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WE have seen the different conceptions which various writers have
proposed of the three stages or periods of the spiritual life; and
we have seen which of these is to be regarded as the traditional
one. There is, we have said, an analogy between these three stages
of the life of the soul and those of the life of the body-
infancy, adolescence and manhood; and we have paid particular
attention to the transition between one period and another, marked
by a crisis analogous to that which, in the natural or physical
order, occurs in life about the age of fourteen or fifteen and
again at twenty or twenty-one. We have seen also how these
different periods of the interior life have their counterpart in
the life of the Apostles. We now intend, following the principles
of St. Thomas and of St. John of the Cross, to describe briefly
the characteristics of these three periods, that of beginners,
proficients and perfect, in order to show that these are
successive stages in a normal development, a development which
corresponds both to the distinction between the two parts of the
soul (sensitive and spiritual), and to the nature of
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'the grace of
the virtues and the gifts.'
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This grace progressively permeates the
soul with the supernatural life, elevates its faculties, both
higher and lower, until the depth of the soul [139] is purged of
all egoism and self-love, and belongs truly, without any
reservation, to God. We shall see that the whole development is
logical, it is logical with the logic of life, the logic which is
imposed necessarily by life's end and purpose: Justum deduxit
Dominus per vias rectas:
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'The Lord guides the just by straight
ways.'
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