OF THE FIRST WAY, WHICH IS ACTIVE, AND OF MEDITATION--WHAT IT IS--ITS
WEAKNESSES, HABITS, OCCUPATIONS, ADVANTAGES, ETC.--GENERAL OPINION--WANT
OF OBSERVATION THE CAUSE OF MOST OF THE DISPUTES AND DIFFICULTIES WHICH
HAVE ARISEN UPON THE PASSIVE WAY, AND THE ABSURD OBJECTIONS WHICH HAVE
BEEN MADE TO IT--SOULS FOR MEDITATION--THEY SHOULD BE LED TO IT THROUGH
THE AFFECTIONS--OPINION CONCERNING THEIR BARRENNESS AND
POWERLESSNESS--SPIRITUAL BOOKS AND AUTHORS ON THE INNER LIFE, IN
CONTRAST TO OTHERS--CAPACITY AND INCAPACITY OF SOULS--THE SIMPLE ARE
BETTER THAN THE GREAT REASONERS.
The first class of souls are those who, after their conversion, give
themselves up to meditation, or even to works of charity. They perform
some exterior austerities; endeavour, little by little, to purify
themselves, to rid themselves of certain notable sins, and even of
voluntary venial ones. They endeavour, with all their little strength,
to advance gradually, but it is feebly and slowly.
As their source is not abundant, the dryness sometimes causes delay.
There are even periods, in times of aridity, when they dry up
altogether. They do not cease to flow from the source, but it is so
feebly as to be barely perceptible. These rivers carry little or no
merchandise, and, therefore, for the public need, it must be taken to
them. It is necessary, at the same time, that art should assist nature,
and find the means of enlarging them, either by canals, or by the help
of other rivers of the same kind, which are joined together and united
to it, which rivers thus joined increase the body of water, and, helping
each other, put themselves in a condition to carry a few small boats,
not to the sea, but to some of the chief rivers, of which we shall speak
later. Such beings have usually little depth of spiritual life. They
work outwardly, and rarely quit their meditations, so that they are not
fit for great things. In general they carry no merchandise--that is to
say, they can impart nothing to others; and God seldom uses them, unless
it be to carry a few little boats--that is, to minister to bodily
necessities; and in order to be used, they must be discharged into the
canals of sensible graces, or united to some others in religion, by
which means several, of medium grace, manage to carry the small boat,
but not into the sea itself, which is God: into that they never enter in
this life, but only in the next.
It is not that souls are not sanctified in this way. There are many
people, who pass for being very virtuous, who never get beyond it, God
giving them lights conformed to their condition, which are sometimes
very beautiful, and are the admiration of the religious world. The most
highly favoured of this class are diligent in the practice of virtue;
they devise thousands of holy inventions and practices to lead them to
God, and to enable them to abide in His presence; but all is
accomplished by their own efforts, aided and supported by grace, and
their own works appear to exceed the work of God, His work only
concurring with theirs.
The spiritual life of this class only thrives in proportion to their
work. If this work be removed, the progress of grace within them is
arrested: they resemble pumps, which only yield water in proportion as
they are agitated. You will observe in them a great tendency to assist
themselves by means of their natural sensibilities, a vigorous activity,
a desire to be always doing something more and something new to promote
their perfection, and, in their seasons of barrenness, an anxiety to rid
themselves of it. They are subject to great variation: sometimes they do
wonders, at other times they languish and decline. They have no evenness
of conduct, because, as the greater part of their religion is in these
natural sensibilities, whenever it happens that their sensibilities are
dry, either from want of work on their part, or from a lack of
correspondence on the part of God, they fall into discouragement, or
else they redouble their efforts, in the hope of recovering of
themselves what they have lost. They never possess, like others, a
profound peace or calmness in the midst of distractions; on the
contrary, they are always on the alert to struggle against them or to
complain of them.
Such minds must not be directed to passive devotion; this would be to
ruin them irrecoverably, taking from them their means of access to God.
For as with a person who is compelled to travel, and who has neither
boat nor carriage, nor any other alternative than that of going on foot,
if you remove his feet, you place advancement beyond his reach; so with
these souls; if you take away their works, which are their feet, they
can never advance.
And I believe this to be the cause of the contests which now agitate the
religious world. Those who are in the _passive_ way, conscious of the
blessedness they experience in it, would compel all to walk with them;
those, on the contrary, who are in what I have termed the state of
_meditation_, would confine all to their way, which would involve
inestimable loss.
What must be done then? We must take the middle course, and see for
which of the two ways souls are fitted.
This may be known in some by the opposition they have to remaining at
rest, and allowing themselves to be led by the Spirit of God; by a
confusion of faults and defects into which they fall without being
conscious of them; or, if they are possessed of natural prudence, by a
certain skill in concealing their faults from others and from
themselves; by their adherence to their sentiments, and by a number of
other indications which cannot be explained.
The way to deliver them from such a state would be, to lead them to live
less in the intellect and more in the affections, and if it be manifest
that they are gradually substituting the one for the other, it is a sign
that a spiritual work is being carried on within them.
I am at a loss to understand why so loud a cry is raised against those
books and writers that treat of the inner life. I maintain that they can
do no harm, unless it be to some who are willing to lose themselves for
the sake of their own pleasure, to whom not only these things, but
everything else, would be an injury: like spiders, which convert flowers
into venom. But they can do no injury to those humble souls who are
desirous for perfection, because it is impossible for any to understand
them to whom the special light is not accorded; and whatever others may
read, they cannot rightly understand those conditions which, being
beyond the range of imagination, can be known only by experience.
Perfection goes on with a steady advancement corresponding to the
progress of the inner life.
Not that there are no persons advanced in sanctification who have faults
in appearance even greater than those of others, but they are not the
same either as to their nature or their quality.
The second reason why I say that such books can do no harm is, that they
demand so much natural death, so much breaking off, so many things to be
conquered and destroyed, that no one would ever have strength for the
undertaking without sincerity of purpose; or even if any one undertook
it, it would only produce the effect of _meditation_, which is to
endeavour to destroy itself.
As for those who wish to lead others in their groove, and not in God's,
and to place limits to their further advancement--as for those, I say,
who know but one way, and would have all the world to walk in it, the
evils which they bring upon others are irremediable, for they keep them
all their lives stopping at certain things which hinder God from
blessing them infinitely.
It seems to me that we must act in the divine life as in a school. The
scholars are not kept always in the same class, but are passed on to
others more advanced. O human science! you are so little worth, and yet
with you men do not fail to take every precaution! O science mysterious
and divine! you are so great and so necessary; and yet they neglect you,
they limit you, they contract you, they do violence to you! Oh, will
there never be a school of religion! Alas! by wishing to make it a
study, man has marred it. He has sought to give rules and limits to the
Spirit of God, who is without limit.
O poor powerless souls! you are better fitted to answer God's purposes,
and, if you are faithful, your devotion will be more pleasing to Him,
than that of those great intellects which make prayer a study rather
than a devotion. More than this, I say that such souls as these, who
appear so powerless and so incapable, are worthy of consideration,
provided they only knock at the door, and wait with a humble patience
until it be opened to them. Those persons of great intellect and subtle
understanding, who cannot remain a moment in silence before God, who
make a continual Babel, who are so well able to give an account of their
devotion in all its parts, who go through it always according to their
own will, and with the same method, who exercise themselves as they
will on any subject which suggests itself to them, who are so well
satisfied with themselves and their light, who expatiate upon the
preparation and the methods for prayer, will make but little advance in
it; and after ten or twenty years of this exercise, will always remain
the same.
Alas! when it is a question of loving a miserable creature, do they use
a method for that? The most ignorant in such a matter are the most
skilful. It is the same, and yet very different, with divine love.
Therefore, if one who has never known such religion comes to you to
learn it, teach him to love God much, and to let himself go with a
perfect abandonment into love, and he will soon know it. If it be a
nature slow to love, let him do his best, and wait in patience till love
itself make itself beloved in its own way, and not in yours.