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WE have pointed out above -- and we have developed the theme at
length elsewhere [181] -- that the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost
are connected with charity, [182] and that they consequently
develop together with it. It is therefore impossible to have a
high degree of charity without having at the same time and in a
proportionate degree the gifts of understanding and wisdom, gifts
which, together with faith, are the principle of the infused
contemplation of revealed mysteries. In some of the saints, as in
St. Augustine, this contemplation bears immediately upon the
mysteries themselves; in others, as in a St. Vincent de Paul, it
bears upon the practical consequences of these mysteries; for
example, upon the life of the members of the mystical body of
Christ. But in either case it is infused contemplation. The
superhuman mode of the gifts, a mode of activity which is derived
from the special inspiration of the Holy Ghost and which
transcends the human mode of the virtues, [183] is at first
latent, as in the ascetic life; but then it becomes manifest and
frequent in the mystical life. In fact, the Holy Ghost usually
inspires souls proportionately to their habitual docility or to
their supernatural dispositions (i. e. according to the degree in
which they possess the virtues and the gifts). This is definitely
the traditional teaching.
We have also shown elsewhere, [184] that according to St. Thomas
the gifts have not a human mode specifically distinct from their
superhuman mode; for if this were so, the former might always be
perfected without ever attaining to the latter, and would thus not
be essentially subordinate to it.
Now, if the gifts have no human mode specifically distinct from
their superhuman mode, it follows that -- as we have often said --
there is for all truly spiritual. souls a general remote call or
vocation to the infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith --
a contemplation which alone can give a profound and living
understanding of the redemptive Incarnation, of the indwelling of
God within us, of the sacrifice of Calvary substantially
perpetuated on the altar during the Mass, and of the mystery of
the Cross which should be reproduced in any true and profound
Christian life. However, this 'general and remote call' does not
mean the same as an 'individual and proximate call,' just as a '
sufficient call' does not mean the same as an 'efficacious call.'
We have recently been conceded, on this matter, a point which we
had not asked -- and which, incidentally, we do not accept --
namely, that
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'the negative clement of perfection, that is to say,
detachment from creatures, must be the same for all souls:
complete, absolute, universal' ;
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'there can be no degrees in the
absence of voluntary faults. The very smallest, like the very
greatest, destroys perfection... a thread is enough to hold a man
captive.'
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We do not think that detachment from creatures is the same for
all, whether for the greatest saints or for those souls that have
reached a minimal perfection. And the principal reason is, that
perfection excludes not only faults that are directly voluntary,
but also those that are indirectly voluntary; those which proceed
from negligence and a relative tepidity, from a secret and semi-
conscious egoism that does not allow the depth of the soul to
belong completely to God. Likewise there is a certain co-
relational between the intensive growth of charity and its
extension, in consequence of which charity gradually excludes even
those obstacles which we more or less unconsciously oppose to the
work of grace in our souls.
If then, as we are granted, every soul is called by its progress
in the love of God to exclude all voluntary faults, even the
smallest, even those that are indirectly voluntary, it will
succeed only by means of a high degree of charity. This charity
will, evidently, be proportionate to the vocation of the
individual soul; it will not be the same for Bernadette of Lourdes
as it was for St. Paul; but it will have to be a high degree of
charity. Without this the depth of the soul will not belong
completely to God; without this there will still be some egoism,
which will manifest itself often enough by faults that are at
least indirectly voluntary.
If a soul is to be perfect, it must possess a degree of charity
higher than that which it possessed when it was still in the ranks
of beginners or of proficients; just as in the physical order the
full age of manhood presupposes a physical strength superior to
that of childhood or adolescence -- though it may be that
accidentally a youth is found to be more vigorous than a fully
grown man. [185]
What conclusion follows regarding the purgation of the depth of
the soul, which is necessary to exclude all egoism and secret
pride? A recent study on this question contains the following:
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' I admit that the passive purgations (which are of the mystical
order) are necessary in order to arrive at the purity required for
mystical union; and it is in this sense that St. John of the Cross
speaks.... But I deny that the passive purgations are necessary
for the purity required in the union of love by conformity of
wills. -- The reason of this difference is a profound one. For the
mystical union, which involves infused contemplation and love,
active purgation is not sufficient, precisely because the purity
of the will is not sufficient. It is necessary that there should
be added to it a sort of psychological purity of the substance and
the powers of the soul, which consists in rendering them adapted
to the mode of being of the divine infusion.'
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The important question, then, is: Are the passive purgations,
according to St. John of the Cross, not necessary for the profound
purity of the will? Are they not necessary in order to exclude
that more or less conscious egoism, and those indirectly voluntary
faults which are incompatible with the full perfection of charity,
incompatible also with the full perfection of the infused virtues
and gifts, which develop together with charity like so many
functions of the same spiritual organism?
The answer to this extremely important question, for our part, is
not for a moment in doubt.
It suffices to read in the Dark Night [186] the description of
those faults of beginners which render the purgation of the senses
necessary. Here are, not faults opposed to the sort of
psychological purity of which our author speaks, but faults which
are contrary to the moral purity of the sensibility and of the
will. They are, in fact, as St. John of the Cross tells us, the
seven capital sins translated into the order of the spiritual
life, such as spiritual greed, spiritual sloth, spiritual pride.
The same remark may be made of the faults [187] of proficients
which render necessary the passive purgation of the spirit; they
are
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'stains of the old man which still remain in the spirit, like
a rust which will disappear only under the action of an intense
fire.'
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These proficients, says St. John of the Cross, are really
subject to natural affections; they have moments of roughness, of
impatience; there is still in them a secret spiritual pride, and
an egoism which causes some of them to make use of spiritual goods
in a manner not sufficiently detached, and so they are led into
the path of illusions. In a word, the depth of the soul is
lacking, not only in psychological purity, but in the moral purity
that is required. Tauler has spoken in the same sense, solicitous
especially to purify the depth of the soul of all self-love, of
all more or less conscious egoism. Hence it is our opinion that
the passive purgations are necessary for this profound moral
purity. But these purgations are of the mystical order. They do
not always appear under so definitely contemplative a form as that
described by St. John of the Cross; but in the lives of the
saints, even of the most active among them, like a Vincent de
Paul, the chapters which treat of their interior sufferings prove
that they all have a common basis, which none has described better
than St. John of the Cross.
A final and very important concession has been made to us in
connection with the famous passage of the Living Flame, ST. II,
23:
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' It behoves us to note why it is that there are so few that
attain to this lofty stale. It must be known that this is not
because God is pleased that there should be few raised to this
high spiritual state-on the contrary it would please Him if all
were so raised -- but rather because He finds few vessels in whom
He can perform so high and lofty a work. For, when He proves them
in small things and finds them weak and sees that they at once
flee from labour, and desire not to submit to the least discomfort
or mollification... He finds that they are not strong enough to
bear the favour which He was granting them when He began to purge
them, and goes no farther with their purification....'
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With regard to this it has recently been conceded.
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'We admit that
St. John of the Cross is treating here of the spiritual marriage,
and that he states that the will of God is that all souls should
attain to this state. But we deny that this implies a universal
call to the mystical life.... The confusion arises, in our
opinion, from a failure to distinguish two elements included by
St. John of the Cross in the two degrees of union called spiritual
betrothal and marriage. One of these two elements is essential and
permanent; the other accidental and transitory. The essential
element is the union of wills between God and the soul, a union
which results from the absence of voluntary faults and from the
perfection of charity; the accidental element consists in the
actual union of the powers, a mystical union in the proper sense
of the word, a union which cannot be continuous.'
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In this supposition, it is possible that the transforming union,
or spiritual marriage, should exist in a person without that
person ever having had a mystical union, the mystical union being
merely an accidental element, like the interior words or the
intellectual vision of the Blessed Trinity mentioned by St.
Teresa. [188] To us, on the contrary, it appears certain that,
according to St. John of the Cross, the transforming union cannot
exist without there having been at least from time to time a very
lofty contemplation of the divine perfections, an infused
contemplation [189] proceeding from the gifts, which have now
reached a degree proportionate to that of perfect charity. It is,
he says,
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'even as the fire that penetrates the log of wood... and
having attacked and wounded it with its flame, prepares it to such
a degree that it can enter it and transform it into itself.' [190]
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Moreover, to our mind it is absolutely certain-that the profound
union of wills between God and the soul, which is recognized as
being the essential element of the transforming union, presupposes
the moral purgation of the depth of the soul, a purgation from
that more or less conscious self-love or egoism which is the
source at least of many indirectly voluntary faults; and this
moral purification of the depth of the soul, according to St. John
of the Cross, requires the passive purgations which eliminate the
faults of beginners and proficients.
We therefore maintain what we have said, in common with numerous
theologians, Dominican and Carmelite, about the doctrine of St.
Thomas and St. John of the Cross concerning the gifts of the Holy
Ghost. To conclude, we recall especially these two important texts:
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' The night of sense is common and comes to many; these are the
beginners.' [191]
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Being passive, this purification, or night, is
of the mystical order.
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'The way of progressives or proficients...
is called the way of illumination or of infused contemplation,
wherewith God Himself feeds and refreshes the soul.' [192]
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Hence
infused contemplation is in the normal way of sanctity, even
before the unitive way is reached; and therefore it is
inconceivable that a soul should be in the state of spiritual
marriage or the transforming union without ever having had that
infused contemplation of the mysteries of faith which is the
eminent exercise of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, developing in us
side by side with charity.
We cannot admit that a mind of the calibre of St. John of the
Cross can have meant only something accidental when he wrote the
passage which we have just quoted, and which we quote once more in
conclusion:
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'The way of progressives or of proficients... is called the way of
illumination or of infused contemplation, wherewith God Himself
feeds and refreshes the soul.'
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