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[1] St. Thomas often quotes this Augustinian thought: cf. I-IIae, Q.
xxviii, art. 4, ad 2; III, Q. xxiii, art. 1, ad 3
[2] Luther went so far as to say: 'Pecca fortiter et crede firmius:
sin mightily and believe more mightily still; you will be saved.'
Not that Luther intended thereby to exhort men to sin; it was
merely an emphatic way of saying that good works are useless for
salvation -- that faith in Christ alone suffices. He says, truly
enough (Works, Weimar edition, XII, 559 (1523) ), that if you
believe, good works will follow necessarily from your faith. 'But
as Maritain justly observes (Notes sur Luther; appendix to the
second edition of Trois Reformateurs),' in his thought these good
works follow from salutary faith as a sort of epiphenomenon.
'Moreover, the charity which will follow this faith is the love of
our neighbour rather than the love of God. And thus the notion of
charity is degraded, emptied gradually of its supernatural and
God-ward content and made equivalent to works of mercy. In any
case, it remains true that for Luther a man is justified simply by
faith in Christ, even though the sin is not blotted out by the
infusion of charity, or the supernatural love of God.
[3] J. Maritain explains very clearly how Naturalism arises
necessarily from the principles of Protestantism: 'According to
the Lutheran theology, it is we ourselves, and only we ourselves,
who lay hold of the mantle of Christ so that with it we may "cover
all our shame."' It is we who exercise this' ability to jump from
our own sin on to the justice of Christ, thus becoming as sure of
possessing the holiness of Christ as we are of possessing our own
bodies. 'The Lutheran theory of justification by faith may be
called a Pelagianism born of despair. In ultimate analysis it is
man who is left to work out his own redemption by stimulating
himself to a despairing confidence in Christ. Human nature has
then only to cast aside, as a useless theological accessory, the
mantle of a grace which means nothing to him, and to transfer its
faith-confidence from Christ to itself -- and there you have that
admirable emancipated brute, whose unfailing and continuous
progress is an object of wonder to the universe. In Luther and his
doctrine we witness -- on the spiritual and religious plane -- the
advent of the Ego.
'We say that it is so in fact; it is the inevitable outcome of
Luther's theology. But this does not prevent the same theology in
theory from committing the contrary excess.... And so Luther tells
us that salvation and faith are to such an extent the work of God
and of Christ that these alone are active in the business of our
redemption, without any co-operation on our part.... Luther's
theology was to oscillate between these two solutions: in theory
it is the first, apparently, that must prevail: Christ alone,
without our co-operation, is the author of our salvation. But
since it is psychologically impossible to suppress human activity,
the second has inevitably prevailed in fact.' It is a matter of
history that liberal Protestantism has issued in Naturalism.
[4] Cf. St. Thomas, I-IIae, Q. cix, art. 3: 'Homo in statu naturae
integrae dilectionem suiipsius referebat ad amorem Dei sicut ad
finem, et similiter dilectionem aliarum rerum, et ita Deum
diligebat plus quam seipsum et super omnia. Sed in statu naturae
corruptae homo ab hoc deficit secundum appetitum voluntatis
rationalis, quae propter corruptionem naturae sequitur bonum
privatum, nisi sanetur per gratiam Dei.' Ibid., art. 4: 'In statu
naturae corruptae, non potest homo implere omnia mandata divina
sine gratia sanante.'
[5] Ps. 1, 3-14.
[6] Isa. xliii, 25
[7] i, 7
[8] vi, 10.
[9] xxxvi, 25
[10] i, 16
[11] i, 5
[12] v, 5
[13] iv, 7
[14] i, 11-13
[15] John iii, 5
[16] iii, 9.
[17] i, 8
[18] 2 Pet. i, 4
[19] i, 17
[20] I John iii, 2
[21] Matt. v, 48
[22] John iii, 36; v, 24, 39; vi, 40, 47, 55
[23] vi, 55.
[24] viii, 51-58
[25] John iv, 10-14
[26] John vii, 37
[27] xiv, 23
[28] I John iv, 16.
[29] Luke xvii, 20
[30] 1 John iii, 14
[31] V, 13
[32] John xvii, 3.
[33] II-IIae, Q. xxiv, art. 3; I-IIae, Q. lxix, art. 2; De Ver., Q.
xiv, art. 2.
[34] Meditations sur l'Evangile, II, 37th day; in Joan., xvii, 3.
[35] De civ. Dei, lib. IV, c. 9
[36] In Joan., tract. 92, c. xiv, 12
[37] Q. cxiii, art. 9.
[38] In reality there is a greater distance between any created
nature, even the angelic nature, and the inner life of God, of
which charity is a participation, than there is between bodies and
created spirits. All creatures, even the highest, are at an
infinite distance from God, and in this sense are equally below
Him
[39] Pensees (ed. Havet), p. 269
[40] John xiv, 23
[41] John iv, 16
[42] cf I-IIae, Q. lxxxvii, art. 3
[43] I Cor. xiii, 8, 13
[44] I-IIae, Q. Ixvi, art. 2.
[45] We have treated it fully elsewhere: Perfection chretienne et
contemplation, t. 11, pp. 430-462; see also note below, p. 105.
[46] Rom. viii, 29
[47] I Cor. ii, 9.
[48] Heb. i, 3.
[49] 2 Cor. iv, 10
[50] Second Sermon for Lent
[51] Dark Night, Book 1, ch. 9 and ch. 10
[52] Doctrine Spirituelle, Pr. II, sect. ii, ch. 6, art. 2
[53] Sermon for Monday in Passion Week
[54] Dark Night, Book II, ch. 1-13
[55] II-IIae Q. xxiv, art. 3, ad 2; I-IIae, Q. lxix, art. 2
[56] 2 John vi, 47-55.
[57] La Doctrine Spirituelle, Pr. II, sect. ii, ch. 6, art. 2.
[58] This is not an instance of a private revelation relating to
some future event or some new truth, it is a more profound
contemplation of a truth already revealed in the Gospel -- a
fulfiment of the promise of Christ that the Holy Spirit would call
to mind whatsoevcr He had told to His Apostles (John xiv, 26).
[59] Luke xxii, 31-34
[60] xxii, 60-62
[61] III, Q. lxxxix, art. 2.
[62] The teaching of St. Thomas is quite clear: 'Contingit
intensionem motus poenitentis quandoque proportionatum esse majori
gratiae, quam fuerit illa a qua ceciderat per peccatum, quandoque
aequali, quandoque vero minori. Et ideo poenitens quandoque
resurgit in majori gratia, quam prius habuerat, quandoque autem in
aequali, quandoque etiam in minori' (III, Q. lxxxix, art. 2).
Certain modern theologians think that it is possible to recover a
high degree of grace with an attrition which is barely sufficient.
St. Thomas and the ancient theologians do not admit this. And in
fact we find in human relationships that, after considerable
offence has been given, friendship will revive in the same degree
as it existed before only if there is, not merely regret, but
regret proportionate to the offence committed and to the greatness
of the previous friendship
[63] Ch. 63
[64] John xxi, 15 seq
[65] Ch. 60
[66] According to St. Thomas this mixture is impossible in the
angels, because they cannot sin venially. They are either very
holy or very perverse. Either they love God perfectly, or else
they turn away from Him completely by mortal sin. This is due to
the vigour of their intelligence, which enters completely and
definitively into the way it has taken (I-IIae, Q. lxxxix, art.
4).
[67] This is the quasi-experimental knowledge of the distinction
between nature and grace, quite different from that which we have
through speculative theology. It is not difficult to understand in
abstract the difference between the two orders; but to see it in
concrete, and to perceive it almost continuously, supposes a
spirit of faith which, in this degree, is found hardly in any but
the Saints
[68] Dialogue, ch. 63.
[69] Thus our Lord deprived His disciples of His visible presence,
saying to them: 'It is expedient to you that I go.' It was in fact
expedient that they should be for some time deprived of the sight
of His humanity, so that they might be elevated to a higher
spiritual life, a life more independent of the senses, a life
which would later, when made more vigorous, find expression in the
sacrifice of an heroic martyrdom.
[70] Dark Night, Book I, ch. 9
[71] Ibid., ch. 14
[72] Luke xxii, 61
[73] It is obvious that when the Saint speaks of 'self-hatred' she
has in mind the aversion which we must have for that self-love, or
inordinate love of self, which is the source of all sin. Self-
love, she tells us in chapter 122 of the Dialogue, is the cause of
injustice towards God, towards one's neighbour, and towards
oneself, it destroys in the soul both the desire for the salvation
of souls and the hunger for virtue; it prevents the soul from
reacting as it should against the most crying injustices, because
of the inordinate fear of offending creatures that self-love
entails. 'Self-love,' she says 'has poisoned the whole world and
the mystical body of the holy Church, and through self-love the
garden of the Spouse has run to seed and given birth to putrid
flowers.'
'Thou knowest,' God says to the Saint (ch. 51), 'that every evil
is founded in self-love, and that self-love is a cloud that takes
away the light of reason, which reason holds in itself the light
of faith, and one is not lost without the other.' We find the same
doctrine in St. Thomas: 'Inordinate love of self is the source of
all sin and darkens the judgement - for when will and sensibility
are ill-disposed (that is, when they tend to pride and sensuality)
everything that is in conformity with these inclinations appears
to be good; (I-IIae, Q. lxxvii, art. 4).
[74] Ch. 75
[75] Luke x, 27.
[76] Ch. 60
[77] There is nothing easier than to be convinced in theory that
Providence ordains all things without exception unto good. But it
is rare to find that truth realized in practice when some
unforeseen disaster enters like a cataclysm into our lives. There
are few who are able to see in such an event one of God's greatest
graces, the grace of their second or third conversion. The
venerable Boudon, a priest held in high repute by his own bishop
and by several bishops in France, one day received, in consequence
of a calumny, a letter from his bishop suspending him and
forbidding him to say Mass or to hear confessions. He straightway
threw himself on his knees before his crucifix, thanking our Lord
for a grace of which he felt himself to be unworthy. He had
achieved that concrete and living conviction, of which St.
Catherine speaks here, that in the divine government everything,
absolutely everything, is ordained to the manifestation of His
goodness.
[78] Ch. 166
[79] Luke xxiv, 25-27
[80] Thus St. Thomas at the end of his life was raised up to a
supernatural contemplation of the mysteries of the faith, such
that he could not dictate the end of the Summa Theologica, the
last part of the treatise on Penance. He could no longer compose
articles with a status quaestionis, beginning with three
difficulties, followed by the body of the article and by the
answers to the objections. The higher unity which he had now
attained made him view all theological principles more simply and
more radiantly, and he could no longer descend to the complexity
of a purely didactic exposition.
[81] Ch xxvi, 74
[82] Luke xxiv, 11
[83] In Joan., tract. 25, n. 3; Serm. 265, 2-4.
[84] Acts ii, 1-4.
[85] It is in the light of what is said here of the grace that
purifies and transforms that we should read the articles of St.
Thomas on the gifts of understanding and wisdom, and on the
purification which they bring about within us; likewise the Dark
Night of St. John of the Cross
[86] Acts ii, 17, 21.
[87] Cf. St. Thomas, I, Q. xliii, art. 6, ad I.
[88] John xiv, 26
[89] Acts ii, 8-12
[90] Matt. xxviii, 19
[91] II-IIae, Q. clxxxviii, art. 6: 'Ex plenitudine contemplationis
derivatur doctrina et praedicatio.
[92] Ps. cxviii, 140.
[93] Acts i, 6
[94] It is to be noted in this and similar texts that the immutable
or plan of God is mentioned before His foreknowledge of which it
is the basis. God foresaw from all eternity the mystery of the
Redemption, because from all eternity He had decreed to bring it
about.
[95] Acts ii, 22-36
[96] ii, 41
[97] Acts iii, 15; iv, 11-12
[98] Matt. xvi, 22--23
[99] Acts vii, I-53
[100] Acts i, 8
[101] Acts v, 41
[102] ii, 42--47; iv, 32--37; v, I-11
[103] Ps. 1, 12.
[104] Dark Night, Book II, ch. vi.
[105] Dark Night, Book II, ch. iii.
[106] ibid., ch. iv
[107] II-IIae, Q. i, art. 5.
[108] John xvi, 7
[109] John viii, 12
[110] I Cor. ii, 10: 'Spiritus enim omnia scrutatur, etiam profunda
Dei.... Nos autem accepimus.... Spiritum qui ex Deo est, ut
sciamus quae a Deo donata sunt nobis.
[111] Col. ii, 3
[112] Ps. Xii, 4.
[113] xvii, 29.
[114] 1, 12
[115] Luke xii, 49.
[116] Dark Night, Book II, ch. v.
[117] John vii, 37
[118] iv, 10, 14.
[119] Cf. Philip of the Trinity: Summa theologiae mysticae (ed.
1874, p. 17)
[120] Book I, ch. viii and ch xiv
[121] Dark Night Book II, ch. ii and ch. xi
[122] Similarly Tr. I, ch. 1, n. 10.
[123] Cf. St. Thomas, III, Q. lxii, art. 2: 'Utrum gratia
sacramentalis addat aliquid super gratiam vir[utum et donorum' ;
where we are reminded that habitual or sanctifying grace perfects
the essence of the soul, and that from grace there proceed into
the faculties the infused virtues (moral and theological) and the
seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, which are to the soul like the
sails of a ship intended to receive inspirations from heaven
[124] I-IIae, Q. lxviii, art. 5: 'Sicut virtutes morales
connectuntur sibi invicem in prudentia, ita dona Spiritus Sancti
connectuntur sibi invicem in caritate; ita scilicet quod qui
caritatem habet, omnia dona Spiritus Sancti habet, quorum nullum
sine caritate haberi potest
[125] I-IIae, Q. lxviii, art. 2, where these passages of Scripture
are cited: 'God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom'
(Wisd. vii, 28), and 'Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they
are the sons of God' (Rom. viii, 14).
[126] Life, c. xxxi
[127] Dark Night, Book I, c. xiv.
[128] See Dark Night, Book I, c. ix and c. xiv; Living Flame, 2nd
stanza, v. 5
[129] Book I, ch. viii
[130] Ibid. ch. xiv
[131] Dark Night, Book II, ch. ii
[132] II-IIae, Q. xxiv, art. 9
[133] See also str. 4, str. 6, str. 22, v. I.
[134] Dark Night, Book I, ch. ii.
[135] See above, p. 63
[136] I-IIae, Q. lxi, art. 5
[137] Cf. P. Louis de la Trinite, O. C. D., Le Docteur mystique;
Desclee de Brouwer, 1929, p. 55.
[138] An interesting point in this connection is that which Pope
Pius X had in mind when, in prescribing an earlier age for First
Communion, he said: 'There will be saints among the children.'
These words seem to have found their fulfilment in the very
special graces which have been granted to several children, taken
very early into heaven, who are to-day proving to be the source of
so many vocations to the priestly and the religious life: such as
little Nelly, Anne de Guigne Guy de Fontgalland, Marie-Gabrielle,
T. Guglielmina and several others in France and Belgium -- souls
that remind us of the Blessed Imelda, who died of love while
making her thanksgiving after her First Communion. Our Lord, who
said: 'Suffer the little children to come unto me,' is able
evidently to endow these souls with great sanctity at a very early
age; He sows the divine seed in greater or less abundance in
souls, according to His good pleasure. (See Collection Parvuli,
Lethielleux, Paris. )
[139] This expression, a favourite with Tauler, has the same meaning
as 'the summit of the soul' the metaphor changes according as
the things of sense are considered as exterior or as inferior
[140] Cf. Council of Trent (Denzinger, 798) and St. Thomas, I-IIae,
Q. cxiii art. 1-8 inclusive
[141] St. Thomas (III, Q. lxxxix, art. 5, ad 3) explains that
recovery is proportionate to the fervour of contrition. That is to
say, if a person had two talents before committing a mortal sin,
and if his contrition has been only barely sufficient and
imperfect in relation to his former goodness, he will perhaps
recover only one talent (resurgit in minori caritate). To recover
the same degree of grace and charity which he had lost he will
need a more fervent contrition, proportionate to the sin and to
his former sanctity.
[142] The beginner sometimes considers the goodness of God also in
the mysteries of salvation; but he is not yet familiar with these
and it is not an exercise which is proper to his condition
[143] I Cor. iii, 2
[144] Dark Night, Book I, ch. i-vii
[145] Dark Night, Book I, ch. viii; Book I, ch. xiv
[146] Dark Night, Book I, ch. xiv.
[147] Dark Night, Book I, ch. ix
[148] Living Flame, stanza II, 23.
[149] The proficient also contemplates the goodness of God in the
things of nature and in the parables of the Gospel; but this is
not the exercise proper to his condition, now that he has become
familiar with the mysteries of salvation. But he has not yet
attained, unless it be rarely and transitorily. to that circular
movement whereby the perfect contemplate the divine goodness in
itself.
[150] II-IIae, Q. clxxx, art. 6.
[151] Dark Night, Book II, ch. ii.
[152] Dark Night, Book II, ch. 3 seq.
[153] Rom. vi, 6
[154] Eph. iv, 22.
[155] The progress in the knowledge and love of God which
characterizes this purgation is precisely what differentiates it
from certain sufferings which bear some resemblance to it, such as
those of neurasthenia. These neurasthenic sufferings may have of
themselves no purging character, but they too may be endured with
resignation and for the love of God. Similarly the sufferings
which may be the effect of our own lack of virtue, the effect of
an undisciplined and exaggerated sensibility, have no purging
quality of themselves, although they similarly may be accepted as
a salutary humiliation in consequence of our faults, and in
reparation for them.
[156] Wisd. iii, 6
[157] Ps. xxxiii, 18-20
[158] II-IIae, Q. xxiv, art. 9. Hence I would reply to M. H. Bremond
that this adherence to God, a direct act, which is at the source
of the discursive and reflex acts of the perfect, contains the
solution of the problem of the pure love of God and its
reconciliation with a legitimate love of self; for this is truly
to love oneself in God, and to love Him more than oneself.
[159] The Carmelite, Philip of the Holy Trinity, in the prologue of
his Summa theologiae mysticae (ed. 1874, p. 17), also regards the
passive purgation of the senses as a transition between the
purgative and the illuminative way, and the passive purgation of
the spirit as a disposition to the way of union. In this, as in
many other things, Th. Vallgornera, O. P., has followed him, and
even copied literally from his work. Anthony of the Holy Spirit,
O. C. D., has done likewise, summarizing him in his Directorium
mysticum.
[160] iii, 9-14.
[161] xiv 21
[162] Living Flame. st. IV. 3. 4
[163] Living Flame, st. IV, 5
[164] Ibid., 9
[165] Ibid., 17
[166] Living Flame, st. I, 20-22; cf. Ps. lxxxiii, 3
[167] Ibid., II, 12
[168] Living Flame, st., III, 3
[169] Ibid. 9
[170] Ibid., 5
[171] Matt. xxv, 4-7.
[172] Virgo Fidelis, by Robert de Langeac (Lethielleux, 1931), p.
279
[173] Living Flame, st. II, 9
[174] Ps. lxii, 2; Dark Night, Book II, ch. xi
[175] Living Flame, st. II, 23
[176] Ch. 53.
[177] II-IIae, Q. xvii, art 6, ad 3
[178] Phil. i, 21
[179] Ch. 167
[180] iv, 7
[181] Perfection chretienne et contemplation, t. I, pp. 338-417; t.
II, pp.- 430-477
[182] Cf. St. Thomas, I-IIae, Q. lxviii, art. 5
[183] I-IIae, Q. lxviii, art. 1; see also Perfection chretienne...
t. I, pp. 355-385; t. II, pp. (52)-(64).
[184] Vie Spirituelle, November, 1932 (Supplement, pp. (65)-(83):
Les dons ont-ils un mode humain?
[185] Non sunt judicanda ea qua sunt per se, per ea quae sunt per
accidens.
[186] Book I, ch. ii-ix
[187] Dark Night, Book II, ch. i and ch. ii.
[188] VIIth Mansion, ch. i and ch. ii
[189] According to St. John of the Cross (Dark Night, Book I, ch.
xiv) 'the way of illumination' is a 'way of infused contemplation,
wherewith God Himself feeds and refreshes the soul.' A fortiori,
Man in the way of union
[190] Living Flame, st. 1, 16
[191] Dark Night, Book I, ch. viii
[192] Dark Night, Book I, ch. xiv.
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