LIFE EVERLASTING

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

PART I

ORDER demands that we study first the depths of our emotional life as illumined by sense cognition and then those of our voluntary life as illumined by our intellect. Progress in acquired virtue and, still more, progress in infused virtue will reveal immense depths and will clarify in particular the growth of charity in the souls of the saints, both in their hours of trial and in the joy of their apostolic triumphs.

2 Sensibility, the source of passion and emotion, is, like sense knowledge and imagination, common to animals and men. This sensibility we call sense appetite to distinguish it from the will, which is a spiritual faculty, common to man, angel, and God. Passions, emotions, the movements of sense appetite arise when sense knowledge or imagination puts before us a sense object, attractive or repellent. Thus we note that the desire for food appears under a peaceful form in the dove and the lamb, but under a violent form in the wolf, the tiger, and the lion.

3 The first among all passions, the source of all others, is sense love, the love, for example, of the animal for the food it needs. From this love rises a series of passions: desire, joy, hope, audacity, hate, aversion, sadness, despair, fear, and anger.

4 Passion is not always, but may become, keen, vehement, dominating. In man the passions are meant to be ruled and disciplined by reason and will. Thus ruled, they are weapons which defend a great cause. On the contrary, if they remain unruly and undisciplined, they become vices: love becomes gluttony and lust, aversion becomes jealousy and envy, audacity becomes foolhardiness, fear becomes faintheartedness and cowardice.

5 These wide contrasts, both in good and in evil, show how deep and immense is the world of passion. Even in the animal kingdom what heights are scaled by love and hate: in the lion, for example, attacking his prey, in the lioness defending her young!

6 But this width and depth of passion is still more immense in man, because man's intellect grasps universal good and man's will desires that boundless good which is found in God alone. Hence when man's will does not follow the straight road to God, when man seeks supreme happiness not in God but in creatures, then his concupiscence becomes insatiable, because he has unlimited desires for a good that is limited. Man's will was created to love supreme good and the irradiations of that supreme good. Hence when the will turns aside, its tendency to universal good continues under that deviation, and this tendency of man's highest faculty now becomes foolish, exercises a lamentable influence on man's lower faculties. This truth is a proof, a sad proof indeed, but still a proof, of the spirituality of the soul. The ruins of decay are a souvenir of grandeur.

7 Passion, says St. Thomas, when it is truly natural, that is, founded on man's nature, cannot be boundless, because it desires only what nature demands, and the sense good which nature demands is limited, in food, for instance, and drink. Unnatural desire, on the contrary, can be unlimited, because it arises from reason gone astray, which sees unlimited good in a good which is in reality limited. Thus a man who desires wealth can desire it in limitless measure, can see in wealth the ultimate purpose of his life.

8 Natural desire, then, in animal and man is limited. The animal (e.g., wolf, tiger, lion) when it is sated no longer seeks prey. But intelligent man when depraved conceives and pursues ever more wealth and pleasure. Hence quarrels among neighbors and endless wars among nations. The miser is insatiable, likewise the man of pleasure and the man of power. Love when thwarted begets hate, and that hate becomes boundless. Hate, says Baudelaire, is the cask of the pale Danaides. These Danaides, says mythology, slew their husbands on their wedding night, hence were condemned to fill a cask without bottom: endless punishment of boundless depravity.

9 If passions which man shares with beast be so deep and wide, what must be the depth and breadth of the will which is a spiritual faculty common to man and angels?

2. WILL AND INTELLECT

FEW people reflect deeply on the superiority of the intellect over the imagination, of the concept over the accompanying sense image.

2 The mind, intellect, differs from all sense powers, external and internal, because it has as primary object not mere accidental facts, external or internal, color, for example, or sound, or tactile resistance, but rather intelligible and universal reality. By reason of this object the mind knows the raison d'etre of things, the causes of events, and their purpose or goal.

3 The concept of being, of reality, underlies all other concepts. The verb "to be" underlies every sentence. "Peter runs" means "Peter is running." In a priori judgments this "is" expresses essence. In a posteriori judgments the "is" expresses existence. Thus the infant's mind grows on a series of whys: Why does the bird fly? Because it is looking for food (its goal and purpose). To fly it needs wings (instrumental cause). Its nature requires wings (formal cause). It dies because it is composed of matter and hence is corruptible.

4 NOW these raisons d'etre, these sources and causes (final, efficient, formal, material) are accessible to reason only, not to sense and imagination. Reason alone knows purpose as purpose. Imagination grasps the thing which is purpose, but it does not grasp the principle of finality.

5 Here we see the immeasurable distance between image and concept. The image, say, of a clock is a composite of sense qualities, color, sound, and so forth. A concept of the clock makes this sense-composite intelligible: a clock is a machine which by maintaining uniform movements indicates solar time. This concept, this raison d'etre, inaccessible to the animal, is easily grasped by the child.

6 Whereas sense and imagination are restricted to sense objects as individual, as limited in space and time, the intellect grasps these same objects as universal, as realizable in whatever part of space and time. Thus it grasps what the clock must necessarily be, everywhere and always, in order to indicate solar time. In like fashion the intellect rises from the limited and particular sense good to the good that is universal and unlimited.

7 Thus we conceive also what we need in order to become what we should be. We need an object that is always and everywhere good. Further we see that this object must be unlimited reality, a supreme being wherein unlimited good is completely realized.

8 The intellect conceiving supreme being, unlimited good, sees likewise, at least confusedly, that this being must exist. The mind sees things which begin and end, corruptible things. Hence they must derive existence from something that is self-existent and able to give existence to other things. Otherwise the more would arise from the less: effect without cause. Similarly this truth holds universally: no motion without a first mover, no living thing without a first life, no mundane order without a supreme ruler, no intelligent being without a first mind. Shall we trace St. Augustine's genius back to a blind, material fatality?

9 Now in the world of the will, in the moral world, we meet this same truth: no morality, no law, without a supreme legislator, no holiness without a supreme holiness. Reason more or less confusedly grasps these necessary truths.

10 How unmeasured, then, must be the immensity of man's will, which is illumined, not by sense and imagination, but by reason and intelligence! Imagination, sense perception, leads animals, herbivorous or carnivorous, each to the food it needs. Intelligence leads man to an unlimited good, a good which is to be found only in that unlimited reality which is God, because He alone is unlimited and essential good. Hence if sense has such an inexhaustible reach in the daily life of the animal world, how boundless must be the reach of man's will in the pursuit of an unmeasured world of good!

3. SOUL IMMENSITY AND BEATIFIC VISION

IF, AS St. Thomas says, the miser has the desire of riches in an infinite degree, what must we then say of the spiritual desire of the will? The higher knowledge rises, the higher also, the deeper also, is our spiritual desire. And Christian faith tells us that God alone, seen face to face, can satisfy this immeasurable desire. Hence we may say, in a true sense, that our will has a depth without measure.

2 Hence beatitude, that true happiness which man desires naturally and inevitably, cannot be found in any limited good, but only in God, seen at least in natural fashion and loved efficaciously above all things. St. Thomas demonstrates the beatitude of man from the fact that he conceives that universal good cannot be found either in riches or in honor or in glory or in power or in any material, corporeal good, not even in any finite subjective good of the soul, like virtue, lastly in no limited good whatever. The saint's thesis rests on the very nature of our intelligence and our will. When we try to find happiness in the knowledge of a science or in a friendship however noble, we are not slow in recognizing that we are dealing with a limited good, such as made St. Catherine of Siena express herself as follows: "If you wish any friendship to endure, if you wish to quench your thirst for a long time, you must always refill your cup at the source of living water, otherwise it cannot continue to reply to your thirst."

3 It is impossible, in fact, for man to find true happiness which he desires naturally in any limited good, because his intelligence at once seizes on this limit, and thus conceives a higher good, and thus his will naturally desires that higher good.

4 Even if it were to be granted to us to see an angel, to behold without medium his suprasensible and purely spiritual beauty, we would indeed at first be amazed. But our intelligence, knowing universal good, would not be slow in telling us that even this great good is a finite good, and would find this finite good very poor in comparison with good itself, without limits and without any imperfection.

5 Even the simultaneous collection of all finite good would not constitute goodness itself, no more than an innumerable multitude of idiots can equal a man of genius.

6 Following St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas writes: Temporal goods appear desirable when we do not have them; but when we do have them, we see their poverty, which cannot meet our desire and which therefore produces disillusion, lassitude, and often repugnance. In spiritual goods the inverse is true. They do not seem desirable to those who do not have them and who desire especially sensible good. But the more we possess them the more we know their value and the more we love them. For the same reason, material goods, the same house, the same field, cannot belong simultaneously and integrally to many persons. Spiritual goods, on the contrary, one and the same truth, one and the same virtue, can belong simultaneously and completely to all. And the more perfectly we possess these goods, the better we can communicate them to others. This is especially true of the sovereign good.

7 Of necessity, then, there exists an infinite good which alone is capable of answering our aspirations. Otherwise the universal amplitude of our will would be a psychological absurdity, a thing radically unintelligible, without raison d'etre.

8 Had God created us in a state purely natural without grace, our last end would have been to know Him naturally, by the reflection of His perfection in creatures, and to love Him efficaciously above all things.

9 But gratuitously God has called us to know Him in supernatural fashion by the immediate vision of His divine essence, to know Him as He knows himself, to love Him as He loves Himself and this for all eternity. There, above all, we will understand that God, seen face to face, can fill the immense void of our heart, that He alone is able to fill the depth of our will.

10 In what sense, then, is this depth of soul without measure? One may object: Our soul like every creature is finite and limited. Hence the soul-faculties are also limited. Without doubt, the creature, even the most elevated, is finite. Not only is our body limited, but our soul also. Consequently the faculties of our soul, as being characteristics of the soul, are finite. Nevertheless our intelligence, however finite, is created to know the universal truth, even the infinite truth, which is God. Similarly our will, although finite, is made to love a good that has no limits. Without doubt, even in heaven, our act of the beatific vision, considered from the side of the subject which knows, will be finite, but it is addressed to an infinite object. It attains that object, though it attains that object in a finite manner. It does not comprehend God, but it understands Him, it sees Him without medium, sees His infinite essence, His infinite perfection. Thus, to illustrate, the open eye, however small it may be, sees the immensity of the ocean, sees into the night, even as far as the stars, though they are millions of leagues away. Thus, in heaven also, our act of seeing the divine essence, though it has not the penetration of the uncreated vision, attains immediately the divine essence. Our love of God, though it remains finite subjectively considered, rests immediately on the infinite good, which we love indeed in our own finite manner, but which makes it impossible for us to rest except in Him. No other object can satisfy all our aspirations. Then alone, says the Psalmist, I shall be satisfied when Thy glory shall appear. Our heart can never find a durable rest except in the love of God.

11 In this sense, seen from the objective side, our will has an infinite depth. Our will is indeed finite as being, just as our intelligence, but it opens upon the infinite. As the Thomists express themselves: Our faculties are infinite intentionally, from the side of the object, i.e., our superior faculties are finite in their entity, as characteristics of the soul, but they have an object which is without limit. Thus even in the sensible order our eye, however small, reaches out to grasp the nebulae in the immensity of the firmament.

4. THE SOURCE OF LIBERTY

IT FOLLOWS from what has been said that God alone, seen face to face, can draw our will irresistibly. In the presence of every finite object the will is free. St. Thomas writes: "If we have as our object of sight a thing actually colored, luminous from every viewpoint, the eye cannot but see this object. But if we propose to it an object which is colored or luminous only on one side, whereas it is obscure on the other (as during the night when we use a lantern), the sight will not see this object if it is presented to it on the side where it is not colored or luminous. Now just as the colored object is presented to the eye, so good is the object presented through the will. If therefore we propose to the will an object which is good, good from every point of view, the will must necessarily desire that object and cannot wish for its opposite. On the contrary, if the object presented is not altogether good from every point of view, the will can refuse to will it. Now, as the absence of any good can be called non-good, only the sovereign good, which lacks nothing, is such that the will must necessarily will it. This good is beatitude." We cannot but wish happiness, we cannot but wish to be beatified, but we often forget that the true and perfect happiness cannot be found in any object except God loved for Himself alone. And here below we love freely; because we do not see Him immediately as He is, we can turn away from Him when we consider that what He commands is displeasing to our pride or to our sensuality.

2 But if God Himself, who is the infinite good, were immediately and clearly presented to us face to face, we could not but love Him. He would fill perfectly our affective capacity, which would be drawn irresistibly toward Him. It would not keep any energy to withdraw itself from this attraction. It could not find any motive to turn away from Him, or even to suspend its act of love. This is the reason why one who sees God face to face cannot sin. As St. Thomas says: "The will of him who sees the essence of God without medium, necessarily also loves that essence and cannot love anything else except in its relation to God, just as here below we wish everything in virtue of our desire for happiness." God alone seen face to face can make our will invincibly captive.

3 By opposition, our will remains free to love or not to love any object which is good under one aspect and not good or insufficiently good under another. The very definition of liberty is that of the dominating indifference of the will in regard to any object which is good from one viewpoint and not good from another. This definition of liberty is to be found, not only in human liberty, but also in angelic liberty, and, analogically, in divine liberty. Hence we see that God was free to create or not to create, to elevate us to the life of grace or not to elevate us.

4 Our will, then, has an infinite profundity, in the sense that God alone, seen face to face, can fill it and irresistibly draw it. Created goods cannot, for this reason, exercise on the will an invincible attraction. They attract it only superficially; the will remains free to love or not to love. Hence, here below, our will itself must go to meet this attraction, which in itself is incapable altogether of overcoming the will. Here lies the reason why the will must determine the judgment before it determines itself. For the same reason the will keeps the intelligence suspended in consideration as long as it pleases, suspends the intellectual search, or ceases to pursue it. This is the reason why it depends in last analysis on the will, whether such and such a practical judgment shall or shall not be the last. Hence the free act is a gratuitous response, proceeding from the depth of the will, to the weak solicitation of a finite good.

5 Only God, seen face to face, draws our will infallibly and makes it captive even to the very source of its energy. Even an angel seen immediately as he is, however beautiful he may be, cannot draw our will irresistibly. The angel is only a finite good, and two finite goods, however unequal, are equally distant from the infinite. In this sense the angel and the grain of sand, in comparison with God's supreme good, are equally low.

6 The depth of our will, considered from the viewpoint of the object which can fill it, is without limit. Why does it come that a particular truth (not a good), for example, the existence of Marseilles or Messina, necessitates our intellect, whereas only God, the universal good, seen face to face, can necessitate our will? St. Thomas replies: "Our intelligence is necessitated by an object which is true from every point of view, but it is not necessitated by an object which can be true or false, which is only probable, as, for example, the existence of a distant town which may have meanwhile been destroyed by an earthquake. Our will, similarly, is not necessitated except by an object which is good from all viewpoints. Such an object is our own happiness, the source of all our acts. Such an object is, above all, God seen face to face. Here below we can cease to think on His goodness, whereas those who see God face to face cannot cease to see Him, and can never find the least pretense for suspending their action of love."

7 This doctrine explains several problems which are very difficult, in particular that of the liberty of Christ. For three reasons Christ here on earth was impeccable: His divine personality, the beatific vision, His plenitude of grace. Consequently He could not disobey. But, if so, how could He obey freely? Free obedience is a condition of merit. In particular, how could He freely obey the precept of dying for us on the cross, the precept which He Himself spoke of when He said, "I lay (My life) down of Myself.... This commandment have I received of My Father."

8 The reply of St. Thomas runs thus: Christ, although He was incapable of disobedience, since He was absolutely impeccable, could still feel that attractiveness of non-obedience. To illustrate: a good religious who receives an order that is very severe does not even have the thought of disobeying. But he does have the consciousness that he is accomplishing freely this act, difficult as it may be, and that even while he does the act he has the power of not doing it. Disobedience is a privation, non-obedience is a negation.

9 How then did freedom remain in the presence of death on the cross? This death was an object, good under one aspect, namely, for our salvation, and frightful under the other. Hence this object could not attract the human will of Christ irresistibly, as would the view of the divine essence seen immediately. On the other hand the precept, since it demands free and meritorious obedience, could not destroy the liberty of the will, since it would thus destroy itself.

10 Certainly we are here in the presence of a great mystery, a chiaroscuro of the most amazing kind. The solution lies in the universal amplitude of the will, created in such fashion that God alone seen face to face can fill its capacity, and consequently free in the presence of any good mingled with non-good.

11 What we have now said of the free will shows that each soul is a universe, unum versus alia omnia because each soul is opened by reason of its intelligence to universal truth, and by its will to universal good. Each soul therefore is a spiritual universe which gravitates toward God, the sovereign good.

12 But each of these spiritual universes, since each has free will, can deviate from its orb, can leave the straight road, can take the road to perdition. Further, each of our deliberate acts must be performed for an end, hence each must be directed, either toward moral good or toward evil. In illustration, take a watershed, where each drop falls either to the right or to the left. In Switzerland, for example, on St. Gotthard, one drop goes to the Rhine and on to the foggy seas of the north, the other goes to the Rhone and on to the shining shores of the Mediterranean.

13 Similarly, in the spiritual order, each of our deliberate acts should be done for a good end and thus be directed virtually to God. If not, it is wicked and takes the opposite direction. Even the act of walking. in itself an indifferent thing, if it is done for a good end, say for proper recreation, is a good act, whereas, by a bad intention, it becomes a bad act.

14 This is a serious consideration, but it is also very consoling, because in the just man each deliberate act is good and meritorious. It goes toward God and brings us near Him.

15 We see from this point of view that it is never by chance that two immortal souls meet, be it that they are each in the state of grace or that one only has the divine life and can by its prayers, its attitude, its example, bring back the other to the right road which leads to eternity. It was not by chance that Joseph was sold by his brethren to the Ismaelite merchants. God had determined from all eternity that these merchants would pass at such and such an hour, not earlier, not later. It was not by chance that Jesus met Magdalen or Zacheus, or that the centurion found himself on Calvary.

16 This depth of the human will illumines, as we shall see, the teaching of divine revelation on the subject of heaven, purgatory, and hell. The just man, were he to live on the earth fifty thousand years, could still, before dying, say to God: "Father, Thy kingdom come. Let Thy will be found ever more profoundly in the depth of my will. Let Thy infused charity be rooted in my will ever more deeply." May it please God to grant us experience of the profound depths of our soul which He alone can fill.

5. THE ROOTS OF VICE AND VIRTUE

THAT we may understand better the immensity of the soul, in particular of the will, we must now speak of vices and virtues, those roots which penetrate into the soul, either for our loss or for our salvation.

2 Virtue makes man perfect, inclines him to a good end, makes of him not only a good painter, a good sculptor, a good mathematician, but a good man. Vice is an evil habitude, that of acting contrary to right reason. It deforms man entire in the conduct of his life, because it taints the will and inclines it to an evil end. Vice makes of a man not a bad painter, a bad sculptor, but a bad man, a criminal. This condition begins at times even in children of fourteen or fifteen years. All vices have one root in common, namely, the disordered love of self, opposed to the love of good, and especially of the sovereign good which is God. This evil root tends to sink itself ever more deeply into the will, and from this root there is born an evil tree. The trunk of this tree is egoism, of which the central and principal branch, the continuation of the trunk, is pride, of which the lateral branches are the concupiscence of the flesh and concupiscence of the eyes. Thus St. John.

3 The branches of this wicked tree have numerous sub-branches which are called capital sins.

4 From concupiscence of the flesh is born gluttony and luxury. From concupiscence of the eyes, that is, immoderate desire of external goods, is born avarice, and then perfidy, fraud, cheating, and hardening of the heart. From the pride of life are born vainglory and ambition, disgust for spiritual things, forgetfulness of God, envy, anger, injuries to neighbor.

5 The capital sins conduct man to others that are still more grave, to sins against the theological virtues. They lead to blasphemy, opposed to confession of the faith, to despair, opposed to hope, to the hate of God and neighbor, opposed to charity.

6 Some of these vices in the most wicked men have roots that are very deep, which manifest in their own sad manner the immensity of the soul. We know those words of St. Augustine: "Two loves have built two cities: the love of self extending to the scorn of God has made the city of Babylon, that is, the city of the world, the city of immorality, whereas the love of God even to the scorn of self has made the city of God." Just as man does not arrive all at once at sanctity, so too he does not arrive at once at complete perversity. Inordinate love of self, when it becomes dominating, puts forth roots more and more deep, to be seen in certain souls which are on the road to perdition. Their voice often has a sharp and piercing sound. They close their eyes to the divine light which alone could illumine and deliver them. At times they combat the truth, although it be evident. This is one of the forms of the sins against the Holy Spirit, impugnatio veritatis agnitae. After a miraculous healing obtained by St. Peter in the name of Jesus, the members of the Sanhedrin said: "What shall we do to these men? For indeed a miracle hath been done by them, known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. It is manifest, and we cannot deny it; but that it maybe no farther spread among the people, let us threaten them that they speak no more in this name to any man." Thus they forbade Peter and John to speak further in this name to anyone. To which these two replied: "If it be just in the sight of God, to hear you rather than God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." The measureless depths of the human soul reveal themselves in this unregulated love of self, which rises at times to the scorn and hate of God. This malice is accompanied by a hate which is inveterate and incomprehensible, even against their greatest benefactors. Certain frightening perversities, as, for instance, those of Nero and other persecutors, would not yield even to the constancy and goodness that radiated from the suffering martyrs.

7 Now this unbelievable degree of malice manifests by contrast the grandeur of God and of the saints. The Lord permits malice and persecution in order to let the sanctity of the martyrs shine forth the more brightly. In Spain, in I 936, during the Communist persecution, the faithful would come to their priest and say: "How is it that God permits such atrocities?" And the priest would reply: "Without persecution there can be no martyrs, and martyrs are the glory of the Church." The faithful understood and were comforted.

8 The immensity of the human soul appears still more in those great virtues which are rooted in it, and which could grow still greater if the time of temptation and merit were not a mere prelude to eternal life.

9 In virtues we distinguish the acquired virtues, which arise by repetition of natural acts, from infused virtues, which are supernatural virtues that are received at baptism, and that grow in us by means of the sacraments, by Holy Communion, and by our merits.

10 But even acquired virtues manifest the depths of the soul. Temperance and courage send the light of right reason down into our sensibility, there to resist temptations, at times very vivid, of impurity and laxity. Similarly the acquired virtue of justice reveals the grandeur of the human soul, particularly when, for the common good of society, it establishes and observes laws demanding great sacrifices, even those of life. We need only recall the unjustly accused Socrates, whose reverence for the laws of his land made him refuse to escape from prison.

11 But the infused virtues manifest still more clearly the grandeur of the soul. They proceed from sanctifying grace, which is received in the very essence of the soul as a divine root. Grace communicates to us a participation in the intimate life of God, the very vitality of God. Sanctifying grace is in truth the seed of everlasting life, semen gloriae; when it is widely expanded and developed, it enables us to see immediately God as He sees Himself, and to love Him as He loves Himself. Thus it becomes in us a germination of eternal life. If the germination of grain gives thirty or sixty or even a hundred per cent, what will be in the supernatural order the germination of eternal life?

12 From this divine root, which is sanctifying grace, there flows into our intelligence infused faith, and into our will infused hope and infused charity. And from these virtues derive the infused virtues of Christian prudence, of justice, of religion, of courage, of chastity, of humility, of sweetness, of patience, and the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

13 The infused virtues, flowing from sanctifying grace, give to our faculties the power of acting supernaturally in order to merit eternal life. The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, which accompany these infused virtues, render us docile to the inspirations of the inner master. He alone draws forth from our faculties, even from our sense faculties, harmonies that are not only natural, but supernatural, harmonies that we hear especially in the lives of the saints. Sanctifying grace gives us an entirely new spiritual organism.

14 Infused faith, resting on divine revelation, extends very widely the frontiers of our intelligence, because it lets us know God as the author of nature, and also as the author of grace -- a share in His own intimate life. Faith makes us adhere infallibly and supernaturally to truths which surpass the natural forces of any created intelligence, even of the highest angel. It enables us to adhere to the mysteries of the Blessed Trinity, the elevation of the human race to the supernatural order, to the mysteries of the Fall and of the redemptive Incarnation, and of the means of salvation. And the gift of intelligence renders this infused faith more and more penetrating.

15 Infused hope makes us tend toward God, toward the life of eternity. Although it does not give us certitude of salvation, which would require a special revelation, it has a certitude of tendency toward that goal. By infused hope we tend surely to our last end, just as the swallow tends to its home. This certitude is augmented by the inspirations of the Holy Spirit, who, in the midst of the greatest difficulties, consoles the just man and lets him feel that he is approaching heaven. The gift of filial fear preserves us from presumption. The gift of knowledge shows us the emptiness of terrestrial things, and the gift of piety increases our confidence in God our Father. In all these ways we see the height and the depth of the soul. We see it still better when we treat of charity.

16 Charity is a true friendship, a supernatural friendship, which unites us to God. Already in the Old Testament Abraham is called the friend of God. Similarly the name is given to the prophets. In the New Testament we hear Jesus say to us: "You are My friends if you do the things that I command you. I will not now call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you." These words were spoken to the apostles, but also to us. This truth leads us far onward if we are faithful to it.

17 This virtue makes us love our neighbor, since he is loved by God, our common Father, inasmuch as he is a child of God or is called to be a child of God.

18 This charity should become ever more rooted in the depths of our soul and thus drive out the unregulated love of self. Charity widens our heart, gives it something of the grandeur of divine goodness, and makes us love, as God does, all men without exception. Yea, more, if a just man were to live on earth for an indefinite time, for millions of years, he could throughout all that time advance in merit, and charity would not cease to grow greater in the depths of his will.

19 St. Thomas expresses this truth in these words: "Charity can always grow greater in itself, because it is a participation in uncreated love and unlimited love. Further it can also always grow as a gift of God, its author, who can always make it grow greater. Lastly it can grow greater by our own cooperation, because the more charity grows the more the soul becomes capable of receiving its augmentation." Charity, thus progressing, widens our heart, which in some sense has been invaded by the love of God. This love grows only in order to grow still greater. At times we are capable of experiencing this truth when we are in prayer.

20 This page of St. Thomas clarifies the unmeasured depths of our will. Infused charity is rooted ever more deeply, excludes more decisively the unregulated love of self. It drives us on to love ourselves and our neighbor, to glorify God in time and in eternity, on earth, in purgatory, and in heaven. It lets us grow into the immensity of the heart of God.

21 Length corresponds to depth and height. Listen to St. Paul: "Charity never falleth away." Faith gives place to vision, hope to possession, but charity, like sanctifying grace, lasts forever. The life of grace and charity is already eternal life in embryo. Thus Jesus spoke: "He that believeth in Me hath everlasting life." He who believes in Me with a living faith not only will have eternal life, but already has it in germ.

22 The infused cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, courage, temperance, are far superior to the acquired virtues of the same name. These infused virtues are the virtues, not only of the perfect man, but of the child of God. Between acquired prudence and infused prudence there is a greater distance than that between two musical notes of the same name separated by an entire octave. Infused prudence is of another order than acquired prudence, to such a degree that this latter could grow continually greater without ever attaining the least degree of the other. And the same truth holds-good for the other acquired moral virtues in relation to the infused virtues of the same name. If acquired virtue is silver, infused virtue is gold, and the gift of counsel, still higher, is a diamond. But acquired virtue does facilitate the exercise of the infused virtue and of the gift which accompanies it, just as manual agility facilitates the exercise of the musician's art, which is in his intellect.

23 Certain Christian virtues have a very special elevation by reason of their affinity with the theological virtues.

24 Humility, comparable to an excavation made for the construction of an edifice, recalls our Savior's word: "Without Me you can do nothing," and St. Paul's word: "What hast thou that thou hast not received?" We are not capable of drawing for ourselves, as coming from ourselves, the least thought profitable for salvation. Grace is required even for the least supernatural act.

25 Humility recalls to us also these words ascribed to St. Augustine: "There is no fault committed by another man of which we ourselves are not capable if we were placed in the same circumstances and surrounded by the same evil examples from the time of our youth." Hence we read that St. Francis of Assisi, when he saw a criminal led to execution, spoke to himself: "If this man had received the same grace as I have received, he would have been less faithless than I. If the Lord had permitted in my life the faults which he has permitted in this man's life, I would be in his place today." We must thank God for all the good He has enabled us to accomplish, and for avoidance of all the faults we could have committed. We are dealing here with the great depths of Christian life.

26 Infused magnanimity perfects acquired magnanimity. It completes humility and preserves us in spiritual equilibrium. It enables us to undertake great deeds for God, even in the most humble conditions, for instance, that of a good servant faithful to his master throughout his life. It enables us to avoid ambition as well as pusillanimity, reminds us that no great deeds are done without humility, without the succor of God which we ask for in prayer daily: "Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it."

27 Patience, that Christian sweetness which shines so gloriously in the martyrs, enables us to support the evils of the present life with equanimity, without worry. Patience supports inevitable evils, remains on the right road, continues the ascent to God. Martyrs are in the highest degree masters of themselves. They exercise the principal act of courage, which consists, not in attacking, but in enduring. They do not yield to persecutors, but pray for them.

28 The virtue of religion, aided by the gift of piety, carries us on to offer to God the worship which is His due, with that filial affection which the Holy Spirit inspires, with boundless confidence in the efficaciousness of prayer, in the goodness of God, even when all seems lost.

29 Penance carries us forward, in union with the Sacrifice of the Altar, to repair offenses against God. It kindles zeal for the glory of God, for the salvation of our neighbor. It goes on to make reparation for sinners. A little Roman child, Antonetto Meo, who died in the odor of sanctity (July 3, 1937), had, at the age of less than six, to undergo amputation of a leg because of cancer. When his mother said to him: "If the Lord asked you for this leg, would you give it to him?" he answered, "Yes, Mama." Then after a moment of reflection he added: "There are so many sinners in the world, someone must make reparation for them." During the course of the second operation, not less painful, his father asked: "Is your suffering very great?" His answer was: "Yes, Papa, but suffering is like cloth. The stronger it is, the more value it has." This spirit of reparation, which characterizes the great saints, leads into the high things of God. All infused virtues grow simultaneously. The saints reach "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ."

30 The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are to the soul what seven sails are to a ship, or rather as seven spiritual antennas to the inspirations of a harmony of which God is the author.

31 If perversities show in sad fashion the depths of the soul, virtues reveal that depth still better, above all infused virtues, especially charity. Its roots sink ever more deeply into our will, where they chase away all egoism, all unregulated love of ourselves. Charity grows by Holy Communion. Let each Communion be substantially, if not more emotionally, more fervent, more fruitful, than the preceding Communion. A good Communion today disposes us for a better Communion tomorrow. Thus it is in the lives of the saints, since they put no obstacle in the road of this progress. Saints exemplify the parable of the sower: grains fall upon good ground, and they bring forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty-fold, and some thirty-fold. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Seen from this viewpoint, old age, with all its drawbacks, is yet man's most beautiful age, since it is the age where merit reaches its full development, wherein we are most near to the eternal youth of heaven.

32 The depths of the soul, thus manifested by growth in virtue, are manifested still more clearly by those purifications of the spirit which enable us to have our purgatory before we die to the earth.

6. PURGATORY BEFORE DEATH - THE NIGHT OF THE SOUL

THESE deep purifications of the soul have often been treated, for example, by Tauler, by Louis de Blois, and by St. John of the Cross.

Louis de Blois, explaining the phrase which Tauler uses, namely, the depth of the soul, speaks as follows: "The substance of the soul cannot operate directly. It cannot feel, cannot conceive, judge, love, will, except by its faculties. In this it differs from the divine substance, which alone is pure act, and hence is immediately operative of itself. God has no need of faculties by which to pass from potentiality to act. He is thought itself, He is love itself. God is like a flash of genius and love, eternally subsistent. On the contrary, the human soul and the angel need faculties. They cannot know except by the faculty of intelligence, they cannot will except by the faculty of will. Hence we cannot admit, following St. Thomas, that the essence of the soul has latent acts of knowledge and of love, acts which would not proceed from our faculties.

2 But it is true that our most profound acts, roused into activity by God, differ strikingly from the superficial judgments of daily life. These acts are so deep, so profound in the depths of our superior faculties, that they seem rooted in the very substance of the soul. In this sense, excellent authors like John of the Cross speak of substantial touches of the Holy Spirit in the depth of the soul, touches that bring forth a mystic knowledge, very elevated and intense acts of infused love.

3 Since God is more intimate to the soul than itself, since He preserves it in existence, He can touch and move it ab intus, from within. He touches the very bottom of our faculties by a contact, not spatial but spiritual, dynamic, divine.

4 Comparison has often been made between our superficial consciousness and the shell which envelops the body of a mollusk. Man, too, has his shell, that is, routine habitudes of thinking, willing, acting, attitudes which are the result of his egoism, of his illusion, of his errors. Nothing of all this is in harmony with God, hidden in the depth of our soul. This shell, this superficial consciousness, must be broken before the soul can know what lies in its most profound depths.

5 That which breaks the shell is the trials, especially the trial which is called purgatory before death. A poor woman, mother of many children, suddenly loses her husband, on whom the family depended. The soul of this poor woman suddenly reveals a great Christian. The father of a family is captured and kept in a war prison for many years. If he is faithful, God bends toward him, reveals to him the grandeur of the Christian family for which he suffers.

6 We can see the same truth in a king robbed of his crown: in Louis XVI, say, the king of France, condemned to death and executed during the Terror. Having lost his own kingdom, he came to see before death the grandeur of the kingdom of God.

7 All Europe at this moment is passing through this purifying trial. Please God that we may understand. Pain is, in appearance, the most useless of things, but it becomes fruitful by the grace of Christ, whose love rendered His sufferings on Calvary infinitely fruitful. The Holy Father in Rome recently recalled in a congress of Catholic physicians these words of a French poet:

8 Man is an apprentice, pain is his master:

9 Nothing can be known, except so far as man has suffered.

10 Thus pain, suffered in a Christian manner, is most useful. Already in the physical order it is useful, in admonishing us, for instance, of the beginning of a cancer. Similarly moral pain is useful, since it makes us desire a life superior to that of sense. Pain makes us desire God, who alone can heal certain wounds of the heart, and who alone can fortify and remake the soul. Pain invites us to have recourse to Him who alone can restore peace and give Himself to us.

11 Listen to St. John Chrysostom: "Suffering in the present life is the remedy against pride, which would turn us astray, against vainglory and ambition. Through suffering the power of God shines forth in weak men, who without His grace would not be able to bear their afflictions. Suffering, patience, manifests the goodness of him who is persecuted. By this road he is led to desire eternal life. Memory of the great sufferings of the saints leads us to support our own, by imitating the saints. Finally, pain teaches us to distinguish false goods which pass away from true goods which last eternally."

12 Listen to Holy Scripture: "My son, reject not the correction of the Lord, and do not faint when thou art chastised by Him. For whom the Lord loveth He chastiseth, and He scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."

13 We must purify the depths of the soul. Our Lord says often: "If any man will follow Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me." Again: "I am the true vine (you the branches) and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me . . . that beareth fruit, He will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit."

14 This lesson is particularly necessary for those who by vocation must work, not only for their own personal sanctification, but also for that of others. Hence St. Paul says: "We are reviled, and we bless; we are persecuted, and we suffer it; we are blasphemed, and we entreat."

15 The purifying action of God on the depths of the soul appears above all in what is called purgatory before death, that purgatory which generally souls must traverse in order to arrive at divine union here below. During this purgatory charity is rooted more and more in the depths of the souls and ends by destroying all unregulated love of self. This unregulated love is like a blade of dogs-tail grass, which grows again and again. This bad root receives its deathblow when charity reigns entirely in the depth of the soul.

16 Purgatory before death means passive purification, both of sense and of spirit. Its goal is to purify the very depths of our faculties, to extirpate, with iron and fire, all germs of death. During this anticipated purgatory the soul merits, whereas after death the soul cannot merit. St. John of the Cross says: "In spite of its generosity the soul cannot arrive at complete purification of itself, cannot render itself entirely suited for the world of divine union and the perfection of love. God Himself must set His hand to the work and purify the soul in His own dark fire."

17 Purification of sense comes first. We are deprived of consolations which may have been useful for the moment, but which become an obstacle when we seek them for their own sake with a sort of spiritual gluttony. The ensuing sense-aridity leads us into a life much more disengaged from the senses, from the imagination, from reasoning. We begin to live by the gift of knowledge, which gives us an experimental and intuitive knowledge, first of earthly vanity, then of God's grandeur. Temptations, which become very frequent, lead us to make meritorious acts, even heroic acts, of chastity and patience. We are purified by losing certain friendships, by losing fortune, by undergoing sickness, by family trials, for example, in the case of a person unsuitably married.

18 This purification of sense has as its goal to subject our superior faculties entirely to God. But these superior faculties too have need of purification. The stains of the old man, says St. John of the Cross, persist in the spirit though the soul itself may not be conscious of them. They yield and disappear only under the soap and lye of purification.

19 Even those far advanced often seek themselves unconsciously. They are much attached to their own judgment, to their particular manner of doing good. They are too sure of themselves. They may be seduced by the demon, who carries them on to presumption. Their faults can become incurable, being taken for perfections. Selfishness prevents them from seeing these faults.

20 Hence purification of the spirit is also indispensable. It is a purgatory before death, meant to purify humility and the three theological virtues. This purification proceeds under an infused light, an illumination from the gift of knowledge, a light which seems obscure because it is too strong for the feeble eyes of our spirit, just as the light of the sun is too strong for nocturnal birds. This light manifests more and more the infinite grandeur of God, superior to all the ideas we ourselves can make. On the other hand, it shows us also our own defectiveness, reveals in us deficiencies that of ourselves we would never find. Humility becomes genuine humility. The soul wishes to be nothing, wishes God to be all-in-all, wishes to be unknown and reputed as nothing. Temptations against the theological virtues, common at this stage, lead to the highest heroism.

21 Purification sets in strong relief the formal motive of the three theological virtues. Secondary motives seem to disappear. We believe, in the absence of every other reason, for this sole and unique motive: God has said it. We adhere more and more strongly to Primal Truth, in an order immensely beyond miracles and human reasonings. We hope against hope, resting solely on God's omnipotence and goodness. We are to love, not consolations, sensible or spiritual, but God for His own sake, because of His infinite goodness. And this pure love of God leads us to a pure love of our neighbor, whatever be our neighbor.

22 The three formal motives of the theological virtues, namely, Primal Truth, aiding Omnipotence, Infinite Goodness, are three stars of the first magnitude shining in this night of the spirit. St. Theresa of the Infant Jesus passed through this night in the last years of her life. St. Vincent de Paul, suffering for another priest tormented in his faith, was himself assailed for four years with temptations against the faith, so strong that he wrote the creed on a parchment, which he pressed against his heart every time the temptation became vehement. These four years in the dark night of faith multiplied his heroic acts a hundredfold. St. Paul of the Cross, the founder of the Passionists, endured a similar trial for forty-five years. This trial was meant chiefly to repair the sins of the world. Further, since he himself was already deeply purified and had arrived at the transforming union, he was thus prepared to be the founder of an order devoted to reparation.

23 This passive purification of the spirit leads to mystic death, to the death of irregulated self-love, of spiritual pride, often subtle and little recognized, to the death of egoism, the principle of every sin. It cleanses the depth of the will from all wicked roots. Love of God and of neighbor now reigns without rival, according to the supreme command: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and with thy whole soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind."

24 Thus the soul has passed through purgatory before physical death, and it has passed through in the state of merit, whereas in the other purgatory after death merit is not possible. Thus even here on earth the soul is spiritualized, supernaturalized, down to its very depths, where all spiritual life begins and ends. The soul aspires more and more to reach its source, to re-enter the bosom of the Father, that is, the depths of God. It aspires more and more to see Him without medium. It experiences ever more keenly that only God can satisfy it.

25 Great saints exemplify St. Augustine's word: "The love of God has reached the scorn of self." Thus we read that the apostles, after their imprisonment, came forth rejoicing because they had been judged worthy to suffer opprobrium for the name of Jesus. "And every day they ceased not, in the temple and from house to house, to teach and preach Christ Jesus." Their blood, shed with that of thousands of other martyrs, was the seed of Christianity. The love of God even to the scorn of self triumphed over selfishness reaching to the scorn of God. Unselfish love of God converted the world, Roman and barbarian.

26 What will reconvert the world of today? Only a constellation of saints can lead the masses back to Christ and the Church. Mere democratic aspirations, as conceived by Lamennais and many others, are not sufficient. There is need of the love of a Vincent de Paul if we would reach the depths of the modern soul. Everlasting life must again become, not a mere word, but an experienced reality.