ENDNOTES


ENDNOTES

[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.