> [[at-sl-29|← B3 Ch. I]] | [[at-spiritual-life-toc|TOC]] | [[at-sl-31|B3 Ch. II Art. II →]] # Chapter II. Infused Contemplation [1] After explaining the general notions concerning infused contemplation, we shall examine its different degrees. ## Art. I. General Notions Regarding Infused Contemplation I. Definition 1386\. A) Earlier writers, not making any explicit distinction between acquired and infused contemplation, do not as a rule give the specific difference between the two. From different articles of St. Thomas on this subject one can draw the conclusion that contemplation is a simple, intuitive gaze on God and divine things proceeding from love and tending thereto.[2] St. Francis de Sales defines it thus: “A loving, simple, and permanent attentiveness of the mind to divine things.”[3] B) Modern authors generally make the distinction between the two kinds of contemplation, and with Pope Benedict XIV they define or describe infused contemplation as: “a simple look of the mind attended by a gentle love for things divine, proceeding from God, Who in a special way moves the mind to know and the heart to love divine things, and Who through the gifts of the Holy Ghost — understanding and wisdom — co-operates in these acts by shedding a powerful light upon the mind and by inflaming the will with love.” This gives a very complete notion and points out clearly the share of God and of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost as well as the part our faculties play. Though God moves our mind to know and our heart to love, we co-operate freely with His divine motion. We must note, however, that this definition only extends to sweet and not to arid contemplation. Hence, if one is looking for a definition that embraces both, one may say that it is a simple, loving, protracted gaze on God and things divine, under the influence of the gifts of the Holy Ghost and of a special actual grace which takes possession of us and causes us to act in a passive rather than in an active manner. To understand this definition well, we must explain the share of God and that of man in contemplation. II\. The Role of God in Contemplation God has the principal part, since He alone can take possession of us and put us in the passive state. 1387\. 1° It is God Who calls the soul to contemplation, for according to all mystics contemplation is essentially a gratuitous gift. Such is the teaching of St. Theresa. Often she calls this prayer supernatural. In her second relation to Father Rodrigo Alvarez, she explains the term thus: “I call supernatural that which cannot be acquired either by industry or by effort, no matter what pains we take for the purpose. As to disposing oneself thereto, this indeed one can do, and this is no doubt a great thing.”[1] She further elucidates her thought by the following graceful comparison: “Our Lord is pleased to make the soul mount higher and higher towards Him; then He catches this little dove and places it in a nest, there to repose.”[2] Such is also the teaching of St. John of the Cross. He distinguishes two methods, one active and the other passive; the latter, which is none other than contemplation, is “that in which the soul does nothing as of itself, neither does it make therein any efforts of its own; but it is God Who works in it, giving special aids, and the soul is patient, freely consenting thereto.”[3] The Saint often returns to this distinction: “There is between the two states all the difference that exists between human and divine work, between natural and supernatural operation. Such souls do not act of themselves, but are under the action of the Holy Ghost; He is the principal agent, the guide, the mover in this state, and ceases not to watch over them, and lead them as so many instruments in His hands towards perfection through Faith and the Divine Law, through the spirit which God imparts to each one.”[1] Now, if the initiative is all God’s, if it is He Who moves souls, if He is the principal agent, and the soul but an instrument, it is clear that the soul cannot intrude itself into this state, nor merit it in the strict sense, that is, in justice, for we cannot merit in this way except what God has deigned to include within the scope of merit, namely, sanctifying grace and eternal glory. The gratuity of this state is acknowledged even by that school which holds that all souls are called to contemplation. After saying that meditation is not beyond our efforts, Father Saudreau adds: “No one can of himself enter into mystic prayer; no matter what efforts one may make, one will not attain it if one has not been raised to such a high state by divine favor.”[2] Some indeed are of the opinion that one can merit it by a title of fitness, but such merit does not detract in the least from its essential gratuity. 1388\. 2° Again, it is God Who determines the moment and the manner, as well as the duration of contemplation. He alone puts the soul into the passive or mystic state seizing its faculties in order to act in them and through them, but always with the free consent of the will. This constitutes a sort of divine possession; and since God is the Sovereign Master of His Gifts, He intervenes when He wills and as He wills. 1389\. 3° In contemplation God acts especially in what mystics call the subtile point of the soul, the summit of the soul, the summit of the will or the inmost depth of the soul. By this we must understand all that is loftiest in the intellect and the will; it is the intellect, not inasmuch as it reasons, but inasmuch as it perceives truth by à simple glance, under the influence of the higher gifts of understanding and of wisdom; it is the will in its simplest act, which is that of loving and of relishing things divine. The Venerable Louis de Blois[3] thinks that this center of the soul wherein contemplation takes place is far superior to the three controlling faculties, since it is the source of these faculties. “Therein,” he adds, “the higher faculties themselves are but one thing; therein reign perfect tranquility and perfect silence, for no image can ever reach there. It is in this center wherein the divine image lies hidden, that we put on the divine likeness… O Peerless Center! the holy Temple whence the Lord never departs? O wondrous Recess! the dwelling-place of the Hallowed Trinity, and the source here below of eternal delights!” 1390\. 4° It is in this center of the soul that God produces at the same time knowledge and love. a) He produces there a knowledge which though obscure, makes a vivid impression, because it is experimental or quasi-experimental. God may produce it in four different ways: 1\) By attracting our attention to an idea already possessed, but which heretofore had not impressed us deeply. Thus we knew that God is love, but now divine light makes us understand and relish this thought so well that it penetrates our whole being and takes complete possession of us. 2\) By bringing together in our mind two ideas which we have had and making us draw from them a forceful conclusion. Thus, from the thought that God is all and we are nothing, the Holy Spirit makes us understand that humility is for us an imperative duty: I am Who am, thou art what is not! 3\) By producing within us what are called infused impressions which, because they proceed from God, represent divine things in a more perfect and more telling fashion; this is what occurs in some visions or revelations. 4\) By granting to a soul a transient vision of God as He is in Himself, as was the case, according to St. Thomas, with Moses and St. Paul,[1] and, according to some of the Fathers, with the Blessed Virgin.[2] This, however, is a favor altogether exceptional, the actuality of which is doubted by grave theologians, who explain otherwise the texts of scripture adduced by St. Thomas. 1391\. b) God also produces in the soul an ineffable love. He enables it to understand by a sort of intuition, that He, and He alone, is the Supreme Good, and thus He attracts the soul to Himself in an irresistible way, like a magnet does, yet without doing violence to its free-will. The soul then moves towards God with all the ardor wherewith it moves towards happiness, yet freely, because its vision of God, though obscure, does not take away its freedom. Then, according to the Venerable Louis de Blois, the soul goes out of itself in order to pass wholly into God and be lost in the abyss of eternal love. “And there, dead to itself, it lives in God, knowing nothing, feeling nothing, save the love that inebriates it. It loses itself in the vastness of divine solitude and darkness; but to lose oneself here, is rather to find oneself, for the soul really divests itself of all that is human in order to clothe itself with God. It is all changed and transformed in God, just as iron in a fire assumes the aspect of fire and is changed into it. But the essence of the soul thus deified remains what it was, just as the incandescent iron ceases not to be iron. Heretofore there was but coldness in this soul, from now on it is all aflame; from darkness it has passed into the most radiant brightness; once insensible, it is now all tenderness… All consumed by the flame of divine love and wholly melted thereby, it passes into God by uniting itself to Him without any intermediary; it forms but one spirit with Him, just as gold and brass fuse to form one metal. Those that are thus ravished and lost in God reach different heights, for each one penetrates further into the divine depths in proportion as he turns towards God with greater sincerity, earnestness and love, and as he foregoes more completely in this quest all personal interest.”[1] III\. The Role of the Soul in Contemplation Moved by God’s grace, the soul freely responds to the divine motion. 1392\. 1° It lets itself be freely seized and moved by God, as a child lets itself be carried in its mother’s arms. The soul is therefore both passive and active during contemplation. a) It is passive in this sense, that it is powerless to act on its own initiative as it did previously; at the moment of contemplation it can no longer employ its faculties in a discursive way; it is dependent upon a higher principle which governs it, which fastens its gaze, its mind and its heart upon the object of contemplation, makes it love and relish that object, suggests what it must do and imparts to it a powerful impulse to enable it to act. However, in the first stages of contemplation there is not a complete powerlessness; the phenomenon of the ligature of the faculties is effected but gradually and does not exist completely, except in some of the higher stages of contemplation, particularly in ecstasy. Thus, in the state of quietude, vocal prayer and meditation fatigue the soul, but generally they are not beyond its powers;[2] in the state of perfect union, God suspends the exercise of the understanding, not indeed completely by preventing it from acting, but by preventing it from reasoning; He halts thoughts by centering them on a determined object; He causes speech to die away upon the lips so that one cannot utter a single word without a painful effort.[1] 1393\. b) Although the soul cannot reason as it did heretofore, it does not remain idle. Under the influence of the divine action, it acts by gazing on God and by loving Him, even if it be by acts that are at times but implicit. Nay, the soul exerts a greater activity than ever; for it receives an influx of spiritual energy which considerably increases its own. It feels itself transformed by a superior being which is, so to speak, its soul, and which lifts it up and carries it on towards God. This is the effect of operating grace to which the soul joyfully consents. 1394\. 2° In this state God appears to the soul under a new aspect, as a living reality, grasped by a sort of experimental knowledge which human language cannot express. It is no longer by a process of induction or deduction that God is known, but by a simple intuition. However, this intuition is not as yet the clear vision of God; it remains obscure and is obtained by a sort of contact with God, Who causes us to feel His presence and relish His favors. Perhaps no one has better described this experimental knowledge than St. Bernard:[2] “I confess, though I say it in my foolishness, that the Word has visited me, and even very often. But although He has frequently entered my soul, I have never at any time been sensible of the precise moment of His coming. I have felt that He was present. I remember that He has been with me; I have sometimes been able even to have a presentiment that He would come, but never to feel His coming, nor His departure… And thus I have learned the truth of the words I had read: In Him we live and move and have our being (Acts, XVII, 28); but blessed is the man in whom He is, who lives for Him, who is moved by Him. You will ask then, how, since the ways of His access are thus incapable of being traced, I could know that He was present. But He is living and full of energy, and as soon as He has entered into me He has quickened my sleeping soul; has aroused and softened and goaded my heart, which was in a state of torpor and hard as a stone. He has begun to pluck and destroy, to plant and to build, to water the dry places, to illuminate the gloomy spots, to throw open those which were shut close, to inflame with warmth those which were cold, as also to straighten its crooked paths and make its rough places smooth, so that my soul might bless the Lord, and all that is within me praise His Holy Name. Thus, then, the Bridegroom-Word, though He has several times entered into me, has never made His coming apparent to my sight, hearing or touch. It was not by His motions that He was recognized by me, nor could I tell by any of my senses that He had penetrated to the depths of my being. It was as I have already said, only by the revived activity of my heart that I was enabled to recognize His Presence; and to know the power of His sacred Presence by the sudden departure of vices and the strong restraint put upon all carnal affections. From the discovery and conviction of my secret faults I have had good reason to admire the depth of His wisdom; His goodness and kindness have become known in the amendment, whatever it may amount to, of my life; while in the reformation and renewal of the spirit of my mind, that is, of my inward man, I have perceived, in a certain degree, the excellency of the Divine beauty.” Thus the soul that contemplates the Word feels at once His Presence and His sanctifying power. This is therefore an intermediate knowledge between ordinary faith and the Beatific Vision, but which in its last analysis belongs to faith and shares in its obscurity. 1395\. 3° Often the soul’s love is greater than its knowledge: this is seraphic contemplation, in contradistinction to cherubic contemplation in which knowledge predominates. The will attains its object in a manner different from that of the mind: the latter knows an object only according to the representation, the image, which it receives from that object; the will or the heart tends towards the object such as it is in itself. This is why we are able to love God as He is in Himself, although our mind here on earth does not understand His inner nature This very obscurity but causes a rekindling of our love for Him and makes us long ardently for His Presence. By an aspiration of the heart, the mystic, who cannot see God, rends the mystery that veils his own face and loves God in himself, in His infinite essence.[1] At all events some knowledge always precedes love; therefore, if certain of the mystics seem to deny this, it is because they emphasize what has particularly impressed them. But it still remains true, even in the mystic state, that no one can love what he in no wise knows. 1396\. 4° In contemplation there is a mixture of joy and sadness: unspeakable joy in relishing the Presence of the Divine Host, sadness at not having complete possession of Him. At times it is joy that predominates, at others, it is sadness, according to the designs of God, the various phases of the mystic life and the different individual temperaments. Thus there are periods that are particularly painful, called nights, and others that are sweet or pleasant. Some minds, like that of St. John of the Cross and St. Jeanne Chantal, perceive and describe especially the trials of the mystic life; others, like St. Teresa and St. Francis de Sales, dwell more readily upon the joys and raptures of contemplation. 1397\. 5° As the mystics admit, this contemplation is beyond the powers of human description. “It cannot be discerned or described,” says St. John of the Cross.[1] “Moreover, the soul has no wish to speak of it, and besides, it can discover no way or proper similitude by which to describe it, so as to make known a knowledge so high, a spiritual impression so delicate and infused. Yea, if it could have a wish to speak of it, and find terms to describe it, it would always remain secret still… The soul is like a man who sees an object for the first time, the like of which he has never seen before; he handles it and feels it, yet he cannot say what it is, or tell its name, do what he can, though it be at the same time an object cognizable by the senses. How much less then can that be described which does not enter by the senses?” This impossibility of describing what one has experienced is explained on two grounds: on the one hand, the mind is plunged into divine darkness and perceives God but vaguely and obscurely, although it is very deeply impressed; on the other hand, the most striking phenomenon is that of an intense love for God, which one experiences but knows not how to describe. 1398\. A) Let us see first of all what is meant by the divine darkness, an expression borrowed from the Pseudo-Dionysius.[2] “Delivered from the world of sense and the world of thought, the soul enters into the mysterious darkness of a holy ignorance, and dismissing all scientific knowledge, it loses itself in Him Who can neither be seen nor apprehended; it gives itself over completely to this Sovereign Object and belongs no longer to itself or to any other; it is united to the Unknown by the noblest part of its being in virtue of its renouncement of knowledge; finally, it draws forth from this utter ignorance a knowledge that the intellect would not be able to attain.” To attain therefore to this contemplation, we must rise above sense knowledge, which evidently cannot perceive God, and even above rational knowledge, which knows God only by induction and abstraction. It is indeed solely through the subtile part of the intellect that we can perceive Him. On earth we cannot see Him directly; we can but reach Him through the method of nagation. St. Thomas explains this more clearly: “From negation to negation, the soul rises above the most excellent creatures and unites itself to God in what measure it can here below. For in our present existence, our mind can never see the Divine Essence, it can only know what It is not. Such union therefore as is possible here below between the mind and God takes place when we come to know that God surpasses the noblest of creatures.”[1] The very notion of being, such as we conceive it, is too imperfect to be applied to God; it is only after eliminating all specific being known by reason that our mind unites again with God. It is then that the mind finds itself in the divine darkness, and it is there that God dwells.[2] If we ask ourselves how it is that such negative intuition can enlighten us as regards God, we can answer that we thereby learn not what God is, but what He is not; that we thereby acquire a very exalted idea of Him, which produces in the superior part of the soul a profound impression of the divine transcendence and at the same time an ardent love for Him Whose grandeur and goodness nothing can express and Who alone can fill the soul. This contemplation, vague and affectionate, suffices under the influence of grace to cause implicit acts of faith, confidence, love and religion to well up in the soul, filling it completely, and generally producing in it a great sense of joy. 1399\. B) The second element which renders a description of contemplation difficult is the ardent love which one experiences therein and which one knows not how to express. “It is a canticle of love,” St. Bernard tells us,[3] “which the anointing of grace alone teaches, and experience alone makes the soul familiar with. Those who have had experience of it know it well; let those who have not had that happiness earnestly desire, not to know it, but to experience it. It is not a cry from the mouth, but the gladness of the heart; not the sounding of the lips, but the impulse and emotion of joys within; not a concert of words, but of wills moving in harmony. It is not heard without, nor does it make a sound in public. Only she who sings, and He in whose honour it is sung, that is, the Bridgegroom and the bride, hear the accents of that song. It is a nuptial song which is expressive of the chaste and sweet emotions of souls, the entire conformity of character, the blending of affections in mutual charity. But for the rest, this song is not to be sung or to be understood by a soul which is as yet a neophyte in virtue and but newly turned from the world. It belongs to the advanced and instructed soul which, by the progress in grace made by the power of God, has grown as far as to reach a perfect age, and, as it were, to have become marriageable through the merits it has acquired, and by its virtues to have become worthy of its Spouse.” 1400\. 6° When contemplation is arid and weak, as in the first night of St. John of the Cross, one is not conscious of it; it is only later that, by examining the effects it has produced, one is able to establish the fact of its existence. When it is sweet it seems quite certain that one is not always conscious of it in its beginnings, because while it is still weak it is difficult to distinguish it from the prayer of simplicity, and because at times one passes from the one to the other without realizing it. However, once it has become intense, one is conscious of it. It may be said that all the various supernatural prayers described by St. Teresa are of this type, as we shall note when explaining the different phases of contemplation. 1401\. Conclusion. From what we have said, it follows that the essential element of infused contemplation is passivity, as we heve described it, which means that the soul is led, acted upon, moved, directed by the Holy Ghost, and does not lead itself, move itself, or direct itself, though it preserves its freedom and its activity. Therefore, it must not be said that the essential element of contemplation[1] is the consciousness of the presence of God or the presence of God felt, since at times this is lacking, particularly in the arid contemplation described by St. John of the Cross in the course of the first night. It is, however, one of its chief elements, since it reappears in all the degrees of contemplation described by St. Teresa, from the prayer of quiet to the transforming union. ### § II. Advantages of Contemplation These advantages surpass even those of the prayer of simplicity, precisely because in contemplation the soul is more closely united to God and under the influence of a more efficacious grace. 1402\. 1° God thereby receives greater glory.[2] a) By causing us to experience the infinite transcendence of God, infused contemplation abases our whole being before His majesty, causes us to praise and bless Him, not only at the time of mental prayer, but likewise the whole day long: once we have caught a glimpse of this divine grandeur, we are held spellbound in admiration and worship before it. This is so true that we are unable to contain ourselves, and we feel forced to invite all creatures to bless and thank God, as we shall see further on (n. 1444). b) These homages are all the more pleasing to God, and honor Him all the more as they are directly inspired by the Holy Ghost: it is He Who adores in us, or rather, He Who causes us to adore with sentiments of great fervor and humility. He makes us adore God as He is in Himself, causing us to realize that this is a duty of our very condition, and that we are created solely in order to sing His praises. And in order to make us sing them with greater earnestness, He bestows upon us new favors and a great peace of soul. 1403\. 2° The soul is thereby made more holy. Contemplation produces so much light, so much love, and so much virtue that it is rightly called a royal road to perfection A) It enables us to know God in an ineffable and highly sanctifying way. “God now secretly and quietly infuses wisdom into the soul together with the loving knowledge of Himself, without many divers, distinct or separated acts, though He produces them sometimes in the soul, and that for some space of time.”[1] This knowledge is very sanctifying, because it enables us to know by experience, what we had previously learned through reading or personal reflection, and because it makes us see at a glance what we had analyzed by successive acts of the mind. St John of the Cross[2] gives an excellent explanation of this: “God in His one and simple essence is all the power and majesty of His attributes. He is omnipotent, wise, good, merciful, just, strong, loving; He is all the other attributes and perfections of which we have no knowledge here below. He is all this. When the soul is in union with Him, and He is pleased to admit it to a special knowledge of Himself, it sees all these perfections and majesty together in Him… and as each one of these attributes is the very being of God, Who is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and as each attribute is God Himself; and as God is infinite light, and infinite divine fire, it follows that each attribute gives light and burns as God Himself.” Now one can understand what St. Teresa[3] says: “When it is Our Lord who stops and suspends the understanding, He supplies it with matter to occupy itself, and ravish it with astonishment, so that without any reasoning it then understands more during the short space of a “Credo” than we ourselves could understand, with all possible study, during many years.” Doubtless there are instances in which the light is not so clear but rather obscure and vague; but even then it makes a deep impression on the soul as we explained in number 1398. 1404\. B) Contemplation produces, above all, a very ardent love, which, according to St. John of the Cross, is characterized by three special qualities: a) First of all, the soul loves God, not of itself, but through Him; this constitutes an excellent practice; for it loves through the Holy Ghost, as the Father and the Son love One Another. This the Son Himself declares through St. John: “That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”[1] b) The second excellence is that of loving God in God; for, in this ardent union, the soul is absorbed by the love of God, and God yields Himself with great readiness to the soul. c) The third quality of the supreme love is that in this state the soul loves God for what He is, that is to say, it loves Him not only because He shows Himself generous, good, glorious, etc., but much more because He is essentially generous and good etc. We can add, with St. Francis de Sales,[2] that this love is all the more ardent, because it is based upon experimental knowledge. In the same way that he who “with clear eyes feels and feels again the vivifying splendour of the rising sun” loves that light far more than one born blind who knows light but from hearsay, so he who enjoys God by contemplation loves Him far better than the one who knows Him but through study; “for the actual experience of some good renders it more lovable to us than all the speculative knowledge of it that we could have.” He goes on to say, that St. Catherine of Genoa loved God more than the subtle theologian, Ocham; the latter had more knowledge of God through science, the former through experience; and this experience carried her far ahead in seraphic love. What increases this love still more is that it facilitates contemplation, and that contemplation in turn deepens love: “For, love having aroused our attention to contemplate, reciprocally this attention gives birth to a greater and stronger love which finally attains its crowning perfection when it enjoys the possession of the object loved… love urges on the mind to the ever more attentive contemplation of the beloved beauty, and the sight impels the heart to love it ever more ardently.”[3] 1405\. C) This love is attended by the practice of all the moral virtues in their highest degree and, in particular, of humility, of conformity to God’s will, of holy abandonment, and thereby of joy and peace of spirit even in the very midst of the trials, terrible at times, which mystics undergo. This we shall see more in detail when analyzing the various degrees of contemplation, n. 1440 etc. ### § III. Proximate Call to Contemplation 1406\. We set aside for the time being the controverted question concerning the general and remote call of all the baptized to contemplation. We wish to remain as far as possible on the solid ground of facts and to examine these two questions: 1° To whom does God generally grant the grace of contemplation? 2° What are the signs of a proximate and individual call to contemplation? I. To Whom does God Grant Contemplation? 1407\. 1° Contemplation being essentially a free gift (n. 1387), God grants it to whom He wills, when He wills, and in the way He wills. Usually, however, He bestows it only upon souls well prepared for it. By exception, God grants it at times in an extraordinary way to souls devoid of virtues, so as to snatch them from the power of the devil. St. Teresa[1] affirms this: “God knows that He can attract certain souls to Himself by means of divine favours: He sees they are on the way to be lost, but He does not wish it to happen through any fault of His; therefore, though they are in a bad case and are lacking in goodness, He gives them consolations, delights, and tenderness of devotion which begin to excite their desires; He even sometimes raises them to contemplation, although but rarely, and for a very short time. This is to prove whether such a grace will induce them to prepare themselves to enjoy His favours more often.” 1408\. 2° There are privileged souls whom God calls to contemplation from their infancy, such as St. Rose of Lima, and in our own time, St. Teresa of the Child Jesus. Others are brought to it later and make such rapid progress in it as would seem to be out of proportion to their virtues. St. Teresa[2] recounts the following: “I remember one whom God in three days so enriched that were it not for the several years’ experience together with her constant and growing improvement, I would think it impossible. Another one I know who in three months reached contemplation; and both of these were still young. I have seen others receive this grace only after a long time… No limits can be set to so great a Master, Who is so anxious to bestow His favours.” 1409\. 3° But ordinarily God selects for contemplation those who have prepared themselves for it by detachment, and the practice of the virtues and of mental prayer, especially affective prayer. This is the teaching of St. Thomas,[1] who declares that one cannot arrive at contemplation except by mortifying the passions through the practice of the moral virtues (cfr. n. 1315). St. John of the Cross is no less emphatic; he develops this teaching at length in the Ascent of Carmel and in the Night of the Soul, and shows that in order to reach contemplation, one must practice the most complete and universal self-abnegation. He adds that if contemplatives are so few, it is because there are few who are completely detached from self and creatures. “So act,” the Saint goes on to say, “that the soul may be established in pure, spiritual nakedness, and having become pure and simple it will be transformed into the simple and pure wisdom of God, which is the Son of God.”[2] St. Teresa returns to this again and again, recommending, above all, humility: “After having done what those in the preceding mansions do, practice humility, and again, humility! Thereby does the Lord suffer Himself to be overcome and to yield to all we desire of Him… My opinion is that when His Majesty bestows it, He gives it to such as are already taking leave of the things of the world. I do not say they do so in fact, for their condition prevents them, but they do so by desire. Then He calls them to concern themselves specially with interior things; hence, I believe that if we allow His Majesty full freedom of action, He will not limit Himself to this gift alone on behalf of one whom He has invited to higher things.”[3] 1410\. 4° The main virtues to be practiced are: a) A great purity of heart and a complete detachment from all that can lead to sin and trouble the soul. As examples of habitual imperfections which prevent a perfect union with God, St. John of the Cross cites: “much talking; certain attachments, which we never resolve to break with, such as to individuals, to a book or a cell, to a particular food, to certain society; the satisfaction of one’s taste, science, news, and such things.” He then gives the reason why: “Does it make any difference whether a bird be held by a slender thread or by a rope, while the bird is bound and cannot fly till the cord that holds it is broken?… This is the state of a soul with particular attachments: it never can attain to the liberty of the divine union, whatever virtues it may possess.”[4] 1411\. b) A great purity of mind, that is to say, the mortifying of curiosity, which troubles and disturbs the soul, distracts and scatters its attention in all directions. This is why those whose duties of state require them to read much and to study, must often mortify their curiosity, stop from time to time, and refer all their study to the love of God. This purity likewise demands that one be willing to abridge and, at the accepted time, relinquish reasoning in prayer, and simplify one’s affections, so as to come, little by little, to a simple and loving gaze on God. On this point St. John of the Cross bitterly reproaches unskilled directors of souls who, being acquainted with discursive meditation only, want to oblige all their penitents to keep their faculties constantly in action.[1] 1412\. c) A great purity of intention attained through mortification of the will and the practice of holy abandonment (nn. 480-497). d) A lively faith, which makes us live in all things according to the maxims of the Gospel (n. 1188). e) A religious silence which enables us to transform all our actions into so many prayers (n. 522-529). f) Finally, and chiefly, an ardent and generous love which goes as far as self-immolation and the joyous acceptance of all trials (n. 1227-1235). II\. Signs of a Proximate Call to Contemplation 1413\. When a soul is thus consciously or unconsciously disposed for contemplation, a time comes when God makes it understand that it must relinquish discursive meditation. Now, St. John of the Cross[2] tells us there are three signs which indicate this moment. 1° “When one finds one cannot meditate nor exert his imagination, nor derive any satisfaction from it, as he was wont to do — when he finds dryness there, where he was accustomed to fix the senses and draw forth sweetness — then the time is come. But while he finds sweetness, and is able to meditate as usual, let him not cease therefrom, except when his soul is in peace, of which I shall speak when describing the third sign.” The cause for this dislike, the Saint goes on to say, is that the soul has already drawn from divine things well-nigh all the spiritual profit that discursive meditation can yield; it can no longer make such a prayer; the craving and the relish for it are gone; hence it needs a new method.[1] 1414\. 2° “When he sees that he has no inclination to fix the imagination or the other senses on particular objects, exterior or interior. I do not mean when the imagination neither comes nor goes, — for it is disorderly even in the most complete self-recollection, — but only when the soul derives no pleasure from tying it down deliberately to other matters.” This the Saint explains: “Such a soul betaking itself to prayer — like a man with water before him — drinks sweetly without effort, without the necessity of drawing it through the channel of previous reflections, forms and figures. And the moment such a soul places itself in the presence of God, it makes an act of knowledge, confused, loving, peaceful and tranquil, wherein it drinks in wisdom, love and sweetness. This is the reason why the soul is troubled and disgusted when compelled, in this state, to make meditations and to labour in particular acts of knowledge. Its condition, then, is like that of an infant at the breast, withdrawn from it while it was sucking it, and bidden to procure its nourishment by efforts of its own; like one who loses a prize already in his power.”[2] 1415\. 3° “The third sign is the most certain of the three, namely, when the soul delights to be alone, waiting lovingly on God, without any particular considerations, in interior peace, quiet, and repose, when the acts and exercises of the understanding, memory, and will have ceased, at least discursively, that is, going from one subject to another, nothing remaining except that knowledge and attention, general and loving, of which I have spoken, without the particular perception of aught else.”[3] “This general knowledge of which I am speaking is at times so subtle ana delicate — particularly when most pure, simple, perfect, spiritual, and interior — that the soul, withal, in the practice thereof, is not observant or conscious of it. This is the case when that knowledge is most pure, clear and simple, that is, when it enters into a soul most pure and detached from all other acts of knowledge and special perceptions, to which the understanding or the sense may cling. Such a soul, because freed from all those things which were actually and habitually objects of the understanding or of the sense, is not aware of them, because the accustomed objects of sense have failed it. This is the reason why this knowledge, when most pure, perfect, and simple, is the less perceived by the understanding, and is the most obscure. On the other hand, when this knowledge is less pure and simple, the more clear and the more important it seems to the understanding; because it is mixed up with, clothed in, or involved in, certain intelligible forms, of which the understanding most easily takes cognizance, to its hurt.”[1] The Saint explains this by the following comparison: “When the rays of the sun penetrate through a crevice into a dark room, and the air within is full of atoms and particles of dust, these are more palpable then, more visible to the eye; and yet, those rays are then less pure, simple, and perfect, because mixed up with so much impurity: also, when they are most pure and most free from dust, the less are they cognizable by the material eye; and the more pure they are, the less are they seen and considered.”[2] The same takes place in the case of spiritual light: the purer and more radiant it is, the less it is perceived, so much so that the soul believes it finds itself in darkness; if on the contrary it be charged with some intelligible forms, it is more easily discerned, and the soul thinks itself better enlightened. 1416\. We must note here with Saint John of the Cross that these three signs must exist at the same time before one can safely venture to abandon the state of meditation for the way of spiritual contemplation. And let us add with this Saint that it is profitable in the beginning of one’s advancement to the ways of contemplation to return at times to discursive meditation. This will even become necessary if the soul finds itself unoccupied during the quiet of contemplation; for meditation is imperative as long as the soul has not acquired the habit of contemplation.[3] Conclusion: The Desire of Contemplacion 1417\. It is permissible to desire infused contemplation, since it is an excellent means of perfection, but it must be done humbly and conditionally, with a holy abandonment to the will of God. a) Since contemplation has so many advantages, n. 1402, it follows that one may desire it: “Contemplation is like a dew which makes virtues grow, which nourishes them, and from which they obtain their crowning perfection.”[4] b) But this desire must be humble, it must be accompanied by the conviction that we are very unworthy of such a gift and by the desire of using it solely for the glory of God and the good of souls. c) It must be conditional, subordinated in every way to the good pleasure of God. It must therefore be neither over-eager nor unpractical: one should remember that contemplation normally presupposes the practice of the moral and theological virtues, and that it would be presumption to desire it before being schooled for a long time in these virtues. Besides, one must fully realize that if contemplation procures unspeakable joys, it is also attended by terrible trials which only strong souls can withstand, God’s grace helping. --- ![[maps/bibliography#^biblio-tan]] > [[at-sl-29|← B3 Ch. I]] | [[at-spiritual-life-toc|TOC]] | [[at-sl-31|B3 Ch. II Art. II →]]