject to sluggishness, to a failure to understand 
the things of God, to the dissipation of the spirit, and to 
natural affections which are hardly, if at all, inspired by the 
motive of charity. Movements of roughness and impatience are not 
rare at this stage. Moreover, many souls, even among those that 
are advanced in the way of God, remain too much attached to their 
own point of view in the spiritual life; they imagine that they 
have received special inspirations from God, whereas they are in 
reality the victims of their own imagination or of the enemy of 
all good. They thus become puffed up with presumption, spiritual 
pride and vanity; they depart from the true path and lead other 
souls astray. 

As St. John of the Cross says, this catalogue of faults is 
inexhaustible; and he confines his attention almost exclusively to 
those defects which relate to the purely interior life. How much 
longer would the catalogue be if we considered also the faults 
which offend against fraternal charity, against justice in our 
relations with our superiors, our equals or our inferiors, and 
those which relate to the duties of our state and to the influence 
which we may exert upon others. 

Together with spiritual pride there remains often in the soul 
intellectual pride, jealousy, or some hidden ambition. The seven 
capital sins are thus transposed into the life of the spirit, to 
its great detriment. 

All this, says St. John of the Cross, shows the need of the 
'strong lye,' that passive purgation of the spirit, that further 
conversion which marks the entrance into the perfect way. Even 
after passing through the night of the senses, St. John says, 
'these proficients are still at a very low stage of progress, and 
follow their own nature closely in the intercourse and dealings 
which they have with God; because the gold of their spirit is not 
yet purified and refined; they still think of God as little 
children, and feel and experience God as little children, even as 
St. Paul says, because they have not reached perfection, which is 
the union of the soul with God. In the state of union, however, 
they will work great things in the spirit, even as grown men, and 
their works and faculties will then be divine rather than human.' 
[105] Before this third conversion has taken place we may still 
say of these souls, in the words of Isaias, that their justices 
are as a soiled rag; a further, and final, purification is 
necessary. 

How does God purify the soul in this third conversion?

It seems that at first He strips the soul instead of enriching it. 
In order to cure the soul of all spiritual and intellectual pride, 
and to show it what dregs of poverty it still has within, He 
leaves the understanding in darkness, the will in aridity, 
sometimes even in bitterness and anguish. The soul then, says St. 
John of the Cross, after Tauler, must 'remain in the dark, in pure 
faith, which is dark night for the natural faculties.' [106] St. 
Thomas often points out that the object of faith is that which is 
not seen (fides est de non visis); it is dark. And the Angelic 
Doctor adds that it is impossible for anyone to believe and to see 
the same thing under the same aspect; because what is believed, as 
such, is not seen. [107] The soul has now to enter into the depths 
of faith and to rise to its heights, like the Apostles when they 
were deprived of the sensible presence of Christ after His 
ascension. As He Himself had told them: 'It is expedient to you 
that I go. For if I go not the Paraclete will not come to you; but 
if I go I will send him to you.' [108] St. Thomas gives an 
admirable explanation of these words in his commentary on St. 
John; he says that the Apostles, attached as they were to the 
humanity of Christ by a natural love, were not yet sufficiently 
filled with a spiritual love of His divinity, and therefore were 
not yet capable of receiving the Holy Ghost spiritually, as they 
must if they were to withstand the tribulations which they would 
meet when Jesus had deprived them of His perceptible presence. 

At first, then, God seems to strip the soul in this purification, 
as in the preceding; He seems to leave it in darkness and aridity. 
The motto of the soul must now be: 'Fidelity and abandonment.' It 
is now that the words of Christ will be fulfilled.' He that 
followeth me walketh not in darkness, but shall have the light of 
life.' [109] Especially illuminated now by the purging light of 
the gift of understanding, the soul begins, as St. Paul says, 'to 
search the deep things of God.' [110]

Now humility and the theological virtues are purged of all human 
alloy. The soul experiences more and more, without seeing it, the 
infinite purity and greatness of God, who transcends all the ideas 
that we can form of Him; it experiences likewise all the 
supernatural riches of the holy soul of Christ, which here on 
earth contained the fulness of grace, 'all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge.' [111] Like the Apostles on the day of Pentecost it 
has a glimpse of the depths of the mystery of the Incarnation and 
the Redemption; it perceives something of the infinite value of 
the merits of Christ who died for us on the Cross. The soul now 
has a sort of living knowledge, an experimental perception, of the 
supernatural world, a new outlook upon it. And by contrast the 
soul becomes more conscious of its own poverty. The chief 
suffering of a St. Paul of the Cross, of a Cure d'Ars, at this 
stage, was to feel themselves so distant from the ideal of the 
priesthood, which loomed now so great before them in the dark 
night of faith; while at the same time they understood better the 
great needs of those many souls that had recourse to them, 
imploring their prayers and their help. 

This third conversion or purification is, evidently, the work of 
the Holy Spirit, who illuminates the soul by the gift of 
understanding. As with a lightning-flash during the night He 
illumines the soul that He wishes to purify. The soul had said to 
Him so often.' Enlighten my eyes that I may never sleep in 
death';[112] 'O my God, enlighten my darkness' ;[113] 'Create a 
clean heart in me, O God, and renew a right spirit within my 
bowels. Cast me not away from thy face, and take not thy holy 
spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and 
strengthen me with a perfect spirit. I will teach the unjust thy 
ways... and my tongue shall extol thy justice.' [114]

The purified soul addresses to Christ those words which He Himself 
once uttered, and begs that they may be fulfilled in itself. 'I am 
come to cast fire on the earth; and what will I, but that it be 
kindled?'[115] This third purification comes about, as St. John of 
the Cross says, by 'an inflowing of God into the soul, which 
purges it from its ignorances and imperfections, habitual, natural 
and spiritual, and which is called by contemplatives infused 
contemplation or mystical theology. Herein God secretly teaches 
the soul and instructs it in perfection of love, without its doing 
anything or understanding of what manner is this infused 
contemplation.'[116]

This great purification or transformation appears under different 
forms, according as it is in pure contemplatives like a St. Bruno, 
or in souls dedicated to the apostolate or to works of mercy, like 
a St. Vincent de Paul; but in substance it is the same. In every 
case there is the purification of humility and the three 
theological virtues from every human alloy, so that the formal 
motive of these virtues takes increasing ascendancy over all 
secondary motives. Humility grows according to the process 
described by St. Anselm, and repeated by St. Thomas: '(I) To know 
that one is contemptible; (2) to feel affliction at this 
knowledge; (3) to confess that one is despicable; (4) to wish 
one's neighbours to know this; (5) patiently to endure their 
saying so; (6) to submit to being treated as worthy of contempt; 
(7) to like being so treated.' So we have the example of St. 
Dominic, who by preference went to those parts of Languedoc where 
he was ill-treated and ridiculed, experiencing a holy joy at 
feeling himself made like our Lord, who was humbled for our sake. 

Then the formal motives of the three theological virtues appear in 
all their sublime grandeur- the supreme Truth that reveals, Mercy 
ever ready to help, sovereign Goodness, ever lovable for its own 
sake. These three motives shine forth like three stars of the 
first magnitude in the night of the spirit, to guide us surely to 
the end of our journey. 

The fruits of this third conversion are the same as those of 
Pentecost, when the Apostles were enlightened and fortified, and 
being themselves transformed, transformed the first Christians by 
their preaching-as we learn from the Acts of the Apostles, where 
we are told of the first sermons of St. Peter and of St. Stephen's 
discourse before his martyrdom. 

The fruits of this third conversion are a true and deep humility, 
and a living faith that begins to relish and savour the mysteries 
of the supernatural order-as it were, a foretaste of eternal life. 
Moreover, it produces a firm and confident hope in the divine 
mercy, which is ever at hand to help us. To attain to this 
perfection of hope, one must, as St. Paul says, have hoped against 
hope. 

But the most perfect fruit of this third conversion is a very 
great love of God, a very pure and very strong love, a love that 
hesitates before no contradiction or persecution, like the love of 
the Apostles who rejoiced to suffer for the sake of our Lord. This 
love is born of an ardent desire for perfection, it is 'hunger and 
thirst after the justice of God,' accompanied by the gift of 
fortitude, which enables it to triumph over every obstacle. It is 
the perfect fulfilment of the commandment- 'Thou shalt love the 
Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul and with 
all thy strength and with all thy mind.' 

Henceforth the depth of the soul belongs completely to God. The 
soul has now reached the stage of living almost continually the 
life of the spirit in its higher part; it is now an adorer in 
spirit and in truth. The darkness of the night of faith is thus a 
prelude to the life of eternity: quaedam inchoatio vitae aeternae 
It is the fulfilment of the words of Christ: 'If any man thirst 
let him come to me and drink.... Out of his belly shall flow 
rivers of living water.' [117] This is the living water that 
springs up into eternal life, the water which Jesus promised to 
the Samaritan woman: 'If thou didst know the gift of God... thou 
perhaps wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee 
living water.... The water that I will give him shall become in 
him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.' 
[118]

PRAYER TO THE HOLY GHOST

Holy Spirit, come into my heart; draw it to Thee by Thy power, O 
my God, and grant me charity with filial fear. Preserve me, O 
ineffable Love, from every evil thought; warm me, inflame me with 
Thy dear love, and every pain will seem light to me. My Father, my 
sweet Lord, help me in all my actions. Jesus, love, Jesus, love 
(St. Catherine of Siena). 

(Anyone who has consecrated himself to Mary according to the 
formula of the Blessed Grignion de Montfort, and then also to the 
Sacred Heart, will find great treasures in a repeated consecration 
to the Holy Spirit. The whole influence of Mary leads us to 
intimacy with Christ, and the humanity of Jesus leads us to the 
Holy Spirit, who introduces us into the mystery of the adorable 
Trinity. )

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION TO THE HOLY GHOST

O Holy Ghost, divine Spirit of light and love, I consecrate to 
Thee my intellect, my heart, my will and my whole being for time 
and for eternity. 

May my intellect be ever docile to Thy heavenly inspirations and 
to the teaching of the Holy Catholic Church of which Thou art the 
infallible Guide. May my heart be ever inflamed with the love of 
God and my neighbour; may my will be ever in conformity with the 
divine will, and may my whole life be a faithful imitation of the 
life and virtues of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to whom, 
with the Father and thee, Holy Spirit, be honour and glory for 
ever. Amen. 

(Indulgence of 300 days once a day, applicable to the souls in 
Purgatory -- Pius X. This consecration may be renewed by repeating 
only the first paragraph of the form. )

CHAPTER 4 : THE PROBLEM OF THE THREE STAGES OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 
IN ASCETICAL AND MYSTICAL THEOLOGY

THIS chapter, written especially for theologians, will prove less 
useful for the majority of readers, who will find the substance of 
it explained more simply and easily in the following chapter. 

One of the great problems of the spiritual life is the question 
how we are to interpret the traditional distinction of the three 
ways, purgative, illuminative, and unitive, according to the 
terminology of Dionysius, or the way of beginners, of proficients, 
and of the perfect, according to an earlier terminology. 

Of this traditional division two notably different interpretations 
have been given, according as the infused contemplation of the 
mysteries of faith and the union with God which results from it 
were considered as belonging to the normal way of sanctity, or as 
extraordinary favours, not only de facto but also de jure. 

Statement of the Problem. 

The difference between the two interpretations may be seen if we 
compare the division of ascetico-mystical theology used until the 
second half of the eighteenth century with that given by several 
authors who have written since that time. It is evident, for 
example, if we compare the treatise of Vallgornera, O. P., Mystica 
theologia divi Thomae (1662), with the two works of Scaramelli, S. 
J., Direttorio ascetico (1751) and Direttorio mistico. 

Vallgornera follows- more or less closely the Carmelite, Philip of 
the Trinity. He likens the division given by him to that used by 
previous authors, and confirms it by appeal to certain 
characteristic texts of St. John of the Cross on the moment at 
which the passive nights of the senses and of the spirit generally 
make their appearance. [119] He divides his treatise for 
contemplative souls into three parts:

1. Of the purgative way, proper to beginners, in which he treats 
of the active purification of the external and internal senses, 
the passions, the intellect and the will by mortification, 
meditation and prayer, and finally of the passive purification of 
the senses, where infused contemplation begins and leads the soul 
on to the illuminative way, as St. John of the Cross explains at 
the beginning of the Dark Night. [120]

2. Of the illuminative way, proper to proficients, where, after a 
preliminary chapter on the divisions of contemplation, the writer 
treats of the gifts of the Holy Ghost and of infused 
contemplation, which proceeds especially from the gifts of 
understanding and wisdom, and which is declared to be a legitimate 
object of desire for all spiritual souls, as being morally 
necessary for the complete perfection of the Christian life. This 
second part of the work, after several articles dealing with 
extraordinary graces (visions, revelations, interior speech) 
concludes with a chapter of nine articles on the passive 
purification of the spirit, which marks the transition to the 
unitive way. This, likewise, is the teaching of St. John of the 
Cross. [121]

3. Of the unitive way, proper to the perfect, where the author 
deals with the intimate union of the contemplative soul with God 
and with its degrees, up to the transforming union. 

Vallgornera considers this division to be the traditional one, and 
to be truly in harmony with the doctrine of the Fathers, with the 
principles of St. Thomas and the teaching of St. John of the 
Cross, and with that of the great mystics who have written on the 
three periods of the spiritual life, and on the manner in which 
the transition is generally made from one to another. 

Quite different is the division given by Scaramelli and the 
authors who follow him. 

In the first place Scaramelli treats of Ascetics and Mystics, not 
in the same work, but in two distinct works. The Direttorio 
ascetico, twice as long as the second work, comprises four 
treatises: (I) The means of perfection; (2) the obstacles 
(purgative way); (3) the proximate dispositions to Christian 
perfection, consisting of the moral virtues in the perfect degree 
(the way of proficients); (4) the essential perfection of the 
Christian, consisting of the theological virtues and especially of 
charity (the love of conformity in the case of the perfect). 

This treatise of Ascetics hardly mentions the gifts of the Holy 
Ghost. And yet according to the common teaching of spiritual 
writers the high degree of perfection in the moral and theological 
virtues which is here described is unattainable without these 
gifts. 

The Direttorio mistico consists of five treatises: (I) An 
Introduction, on the gifts of the Holy Ghost and the gratiae 
gratis datae; (2) on acquired and infused contemplation, for 
which, as Scaramelli admits, the gifts are sufficient; 1 (3) on 
the degrees of obscure infused contemplation, from passive 
recollection to the transforming union. (Here, in Chapter XXXII, 
Scaramelli admits that several authors teach 1 Ch xiv. that 
infused contemplation may be desired humbly by all spiritual 
souls; but he comes to the conclusion that in practice it is 
better not to desire it unless one has received a special call to 
it: 'Altiora te ne quaesieris'); [122] (4) on the degrees of 
distinct infused contemplation (visions and extraordinary interior 
words); (5) of the passive purifications of the senses and of the 
spirit. 

It is surprising not to find until the end of this treatise on 
Mystics a description of the passive purgation of the senses, a 
purgation which, for St. John of the Cross and the authors above 
quoted, marks the entrance into the illuminative way. 

The difference between this new way of dividing ascetico-mystical 
theology and the old way obviously arises from the fact that the 
old authors, unlike the modern ones, maintained that all truly 
spiritual souls can humbly desire and ask of God the grace of the 
infused contemplation of the mysteries of the faith: the 
Incarnation and Passion of Christ, Holy Mass and Eternal Life, 
mysteries which are so many manifestations of the infinite 
goodness of God. They considered this supernatural and confused 
contemplation to be morally necessary for that union with God in 
which the full perfection of the Christian life consists. 

Hence it may be wondered whether the new division, as propounded 
for example by Scaramelli, does not diminish both the unity and 
the sublimity of the perfect spiritual life. When Ascetics are 
separated from Mystics in this way, do we sufficiently preserve 
the unity of the whole which is divided? A good division, if it is 
not to be superficial and accidental, if it is to be based upon a 
necessary foundation, must repose upon the definition of the whole 
which is to be divided, upon the nature of that whole. And the 
whole in question is the life of grace, called by tradition 'the 
grace of the virtues and gifts'; [123] for the seven gifts of the 
Holy Ghost, since they are connected with charity, are part of the 
supernatural organism, [124] and, as St. Thomas teaches, are 
necessary for salvation, a fortiori for perfection. [125]

Similarly, the new conception surely diminishes the sublimity of 
evangelical perfection, since this is dealt with under the head of 
Ascetics, without mention of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and 
without mention of the infused contemplation of the mysteries of 
faith and the union with God which results from that 
contemplation. While the new method of treatment emphasizes the 
necessity of ascetics, does it not at the same time degrade it, 
weakening the motives for the practice of mortification and for 
the exercise of the virtues, because it loses sight of the divine 
intimacy to which the whole of this work should eventually lead? 
Does it throw sufficient light upon the meaning of the trials, 
those prolonged periods of aridity, which generally mark the 
transition from one stage of the spiritual life to the other? Does 
not the new conception diminish also the importance and value of 
mysticism, which, if it is separated thus from asceticism, seems 
to become a luxury in the spiritual life of a few favoured ones, 
and a luxury which is not without its dangers? Finally, and above 
all, does not this conception debase the illuminative and unitive 
ways, by regarding them simply from the ascetical point of view? 
Is it possible for these two ways normally to exist without the 
exercise of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, proportionate to the 
exercise of charity and the other infused virtues? Are there six 
ways (three ascetical ways which are ordinary, and three mystical 
ways which are extraordinary), and not only three ways, three 
periods in the spiritual life, as the ancients maintained? Does it 
not seem that, if ascetics is divorced from the illuminative and 
unitive ways, it becomes simply an abstract study of the moral and 
theological virtues? Or, if the progress and perfection of these 
virtues is treated in concrete-as is done by Scaramelli -- is it 
not manifest, according to the teaching of St. John of the Cross, 
that this perfection is unattainable without the passive 
purifications and the operation of the gifts of the Holy Ghost? On 
this matter we shall do well to remember the words of St. Teresa: 
'According to certain books we ought to be indifferent to the evil 
which is spoken of us, and even rejoice more thereat than if we 
were well spoken of; we ought to make little of honour, and be 
detached from our neighbour... and many other things of the same 
sort. In my opinion these are pure gifts of God, these are 
supernatural graces.' [126]

In order better to preserve the unity and sublimity of the 
interior life, such as the Gospels and the epistles reveal it to 
us, we propose the division which follows. It accords with that of 
the great majority of authors who wrote before the second half of 
the eighteenth century, and, by including an imperfect form of the 
illuminative and unitive ways, mentioned by St. John. of the 
Cross, [127] it also safeguards that portion of truth which, in 
our opinion, the more recent conception contains. 

Proposed Division of the Three Stages of The Spiritual Life. 

Above the condition of hardened sinners, above the state of those 
sensual souls who live in dissipation, conversion or justification 
sets us in the state of grace; grace which sin ought never to 
destroy in us, grace which, like a supernatural seed, ought 
continually to grow until it has reached its full development in 
the immediate vision of the divine essence and in a perfect love 
which will last for ever. 

After conversion there ought to be a serious beginning of the 
purgative life, in which beginners love God by avoiding mortal sin 
and deliberate venial sin, through exterior and interior 
mortification and through prayer. But in actual fact this 
purgative life is found under two very different forms: in some, 
admittedly very few, this life is intense, generous; it is the 
narrow way of perfect self-denial described by the saints. In many 
others the purgative life appears in an attenuated form, varying 
from good souls who are a little weak down to those tepid and 
retarded souls who from time to time fall into mortal sin. The 
same remark will have to be made for the other two ways, each of 
which likewise is found in an attenuated and in an intense form. 

The transition to the illuminative life follows upon certain 
sensible consolations which generally reward the courageous effort 
of mortification. As the soul lingers in the enjoyment of these 
consolations, God withdraws them, and then the soul finds itself 
in that more or less prolonged aridity of the senses which is 
known as the passive purgation of the senses. This purgation 
persists unceasingly in generous souls and leads them, by way of 
initial infused contemplation, to the full illuminative life. In 
other souls that are less generous, souls that shun the cross, the 
purgation is often interrupted; and these souls will enjoy only an 
attenuated form of the illuminative life, and will receive the 
gift of infused contemplation only at long intervals. [128] Thus 
the passive night of the senses is seen to be a second conversion, 
more or less perfect. 

The illuminative life brings with it the obscure infused 
contemplation of the mysteries of faith, a contemplation which had 
already been initiated in the passive night of the senses. It 
appears under two normal forms. the one definitely contemplative, 
as in the many saints of the Carmel; the other active, as in a St. 
Vincent de Paul, a contemplation which, by the light of the gifts 
of wisdom and counsel, constantly sees in the poor and abandoned 
the suffering members of Christ. Sometimes this full illuminative 
life involves, not only the infused contemplation of mysteries, 
but also certain extraordinary graces (visions, revelations, 
interior speech), such as those described by St. Teresa in her own 
life. 

The transition to the unitive life follows upon more abundant 
spiritual lights, or an easier and more fruitful apostolate, these 
being, as it were, the reward of the proficient's generosity. But 
in them the proficient is apt to take some complacency, through 
some remnant of spiritual pride which he still retains. 
Accordingly, if God wills to lead the proficient into the perfect 
unitive life, He causes him to pass through the night of the 
spirit, a painful purgation of the higher part of the soul. If 
this is endured supernaturally it continues almost without 
interruption until it leads the soul to the perfect unitive life. 
If, on the other hand, the proficient fails in generosity, the 
unitive life will be correspondingly attenuated. This painful 
purgation is the third conversion in the life of the servants of 
God. 

The perfect unitive life brings with it the infused contemplation 
of the mysteries of faith and a passive union which is almost 
continuous. Like the preceding, this life appears under two forms: 
the one exclusively contemplative, as in a St. Bruno or a St. John 
of the Cross; the other apostolic, as in a St. Dominic, a St. 
Francis, a St. Thomas, or a St. Bonaventure. Sometimes the perfect 
unitive life involves, not only infused contemplation and almost 
continuous union with God, but also extraordinary graces, such as 
the vision of the Blessed Trinity received by St. Teresa and 
described by her in the VIIth Mansion. In this perfect unitive 
life, whether accompanied by extraordinary favours or not, there 
are evidently many degrees, ranging from the lowest to the highest 
among the saints, to the Apostles, to St. Joseph and our Lady. 

This division of the three stages of the spiritual life is set out 
in the following table, which should be read beginning from below; 
the three purgations or conversions figure in the table as 
transitions from one stage to another. 

The scheme may be compared with the doctrine of Tradition, and 
above all with the doctrine of St. Thomas, concerning the grace of 
the virtues and the gifts, and with that of St. John of the Cross 
on the passive purgations, on infused contemplation and on the 
perfect union, the normal prelude to the life of heaven. 

We have seen also how it may be compared with the three ages of 
our bodily life, infancy, adolescence, and manhood, especially as 
regards the crises which mark the transition from one to another. 

* UNITIVE LIFE

* plenary

* extraordinary, eg. with vision of the Blessed Trinity. 

* Ordinary

* purely contemplative form

* apostolic form

* attenuated: Intermittent union

* Transition: Passive purgation of the spirit, more or less 
successfully endured

* ILLUMINATIVE LIFE of proficients

* Plenary

* Extraordinary, with visions, revelations, etc. 

* Ordinary

* purely contemplative form

* active form

* Attenuated: Transitory acts of infused contemplation. 

* Transition: Passive purgation of the senses, more or less 
successfully endured. 

* PURGATIVE LIFE of beginners

* Generous: fervent souls

* Attenuated: tepid or retarded souls. 

* Transition: First conversion, or justification

The transition from one stage to another in the Spiritual Life. 

The transitions from one stage to another in the spiritual life, 
analogous to similar transitions in our bodily life, are marked by 
a crisis in the soul; and none has described these crises so well 
as St. John of the Cross. He shows that they correspond to the 
nature of the human soul, and to the nature of the divine seed, 
which is sanctifying grace. In the Dark Night, [129] after having 
spoken of the spiritual imperfections of beginners, he writes: 
'The one night or purgation will be sensual, wherein the soul is 
purged according to sense, which is subdued to the spirit.... The 
night of sense is common, and comes to many; these are the 
beginners.' Then he adds: [130] 'When this house of sensuality was 
now at rest -- that is, was mortified its passions being quenched 
and its desires put to rest and lulled to sleep by means of this 
blessed night of the purgation of sense, the soul went forth to 
set out upon the road and way of the spirit, which is that of 
progressives and proficients, and which by another name is called 
the way of illumination or of infused contemplation, wherewith God 
Himself feeds and refreshes the soul, without meditation, or the 
soul's actual help. Such, as we have said, is the night and 
purgation of sense in the soul.' 

The words that we have italicized in this passage are very 
significant, and they reproduce the original Spanish exactly. 

St. John of the Cross then proceeds [131] to treat of the 
imperfections which are proper to progressives or proficients: 
natural roughness, outward clinging of the spirit, presumption, a 
remnant of spiritual pride -- and he thus shows the need of the 
passive purgation of the spirit, another painful crisis, a third 
conversion which is necessary before the soul can enter fully upon 
the life of union which belongs to the perfect, to those who, as 
St. Thomas says, wish above all things to cleave to God and to 
enjoy Him, and yearn ardently for eternal life, to be with 
Christ.' [132]

This doctrine of the Dark Night is found also in the Spiritual 
Canticle, especially in the divisi