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THESE deep purifications of the soul have often been
treated, for example, by Tauler, by Louis de Blois, and
by St. John of the Cross.
Louis de Blois, [31] explaining the phrase which Tauler
uses, namely, the depth of the soul, speaks as follows:
"The substance of the soul cannot operate directly. It
cannot feel, cannot conceive, judge, love, will, except
by its faculties. In this it differs from the divine
substance, which alone is pure act, and hence is
immediately operative of itself. [32] God has no need
of faculties by which to pass from potentiality to act.
He is thought itself, He is love itself. God is like a
flash of genius and love, eternally subsistent. On the
contrary, the human soul and the angel need faculties.
They cannot know except by the faculty of intelligence,
they cannot will except by the faculty of will. Hence
we cannot admit, following St. Thomas, [33] that the
essence of the soul has latent acts of knowledge and of
love, acts which would not proceed from our faculties.
But it is true that our most profound acts, roused into
activity by God, differ strikingly from the superficial
judgments of daily life. These acts are so deep, so
profound in the depths of our superior faculties, that
they seem rooted in the very substance of the soul. In
this sense, excellent authors like John of the Cross
speak of substantial touches of the Holy Spirit in the
depth of the soul, touches that bring forth a mystic
knowledge, very elevated and intense acts of infused
love. [34]
Since God is more intimate to the soul than itself,
since He preserves it in existence, He can touch and
move it ab intus, from within. He touches the very
bottom of our faculties by a contact, not spatial but
spiritual, dynamic, divine.
Comparison has often been made between our superficial
consciousness and the shell which envelops the body of
a mollusk. Man, too, has his shell, that is, routine
habitudes of thinking, willing, acting, attitudes which
are the result of his egoism, of his illusion, of his
errors. Nothing of all this is in harmony with God,
hidden in the depth of our soul. This shell, this
superficial consciousness, must be broken before the
soul can know what lies in its most profound depths.
That which breaks the shell is the trials, especially
the trial which is called purgatory before death. A
poor woman, mother of many children, suddenly loses her
husband, on whom the family depended. The soul of this
poor woman suddenly reveals a great Christian. The
father of a family is captured and kept in a war prison
for many years. If he is faithful, God bends toward
him, reveals to him the grandeur of the Christian
family for which he suffers.
We can see the same truth in a king robbed of his
crown: in Louis XVI, say, the king of France, condemned
to death and executed during the Terror. Having lost
his own kingdom, he came to see before death the
grandeur of the kingdom of God.
All Europe at this moment is passing through this
purifying trial. Please God that we may understand.
Pain is, in appearance, the most useless of things, but
it becomes fruitful by the grace of Christ, whose love
rendered His sufferings on Calvary infinitely fruitful.
The Holy Father in Rome recently recalled in a congress
of Catholic physicians these words of a French poet:
Man is an apprentice, pain is his master: Nothing can
be known, except so far as man has suffered.
Thus pain, suffered in a Christian manner, is most
useful. Already in the physical order it is useful, in
admonishing us, for instance, of the beginning of a
cancer. Similarly moral pain is useful, since it makes
us desire a life superior to that of sense. Pain makes
us desire God, who alone can heal certain wounds of the
heart, and who alone can fortify and remake the soul.
Pain invites us to have recourse to Him who alone can
restore peace and give Himself to us.
Listen to St. John Chrysostom: "Suffering in the
present life is the remedy against pride, which would
turn us astray, against vainglory and ambition. Through
suffering the power of God shines forth in weak men,
who without His grace would not be able to bear their
afflictions. Suffering, patience, manifests the
goodness of him who is persecuted. By this road he is
led to desire eternal life. Memory of the great
sufferings of the saints leads us to support our own,
by imitating the saints. Finally, pain teaches us to
distinguish false goods which pass away from true goods
which last eternally." [35]
Listen to Holy Scripture: "My son, reject not the
correction of the Lord, and do not faint when thou art
chastised by Him. For whom the Lord loveth He
chastiseth, and He scourgeth every son whom He
receiveth." [36]
We must purify the depths of the soul. Our Lord says
often: "If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow Me." [37] Again: "I am
the true vine (you the branches) and My Father is the
husbandman. Every branch in Me . . . that beareth
fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more
fruit."
This lesson is particularly necessary for those who by
vocation must work, not only for their own personal
sanctification, but also for that of others. Hence St.
Paul says: "We are reviled, and we bless; we are
persecuted, and we suffer it; we are blasphemed, and we
entreat." [38]
The purifying action of God on the depths of the soul
appears above all in what is called purgatory before
death, that purgatory which generally souls must
traverse in order to arrive at divine union here below.
During this purgatory charity is rooted more and more
in the depths of the souls and ends by destroying all
unregulated love of self. This unregulated love is like
a blade of dogs-tail grass, which grows again and
again. This bad root receives its deathblow when
charity reigns entirely in the depth of the soul.
Purgatory before death means passive purification, both
of sense and of spirit. Its goal is to purify the very
depths of our faculties, to extirpate, with iron and
fire, all germs of death. During this anticipated
purgatory the soul merits, whereas after death the soul
cannot merit. St. John of the Cross says: "In spite of
its generosity the soul cannot arrive at complete
purification of itself, cannot render itself entirely
suited for the world of divine union and the perfection
of love. God Himself must set His hand to the work and
purify the soul in His own dark fire." [39]
Purification of sense comes first. We are deprived of
consolations which may have been useful for the moment,
but which become an obstacle when we seek them for
their own sake with a sort of spiritual gluttony. The
ensuing sense-aridity leads us into a life much more
disengaged from the senses, from the imagination, from
reasoning. We begin to live by the gift of knowledge,
which gives us an experimental and intuitive knowledge,
first of earthly vanity, then of God's grandeur.
Temptations, which become very frequent, lead us to
make meritorious acts, even heroic acts, of chastity
and patience. We are purified by losing certain
friendships, by losing fortune, by undergoing sickness,
by family trials, for example, in the case of a person
unsuitably married.
This purification of sense has as its goal to subject
our superior faculties entirely to God. But these
superior faculties too have need of purification. The
stains of the old man, says St. John of the Cross, [40]
persist in the spirit though the soul itself may not be
conscious of them. They yield and disappear only under
the soap and lye of purification.
Even those far advanced often seek themselves
unconsciously. They are much attached to their own
judgment, to their particular manner of doing good.
They are too sure of themselves. They may be seduced by
the demon, who carries them on to presumption. Their
faults can become incurable, being taken for
perfections. [41] Selfishness prevents them from seeing
these faults.
Hence purification of the spirit is also indispensable.
It is a purgatory before death, meant to purify
humility and the three theological virtues. This
purification proceeds under an infused light, an
illumination from the gift of knowledge, a light which
seems obscure because it is too strong for the feeble
eyes of our spirit, just as the light of the sun is too
strong for nocturnal birds. This light manifests more
and more the infinite grandeur of God, superior to all
the ideas we ourselves can make. On the other hand, it
shows us also our own defectiveness, reveals in us
deficiencies that of ourselves we would never find.
Humility becomes genuine humility. The soul wishes to
be nothing, wishes God to be all-in-all, wishes to be
unknown and reputed as nothing. Temptations against the
theological virtues, common at this stage, lead to the
highest heroism.
Purification sets in strong relief the formal motive of
the three theological virtues. Secondary motives seem
to disappear. We believe, in the absence of every other
reason, for this sole and unique motive: God has said
it. We adhere more and more strongly to Primal Truth,
in an order immensely beyond miracles and human
reasonings. We hope against hope, resting solely on
God's omnipotence and goodness. We are to love, not
consolations, sensible or spiritual, but God for His
own sake, because of His infinite goodness. And this
pure love of God leads us to a pure love of our
neighbor, whatever be our neighbor.
The three formal motives of the theological virtues,
namely, Primal Truth, aiding Omnipotence, Infinite
Goodness, are three stars of the first magnitude
shining in this night of the spirit. St. Theresa of the
Infant Jesus [42] passed through this night in the last
years of her life. St. Vincent de Paul, suffering for
another priest tormented in his faith, was himself
assailed for four years with temptations against the
faith, so strong that he wrote the creed on a
parchment, which he pressed against his heart every
time the temptation became vehement. These four years
in the dark night of faith multiplied his heroic acts a
hundredfold. St. Paul of the Cross, the founder of the
Passionists, endured a similar trial for forty-five
years. This trial was meant chiefly to repair the sins
of the world. Further, since he himself was already
deeply purified and had arrived at the transforming
union, he was thus prepared to be the founder of an
order devoted to reparation.
This passive purification of the spirit leads to mystic
death, to the death of irregulated self-love, of
spiritual pride, often subtle and little recognized, to
the death of egoism, the principle of every sin. It
cleanses the depth of the will from all wicked roots.
Love of God and of neighbor now reigns without rival,
according to the supreme command: "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."
[43]
Thus the soul has passed through purgatory before
physical death, and it has passed through in the state
of merit, whereas in the other purgatory after death
merit is not possible. Thus even here on earth the soul
is spiritualized, supernaturalized, down to its very
depths, where all spiritual life begins and ends. The
soul aspires more and more to reach its source, to re-
enter the bosom of the Father, that is, the depths of
God. It aspires more and more to see Him without
medium. It experiences ever more keenly that only God
can satisfy it.
Great saints exemplify St. Augustine's word: "The love
of God has reached the scorn of self." Thus we read
that the apostles, [44] after their imprisonment, came
forth rejoicing because they had been judged worthy to
suffer opprobrium 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." Their blood, shed
with that of thousands of other martyrs, was the seed
of Christianity. The love of God even to the scorn of
self triumphed over selfishness reaching to the scorn
of God. Unselfish love of God converted the world,
Roman and barbarian.
What will reconvert the world of today? Only a
constellation of saints can lead the masses back to
Christ and the Church. Mere democratic aspirations, as
conceived by Lamennais and many others, are not
sufficient. There is need of the love of a Vincent de
Paul if we would reach the depths of the modern soul.
Everlasting life must again become, not a mere word,
but an experienced reality.
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