CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER

The Paternoster Series
1.

A MAP OF PRAYER
by Fr. R. H. J. Steuart, S.J.

2.

THE PATH OF PRAYER
by Fr. Vincent McNabb, O.P.

3.

CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER
by Père de la Taille, S.J.

4.

THE ONE THING NECESSARY
by Rev. Bruno S. James

5.

DELIGHT IN THE LORD
by Fr. Daniel Considine, S.J.

6.

FIFTY
MEDITATIONS
ON
THE
PASSION
by Archbishop Goodier, S.J.

Deacidit

THE PATERNOSTER SERIES
No. 3

Contemplative Prayer
By
PÈRE DE LA TAILLE, S.J.

Translated, by a Tertiary of the
Order of Mount Carmel

LONDON

Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd.
Publishers to the Holy See

First published, 1926
Second edition, 1950

NIHIL OBSTAT:

Eduardus Mahoney, S.T.D.,
Censor deputatus.

IMPRIMATUR:

Edm. Can. Surmont,
Vicarius generalis.
Wbstmonasterii,

Die 16« Septembris, 1926.

Mads and Printed in Great Britain

PREFACE

The object of the present paper is merely to
indicate briefly the nature of the general
solution which traditional theology appears
to offer to certain questions touching passive
contemplation: the method of its process,
the means of access to it, its trials, its place
in the economy of the supernatural, the kind
of direction which it demands. We assume as
known the descriptions of the fact of mysticism
which have been left us by such masters as
Denys, St. Gregory, St. Bernard, St. Catherine
of Genoa, St. Ignatius, St. Teresa, St. John of
the Cross, St. Francis de Sales, St. Alphonso
Liguori, etc., as well as St. Thomas’s principles
concerning religious knowledge, whether the
natural knowledge of man or angel, or super­
natural knowledge given through faith. It is
out of the comparison between these two orders
of information—the experience of contem­
platives on the one hand, and the principles
of the theologian on the other—that light may
emerge. For the last three centuries this topic
has given rise to works which have ignited or
fed the flame of ardent controversies the
echoes of which I shall not awaken in these
pages.

v

CONTENTS
PAGE

i. The Method of the Process of
Contemplation .................
i
a. The Door of Entry of Contempla­
tion.......................................
8

3. The Trials of Contemplation

...

13

4. Its Place in the Economy of the

Spiritual Life

..........................

20

5. Some Consequences with Regard
to Direction
..........................

24

vii

Contemplative Prayer
i.

THE METHOD OF THE PROCESS OF
CONTEMPLATION

Instead of using intellectual representations
borrowed from the senses by the method of
abstraction under the light of reason, which
reflect the individual under universal traits,
the contemplative attains to God by a process
still analogical indeed, but not abstractive, and
comparable to angelic knowledge, which does
not separate, as does our knowledge, the
universal from the individual, but reaches
objects in their integrity. With reference to
God, it is the essence itself of the angel which
plays the part of representation or mirror.
God, like all other objects, is attained by the
angel without rational discourse: which does
not mean without any intermediary, because,
in the case of knowledge, whether of God or
of creatures, there is necessarily the inter­
mediary of an image or resemblance through
which the vision of the spirit passes. Only the
spirit does not use this mental substitute as
a point of departure from which it gradually
proceeds in its journey towards God. God
is neither deduced nor inferred by way of
causation or finality or exemplarity; all these
methods being methods which belong to the
abstractive intelligence. But in one single
1

act the intelligence of the angel attains both
to the mirror in which God is reflected and to
God Himself, whose image appears to the
spirit: an image which bears in itself the
testimony of its truth, i.e., of the Divine
existence, because it is not part of the order
of abstraction to which alone it belongs to
isolate from each other in God subject and
the predicate existence, in order to associate
them afterwards in a judgement which is
the conclusion of a piece of reasoning. The
intermediary in the case of the angel is then
not the middle term of a syllogism; it is the
luminous medium, as it were the refracting
prism, through which the Divine Sun shines.
The case is the same with the contemplative.
It remains to be seen what is this luminous
medium in which the contemplative attains
to God. Up to the present we only know what
it is not. It is not an abstract idea derived
from the normal process of human information.
Is it a new “species” placed in the spirit
miraculously by God, and, in consequence,
distinct not only from reason and its products,
but also from faith, which is presupposed as
present: since contemplation is the act of a
believer, a faithful Christian, in fact, neces­
sarily the act of a just soul in a state of grace,
bound by charity to God? Here we must
distinguish. It may, and does sometimes,
happen that the intelligence of a contemplative
is endowed by God with distinct pieces of
knowledge bearing on certain supernatural

2

objects: this is the case with intellectual vision
which necessarily demands the medium of
distinct representations.
*
But such intellectual
vision is not essential to contemplation. The
proper and characteristic object of contempla­
tion is the Sovereign Good, the good of the
future life: an object supremely indistinct on
account of its infinity which prevents its
circumscription or definition, either proper
and formal definition, or definition of any kind
supposing a common measure with the object :
so much so that contemplation becomes higher
and purer in proportion as it further reveals
and makes this transcendent darkness shine
more splendidly. This is the contemplative
* This should be understood of particular pieces of
knowledge not contained in the deposit of revealed
truth, such, for instance, as the distinct knowledge of
this or that angel accorded transiently to certain Saints,
in particular to St. Alphonso Rodriguez; or again, a
more frequent case, knowledge of the state of this or
that soul after death. As to truths contained in the
deposit of faith, they may be attained in the light of
contemplation as well as the proper and principal
object of faith, which is the First Truth promised to
our intuitive vision. Just as in ordinary faith sub­
ordinate articles of belief are grouped round its central
object (vide Ila Ilae, q. I, d. i), similarly in contempla­
tion the light may fall on the object of this or that
particular dogma, according to the direction of the
Holy Spirit, or in a certain measure (at least in certain
cases), at the choice of the contemplative. This is
because the First Truth is apprehended as revealing
as well as revealed; it is apprehended as revealing itself.
And it reveals itself as the goal to be attained by this
or that path, in this or that condition, by means of this
or that assistance, etc., which makes a place for all the
dogmas in its ray of light.

3

way of knowing the Divine Goodness in all its
excess. It is evident that no distinct represen­
tation will give us that. On the contrary, the
light of faith, which is an obscure ray of the
Eternal Brightness, if it emerges and dis­
engages itself from rational knowledge founded
on the senses, has the property of informing
the soul about God, the central core of light
from which it beams forth. In lumine tuo
videbimus lumen. Contemplation is faith when
it attains through the medium of its own light,
which is itself the author and object of this
illumination. Him who reveals Himself as our
future happiness, the First Truth for us to
contemplate eternally in the uniqueness of His
Essence seen face to face, the Last End and
Supreme Goodness which the soul will enjoy
without veils, without anymedium or obscurity.
Then once more, and in the full meaning of
the terms, in lumine tuo videbimus lumen: in
the light no longer of faith, but of the Un­
created Glory we shall see the Beauty, the
Divine Goodness which beatifies us, both
glorifying and glorified, in the words of St.
Irenæus: Gloria Dei vivens homo; vita autem
hominis visio Dei. “The living man is the glory
of God: but the life of man is the vision of God”
(4 Contra Haer., 38, 7; P.G., vii, 1037). Here
below this goes on in faith.
*
But it must be
* Why is contemplation placed in faith? Firstly,
because it does not belong to the order of intuitive
vision in which God is seen as He is, consequently,
without any medium, and, on the other hand, the
sources of faith (see especially 2 Cor. xiii. 8-13; 1 John

4

noted that faith in the just soul is furnished
with an octave the seven notes of which are
fitted to receive the pressure of the divine
ii. 37, etc.) do not allow us to suppose the existence of
any intermediary between the faith which passes and
the intuitive vision which will take its place: at least
in the sense of sanctifying charismata such as con­
templation.
Secondly, because the just man lives by faith; that
is to say, the just man lives on God by faith. But it is
precisely by means of contemplation that the charity
of the contemplative feeds on the divine food.
Thirdly, because contemplatives themselves, when
they speak of the contemplative light by itself, that is
to say, apart from the enjoyment by which it may be
accompanied through all the human faculties, and to
go further, apart from those infinitely purer delights
which should accompany it in that solitary region of
the spirit which is its own domain, designate it by a
very expressive word; they call it "naked faith."
Fourthly, contemplation is to be attributed to the
gifts of the Holy Spirit, principally to the gift of wisdom.
Now, the gifts as exercised in this life belong to the
order of faith, for (i) they flow from the theological
virtues, (2) their rôle is subsidiary to the practice of the
theological virtues, (3) the theological virtues regulate
them (see la Hae, q. 68, a. 4, im, and art. 8, c).
Fifthly, and this reason is decisive for the theologian:
the theological definition of faith applies to contempla­
tion. Faith is a kind of religious knowledge completely
defined by its triple relation to God, the last end of the
supernatural order as its proper object, its unique
guarantor, and the immediate end of its free affirma­
tion: this is what St. Thomas calls adherence (adhaerere)
to the First Truth which (1) is believed, which (2) is
believed on its own testimony, which (3) is believed in
view of the content which subtends it: qua creditur,
cui creditur, in quam creditur. This triple relation is
once more found in contemplation which is, therefore,
of the order of faith.
It is true, however, that this faith is not in the same
state as that of the non-contemplative Christian. There
is between these two states of faith the same relation

5

finger, of the Holy Spirit, digitu, paternae
dexterae. It is not a question of new “species”
or representations or of an additional light:
the notes of this octave are the susceptibilities
of the soul towards the Divine Good which is
the object of faith: susceptibilities which may
be modified and affected in different ways by
as obtains between the allotropic states of the same
chemical body. This difference is sufficient to induce
the philosopher, who considers psychological facts from
the point of view of their relation to consciousness, to
declare that there is a difference of kind between
ordinary faith and contemplation, since the one borrows
its materials from the abstractive reason, and the
other does not. Contrariwise, however, the theologian,
who looks at things from the point of view of their
theological essence, will not be able to see in contempla­
tion a kind of knowledge which is outside the order of
theological faith.
The philosopher would also say that there is a
difference of order and kind between my faith, i.e.,
ordinary faith, and the faith with which the angels
were endowed during their time of trial. My faith
handles human concepts which theirs did not. And yet,
from a strictly theological point of view, their faith
was the same virtue as ours; their act of faith was an
act of the same virtue as ours. The difference of the
conditions depends on that of the subjects. Such a
subjective difference, as between them and us, is found
in all the ramifications of grace: and yet their grace is
not of a different kind from ours, for it is specified in
their case as in ours, by its ordination to intuitive vision
which, in itself, is independent of diversity of subjects.
This is why St. Thomas lays down universally the
principle which he applies to the angel before glorifica­
tion, to the first man before the Fall, and to ourselves
whether we are contemplatives or not: “Communiter
fides est in omnibus habentibus cognitionem de Deo,
futura beatitudine nondum adepta, inhaerendo Primae
Veritati’’ (Ha Hae, 5, i. c), while he allows for the
difference of condition; ad im, gm, and 3m in the same
article.

6

th is U nique Object which, nevertheless, possesses
the great variety of flavours, aspects, and
characteristics in its infinite simplicity. So it
may present itself, thanks to the communica­
tion of the gift of wisdom, as the felicity to be
lovingly tasted at the present moment in
anticipation of the happiness of to-morrow:
a delicious foretaste and a pure enjoyment.
This is what the mystics mean by “the taste
of eternal life” which is known to those who
take "long draughts of the living waters of
wisdom and love.” Or, again, the same unique
object may present itself as the goodness which
cannot endure contact with any impurity or
irregularity however slight, and then this light
flashing on the conscience of the contemplative,
which, as is inevitable on this earth, is still
stained by some imperfection, will produce in
it an inexpressible and intolerable suffering:
it is the gift of fear which comes into exercise,
bearing not on the fear of punishment, but on
the fear and horror of incurring the lighest
displeasure of God, or the slightest divergence
between one’s own disposition and His. And
so on with the other gifts, according to the
speciality of each.
That is enough with regard to the object
and the medium of contemplation with the
diverse modalities which we find there. It
remains to be seen how contemplation itself
is introduced into the soul.

7

2.

THE DOOR OF ENTRY
TEMPLATION

OF CON­

No intellectual effort nor any positive effort
can produce it, whether reasonings or farreaching thoughts; nor any negative effort,
such as suppression of distinct thoughts,
silence of the faculties, etc. Its mode of entry
is not of the intellectual but of the affective
order, per viam voluntatis (S. Thom., In Lib.
Boet. de Trin., lect. 1,9, I. a. 1, ad 4 m.), like
faith. Faith, even in its ordinary state, is
engendered in the spirit by a pressure of the
will—that is, under the influence of at least a
beginning of love for the goodness which
promises itself in eternal life, appetitus boni
repromissi (S. Thom., Q. D. de Verit., q. 14,
a. 2, ad 10 m). Actuated by this love, the
intelligence itself is attached to the Supreme
Good by a voluntary and loving affirmation,
which attains its Object at the same time as the
End to which the affirmation refers. The
conscious finality of the intellectual act com­
manded by the will·—-this is the intellectual
motive inherent in the act of faith. It is a
motive which, to say the truth, is outside the
category of rational motives. And since all
evidence is either rational or not, we must say
that it is without any evidence at all. In this
sense it is inevident; not in the sense in which
an opinion may be inevident through defect, as

8

basing itself on motives of the rational order
which lack the perfection of that order. Faith
is inevident because it is foreign to that order
which it surpasses; because it is outside that
category which exists on a plane infinitely
inferior to its own: more or less in the same
way as an angel is inextended, not in the sense
that he possesses the dimensions of an in­
divisible point, but because he has no intrinsic
relation to the category of extension.
Thus the act of faith resides in the intel­
ligence as the product of love: the product of
the rudimentary beginning of love, the love
of concupiscence, at least, in the case of a man
who has only faith; the product of the love of
charity in the case of him who is in a state of
grace. Here we may remark that if faith comes
first in relation to love, considered as a disposi­
tion to love, love, on the contrary, comes first
in relation to faith considered as the generative
principle of faith. Such reciprocal precessions
constantly occur in theology and create no
real difficulty because they have to be looked
at as referring to two different schemes of
causality, efficient causality on the one hand,
material causality on the other. Thus the light
of faith, although residing in the spirit, did not
enter man by way of the spirit, but by way
of the heart: there is its door of entrance;
there is the passage through which God pours
it more or less abundantly, more or less vividly,
according to the degree to which love itself is
living in us above every other affection or

9

contrariwise is dominated or oppressed by
self-love. The life of faith is love: the life—
that is to say, union with the principle of life
which is God in the community of the same
spirit. Faith is only united to God in the com­
munity of the same life if it hangs on God by
charity: then only does faith look on God as
effectively being to us what He should be:
another self and more than a self. Then only
do we look with friendship on our Friend.
Before that point is reached we look on Him
who wishes to be our friend, but not with a
gaze of friendship. I see that friendship ought
to be there, I see that it is desirable, I even see
in myself a desire for friendship which my
look carries because it proceeds from it. But
I do not see what is not there, and I do not
yet see with the eyes of a friend; although with
my faith, such as it is, I see in God the love
which calls forth friendship. All that is in
faith, an inanimate or a living faith as the case
may be. In the case of a living faith, all the
perfection of a gaze of friendship on God is
realized, if not to its highest degree, at least
in an essential measure. Now contemplation,
as we have seen, is nothing but a loving fixing
of the gaze on the Sovereign Good in the
medium at once luminous and dark of faith.
It is nothing but a particular and superior
exercise of the virtue of faith. Hence it is clear
that it is born under the empire of a love which
is charity. But what kind of charity? Charity
is in every just man, and in every just man it

10

actuates faith; and yet every just man is not a
contemplative; most people in this life are
limited to a discursive prayer, to the knowledge
of faith based on abstracted species on which
the light of faith does not visibly fall, while
the light of reason, of which they are full, is
clearly visible in them. And comparing one
with the other, contemplatives with non­
con templatives, the difference in charity is not
necessarily a difference in degree. If a con­
templative were to think himself superior in
charity to one or other of his brethren who is
not a contemplative, great would be his error.
There may exist much greater charity in the
Good Samaritan without contemplative light
than in the mystic prevented by the gifts of
God. The truth is that in the same subject,
charity grows in proportion to the development
of contemplation and vice versa. So that
confining his comparison to himself, the mystic
who notes his own progress in contemplation
has the right to consider himself more highly
endowed with charity than in the time in
which he had not entered the contemplative
path, and to believe in his further enrichment
in proportion to his progress in contemplation.
But the value of this testimony is confined to
the time of actual contemplation; the con­
templative cannot during the intervals rely
on a past attestation of charity, for he may
since then have lost the grace of God by his
sins. It is true that a time comes for certain
eminently favoured souls when their con­

11

templation, as far as the substance of their
intimate commerce with God is concerned, has
no longer, or scarcely, any interruptions,
although it is not always in the same state of
vehemence or clear vision. Whatever may be
true in these cases, inasmuch as a non-contemplative soul may have more charity than
others who are contemplative, we cannot say
that the charity of the contemplative differs
from that of the non-contemplative in degree.
How, then, does it differ? If we ask the con­
templative, he tells us that the love which
envelops and points the direction of his gaze is
an "infused” love. But theologians know that
all love is infused, the least clairvoyant charity
as much as the most highly developed. Where,
then, is the difference? It lies precisely in this,
that the theologian is pronouncing in the
matter on the authority of Scripture and
tradition, and does not base his conclusion on
experience; whereas the mystic speaks from
experience, with a certitude which would
remain what it is, even if the evidence of
tradition and Scripture, of which indeed he
may be quite ignorant, were lacking on this
particular point. This is to say that charity in
the case of the mystic is not only infused, but
is consciously infused, which is not the case
with the theologian as such. The mystic has the
consciousness of receiving, from God a ready­
made love, if such a phrase may be allowed, and
this is why he says that he is passive, although
love is an act, and the prayer proceeding

12

therefrom also an act. Nevertheless, there is
also passivity and conscious passivity in the
fact that the soul knows and feels itself invested
with this love of God. And this is why the con­
templative soul attains the presence of God
in herself, for the Sovereign Good is there
enriching the soul with her full knowledge.
She does not proceed by dialectical regress
from the gift to the Giver; no; she receives the
gift from the hand of the Giver, who is, therefore,
present in a manner perceptible to the experi­
ence of the soul. This consciousness of the
gift, this experience of the Giver, does not
come about by means of the natural intelligence
with ideas illuminated by reason; it occurs
exclusively in the light of faith which “infused”
love pours into the soul, in the same way as
the Sovereign Good who diffuses this light
makes Himself known in it.
Such, then, is the origin of contemplation.
It is contained in this love which is passively
received, and in the consciousness of this
passivity which swoops on the intelligence and
carries it above itself towards the Sovereign
Good to which it attaches it in a dark light.

3.

THE TRIALS OF CONTEMPLATION

Hence the trials of the contemplative life:
we are not speaking of those which may attack
it externally through the action of natural
agents, human wills or evil spirits, but of those

13

which are inherent in the contemplative life
by its nature, and which far surpass, in the
case of certain souls, even the most acute
external suffering in the world. To tell the
truth, there is no proportion, no common
measure between mystical sufferings and
others.
The first suffering, usually far the least
severe, is that of the progressive and laborious
birth of contemplation. The light of faith
does not emerge without tearing its human
covering, without causing a strange discomfort,
and involving painful renunciations of every­
thing which composes the normal equipment
of a life of nature already furnished with many
habits, habits of the spirit, habits of the
feelings, science, memory, points of view, ways
of looking at things, corresponding attach­
ments, etc. An operation occurs at this point
in the spiritual order which resembles (if so
commonplace a comparison may be made) the
cutting of teeth in little children. And it may
happen that the soul is for a certain time much
more alive to what she is losing, to what is
being mortified in her, to what is being reduced
to silence and inactivity, to what is being
dropped into the void, than to what is climbing
the still clouded horizon. The more so that
after all it is the soul herself, this self-same
soul with her natural fires damped down, that
has to gaze and see in this light, in accordance
with a new and unaccustomed formula, and
she requires exercise and practice before she

14

can find herself at her ease in the task. More­
over, this new and obscure light, which only
adapts itself well to eyes purified from the
world of the souls, and from everything issuing
from that world, will wound her eyes at first.
Purification usually comes slowly, and the
state of the soul during this period is that of
an obscure night, called the night of senses,
because everything happens as if no light were
any longer shining in our relations with God;
while the light derived from the senses and of
the abstract intelligence has gone out, the light
of the spirit, the pure ray of supernature has
not yet got its clear outline, and is still un­
familiar. It should be noted that these initial
sufferings are spared to children when God
presents them with contemplative grace,
because the child’s soul, fresh and new, has not
yet any acquired habits to confine the exercise
of the gifts and to obscure the light of faith;
hence no rending of the soul is necessary;
there are no living fibres to be destroyed. On
this account, too, that light rises with much
greater rapidity. This is why it is important
that children should receive the Holy Spirit
at the moment at which they can most profit
by His gifts—that is, when they arrive at the
age of the knowledge of God—and it is equally
important that they should receive the
Eucharist at the same age, because the
Eucharist is properly the sacrament of charity,
and charity, as has been said, is the force
which initiates the soul into contemplation.

15

It astonishes us, though unreasonably, to see
that little children receive from their early
first communion an enrichment of divine gifts,
such as many adults, though pious and
exemplary, will never receive in this life.
The birth of contemplation being thus
effected, it remains for the contemplative light
now established in possession of the place to
develop and emancipate itself more and more
from all servitude and dependence and con­
straint coming from the nature of the senses
(by which we must understand not only the
interior and exterior senses, but also the whole
moral and intellectual organism which rests
on the senses, the whole ensemble of abstract
knowledge, and the judgements which it
engenders, and the affections and inclinations
which it governs). There has to be accomplished
in these faculties under the action of the light
of contemplation, which confuses without
enlightening or nourishing them, a work of
stripping and subjection which may be very
painful. It is easy to see that the work of
contemplation would be interfered with if the
spirit, instead of being wholly applied to it in
peace and silence, were agitating itself and
moving about in all directions under the
influence of its own natural activity. All that
has to be mortified. There is more: in the case
of most men, the tendencies which have
developed in their moral being under the
influence of their free activity are full of
impurities and irregularities. AU this has to be

16

straightened out or cut off—a painful task,
and the more so that it may be accomplished
without any compensation. In certain cases,
the light of faith under a delightful touch of
God will send rippling through the entire being
a heavenly and intoxicating joy which the
natural faculties can hardly contain, so
intensely are they saturated with it. But under
a different touch, which either does not corre­
spond with joy, but with suffering or fear, or
merely corresponds with a secret joy withdrawn
to the closed centre or inhabiting an inacces­
sible height of the soul, and absolutely without
communication with the natural man, the
purification of the human element has to go
on either without any correlative enjoyment
(the second case), or in a state of torment and
desolation due to the painful character of the
contemplation itself (the first case). But all
this is only the smallest part of the sufferings
of contemplatives. The highest, the keenest,
as also the most incomprehensible of these
sufferings does not occur in the domain of
the natural man, but in that of the spiritual
man, in the very region where the contempla­
tive light dwells in the sensibility (not only
immaterial but ultra-human) of those mys­
terious peaks and hidden depths of the soul
which receive and experience the Divine Gift.
The reason of this suffering is that the Divine
Gift is the gift of the Sovereign Goodness;
and the Sovereign Goodness is so great, so
immeasurably lovable that it causes a thousand

17

tortures. First of all, the contemplative light
may clearly bring out the disproportion
between what God deserves and the little love
that we can give Him, especially the little that,
in fact, we do give Him. Under such an illumina­
tion as this, the soul could die of grief, could
annihilate herself with shame, as a bankrupt
debtor, as the most unjust and, consequently,
the most criminal of creatures—in any case,
the most unhappy.
*
And the stronger the
goodness of God shines, the more crucifying
becomes the soul’s impotence to return it.
Secondly, the contemplative light may fall no
longer only on our fundamental insufficiency,
but also on some remains of attachment to the
ego and of fraudulent dealing with God in the
enjoyment of pride imperceptibly fed by our
very sacrifices, and make this appear in the
face of the Divine Goodness in an aspect of
horror which constitutes a real hell. The more
the soul is urged by love to unite herself to
God and live in His light, the more the senti­
ment of her own disorder drives her to fly, if
that were possible, the glance of the Divine
Love and to hasten to expiate, in some place
of unheard-of punishments, the discord and
the incompatibility which she has allowed to
slip between her and perfect union. God is too
good; His goodness crushes whatever is not
♦ There are also the sins of others. The contemplative
soul feels the rebound, as of old the Saviour felt it, of
our voluntary and culpable faults of injustice towards
that Living Goodness, on whose imprescriptible right
to our love all morality is based.

18

absolutely and totally absorbed and lost in it,
whatever keeps a self differentiated, however
slightly (as to its views and preoccupations)
from the Divine Friend. The perfect union of
the soul to God may be compared to the unity
of the Three Divine Persons. They are distinct
in this sense only, that One is not the Other;
but there is no diversity between them: All
that One of them is, the Others are, without
any exception. So the soul is not lost in God,
as long as there remains even the slightest
backward look on self which does not corre­
spond to the manner in which God loves us
and wishes us to love ourselves. The slightest
touch or shade of self-love is a magnum chaos.
And here is one of the highest, as it seems, and
one of the hardest of mystical sufferings, the
one which most resembles purgatory; it is the
pain of the expropriation of the soul itself
from the spiritual life, so that she neither
loves nor desires anything, nor receives these
gifts, and even eternal life except in a spirit
of friendship. This state of mind does not,
however, exclude the impetuous movements
of love and desire, of love which places all its
happiness in the good of one’s Friend, of desire
which longs to know more deeply and more
truly how beautiful, good, glorious, happy and
perfect the Friend is. Now comes the time of
Sovereign Charity when the soul only loves
herself for time and for eternity, in accordance
with the divine order. This state is not possible
on earth in plenitude. It does not exclude

19

hope—far from it—but it excludes from hope
any purely mercenary element that prevents
the soul from being concentrated in the gaze
of a filial love. There is nothing beyond but
heaven, where hope gives place to enjoyment,
to the purest of all enjoyments: sufficit mihi
si Deus meus vivit. I see the life of God, His
happiness, His glory, His Sanctity, His good­
ness: and my happiness lies in seeing Him to
be so good, so great, so holy, so happy: in
seeing Him to be what He is.
4.

ITS PLACE IN THE ECONOMY OF
THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

Is contemplation an extraordinary pheno­
menon in the economy of grace like a miracle
in the economy of the visible world, or is it a
normal development as the tree is the develop­
ment of the seed, and the flowers and fruit of
the tree? We must reply differently according
to the point of view from which the question
is asked. Are we considering contemplation in
relation to the Divine Providence, which
ordains the course of events, establishing a
bond of continuity between imperfect ante­
cedents, and consequences which, although
they greatly surpass those antecedents, never­
theless follow them in virtue of a law, such as
the appearance of a human soul in the course
of a generative process in which organic
elements of a material order are the only ones

20

engaged? Or, on the contrary, are we looking
at contemplation in its relations with the
subject in which it resides? There is nothing to
prevent one and the same gift having in the
will of Providence its place marked out for it
in the normal prolongation of every spiritual
life rightly conducted through a series of
favourable circumstances—and this would
permit us to describe it as "ordinary” and yet
remaining transcendent with regard either to
the elements composing human nature, or to
the mental processes which give its specifica­
tion to that nature—-and this would permit us
to describe it as “extraordinary.” Now, that
contemplation transcends the characteristic
notions of the natural man and the means at
his disposal, even when helped by grace,
appears evident from what has been said as
to the character of its origin, which has no
relation either to the sense-order or to the man’s
property of abstract thought. But when this
has been once admitted, it by no means follows
that it ought to be so far classed among
phenomena, which are exceptions to the divine
law, and, in consequence, miraculous. On the
contrary, the law of Providence on the growth
and development of grace
*
being granted,
* This Providential law consists in this: that man
progresses by his victories over self-love, gaining more
and more on his self-love for the advantage of his love
of God, so that his self-love ends, if not by dying, at
least in being separated from that inaccessible term
by only a negligible distance. One can see that the con­
tinuous heroism implied in such a conquest growing

21

we can say in the case of a given subject, that
when he has passed a certain point to which
he can attain by his human exercise of virtue
and supernatural gifts, there will be no more
regular and normal progress for him, except
by the path of passivity. This point of juncture
is far from being the same for all souls. For
some it is close to the beginnings of the
Christian life; for others it is situated on a
higher level of spirituality. So that certain souls
may progress for a long time and very far and
relatively speaking to great heights, by their
own means with the assistance of grace, before
reaching the point at which they have to pass
beyond the confines of humanity, in order to
enter the region of the infused light, which
suffices to itself without any commerce with
the sense-faculties, or borrowing anything
from language and the conceptions of reason.
Perhaps even this point may be further on
more and more complete, and more and more stable,
will not be able to maintain itself beyond a certain
point, given human weakness, unless by means of the
inappreciable help furnished by contemplative love.
It is not a question of physical, but of moral impos­
sibility. This moral impossibility will appear at various
points of growth, according to the vigour of the natural
temperament and character, the relative richness of the
individual’s sentimental and intellectual resources, the
degree of abundance of external supports, etc. But
since in all men there exists the weakness inherent in
fallen nature, it is evident that in every case moral
forces have a practical limit, and contemplation and
an increasing contemplation may well be needed to
surpass and advance beyond it. It is sufficient to read
on this point the Dialogues of St. Catherine of Genoa.

22

the way than the last stage of their journey
in this world, however faithful they may have
been to the grace which was given them: the
moment of the change had not arrived for
them when death faced them although it
would certainly have arrived one day or
another, had they continued to live with the
same fidelity for the necessary length of time.
They lose nothing in comparison with others,
since their sanctity may be greater than that
of others already advanced on the contempla­
tive path. Purgatory, if both contemplative
and non-contemplative have to pass through it,
will make things equal even as regards the
process of union. There, both will be contem­
platives, but the contemplation of the soul
who possessed the highest degree of charity,
whatever may have been her state of prayer
on earth, will be incomparably higher, more
lost in joy, and yet (all other things being
equal) more rigorous and consuming, more
painful as regards the purification which may
remain to be accomplished; because love itself
is the fire which attacks and devours the
impurities of the soul, and that with a greater
violence proportionately to its greater intensity
and consequent hostility to them.
So contemplation in relation to the just man
is at once both supernatural, and yet, in a
certain sense, connatural. The ground on which
these two different relations, the one to the
subject, the other to the Ordainer of grace,
meet, is that of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, of

23

those passivities mobile under the touch of
God, which are already in the just man before
he receives the gift of contemplation, and
which in the contemplative state are moved by
God in the special manner required to cause
the light of faith to emerge in its “nudity”
before the soul, as a new and, henceforward,
an independent medium, self-sufficing as
regards both information and evidence concern­
ing the God who emits it.

5.

SOME CONSEQUENCES WITH
REGARD TO DIRECTION

Firstly, since the soul even in a state of
grace cannot obtain for herself contemplation
by the exercise of her own faculties, it is useless
for her to make efforts with that intention.
Secondly, since contemplation occurs in the
course of the normal prolongation of the life
of grace, it is right that the soul should dispose
herself towards it, first and principally by
charity, to which the function of the introduc­
tion of contemplative light belongs, and
secondly by the correction of bad habits of
the spirit on the heart which might prevent
this light from rising or being able to disengage
itself from the surrounding darkness. As to
desiring the arrival of this light as a proximate
event, and asking God expressly for it as we
ask for the things necessary or advantageous
for us at the moment, it would be as if a child

24

on going to bed at night were to ask God to
wake him the next morning io inches taller.
He will have those extra io inches one day;
he will have them in their due time, if God
gives him life. Meanwhile, such indiscreet
desires are merely a waste of time.
So much for the period of approach. Once,
on the other hand, contemplation has been
constated, the soul should be urged to feed
upon it and make progress in it, which means
that she should devote herself to it, and make
the necessary sacrifices: the sacrifice of curiosi­
ties of the spirit, of wanderings of the imagina­
tion, of the futilities of conversation, of
occupations not definitely ordained to charity
towards God or the neighbour, and, above all,
of the liberties of the heart and sentiments,
liberties which for charity are a slavery and
fetters from which it has to be freed. It is
most important to put the soul on her guard
against self-love and egotism. She must not
adhere to the element of delight in the divine
communications; she ought, in spite of and
beyond that delight, to seek God purely; that
is, she should endeavour to enjoy God solely
for His own sake as do the elect in heaven:
sufficit mihi si Deus meus vivit; she should
refrain from staining her enjoyment by such
reflex glances of an egotistic complacency as
would result from the pleasure she was taking
for her own sake in the divine union rather
than from the enjoyment of God for His own
sake. If this tendency is not combated, it may

25

become the most decisive obstacle to progress,
and, at the same time, a source of deplorable
illusion. Pride grows with illusion, and the final
issue may be a very dangerous state; possibly
a state of despair. Impossibile est enim eos qui
semel sunt illuminati, gustaverunt etiam donum
celeste, et participes facti sunt Spiritus Sancti,
gustaverunt nihilominus bonum Dei verbum,
virtutes saeculi venturi, et prolapsi sunt, rursus
renovari ad penitentiam, rursum crucifigentes
sibimetipsis filium Dei et ostentui habentes
*
They cannot begin over again at the beginning,
by the modest début of an initial rupture with
sin and a first sketch of the ideal prescribed
by the Divine Model. They can only resume
their course with a sure and persevering step
at the point at which they left it. Their only
chance of salvation (normally speaking) lies
in their progress in the path of contemplation:
and if they have fallen, if they have returned
to the damnable love of self, with all the cupidi­
ties which it involves, what a gulf between
their present state and the point to which
they must raise themselves in order to start
again without a further fall ! Without reckoning
that very likely if Grace knocks again at their
hearts, it will, it can be, no longer under the
form of a union of delight, it will rather come
under the form of a union of crucifixion.
Nevertheless, God’s gifts are without repent­
ance, and to those to whom He has given much
He is ready to restore everything at once, and
♦Heb. vi. 4-6.

26

give them much more than He had given them
before, if only they will let Him re-enter their
hearts by breaking down the pride which blocks
His passage and resists Him. Only it is important
that they should not dispute one parcel of their
co-operation with grace, but give themselves
up completely.
Humility and renunciation are, then, abso­
lutely necessary for contemplative souls, and
those are the dispositions which must be
specially cultivated in them. The touchstone
and the best exercise of these dispositions is
charity towards our neighbour, the neighbour
who is humanly speaking without attractions—
that is, ordinarily speaking, those who have
been abandoned and disinherited by nature and
grace, the ignorant, coarse, and uncultivated,
those who have lost their way, the ungrateful,
our enemies: those whom we despise, who
disgust us and wound our feelings. Here hardly
any illusion is possible; here are gains without
number for humility; here are the spending and
expansion of a charity which is truly charity
towards God, and which, consequently, pro­
duces a new impulse towards prayer, which
in its turn stimulates charity afresh, and so
on. But when the time comes that contempla­
tion so completely oppresses the human func­
tions of the soul that apart from moments of
respite she is incapable of occupying herself
with her neighbour or his service, it is evident
that this rule no longer applies, except in
intervals of calm. In any case, during this

27

period, the task of the director is not so much
to direct as to sustain, to comfort, one can
hardly say to console, this soul all of whose
human faculties are in distress. It is the
moment to show the reason blinded and
abandoned by the light of faith withdrawn into
its most distant home where, in all probability,
it causes the spirit to agonize, that that light
illuminates at least much more than it leaves
in darkness; it is the moment to present to the
heart the objects and truths the memory of
which may bring a motive of action or rather
of power to suffer, an encouragement to self­
abandonment, to peaceful acquiescence and
repose in union with the will of God. As to
the direction of such a soul in her interior in
which the divine light dwells, there is no need
to trouble about it, for God takes charge of it.
This condition, moreover, will normally be
resolved into a higher state, in which the con­
templative light, fully mistress of a fully
purified soul, far from diminishing or counter­
ing her natural activity, marvellously helps it
and multiplies its fertility. It is then that
charity towards the neighbour reaches its
height. This summit was for the Blessed Virgin
her début and point of departure, for she was
all pure and perfectly governed from the first
instant of her existence by the law of love and
charity.

28

THE PATERNOSTER SERIES
A MAP OF PRAYER
by Fr. R. H. J. Steuart, S.J.

THE PATH OF PRAYER
by Fr. Vincent McNabb, O.P.
CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER
by Père de la Taille, S.J.

THE ONE THING NECESSARY
by Rev. Bruno S. James
DELIGHT IN THE LORD
by Fr. Daniel Considine, S.J.

FIFTY MEDITATIONS ON THE
PASSION
by Archbishop Goodier, S.J.
Price is. 6d. net each

Burns Oates Sc. Washbourne Ltd.
28, Ashley Place,
London, S.jy.i.

Printed in Great Britain