On Union with God Part 6

[4] Religious bind themselves to observe as a duty that which was only of counsel. To them, therefore, the practice of the counsels becomes an obligation.

[5] The vows of religion have as their immediate object the removal of obstacles to perfection, but they do not in themselves const.i.tute perfection. Perfection consists in charity. Albert the Great speaks of only one vow, because in his day the formulas of religious profession mentioned only the vow of obedience, which includes the other two vows.

[6] John iv. 24.

[7] Matt. vi. 6.

[8] When Albert the Great and the other mystics warn us against solicitude with regard to creatures, they refer to that solicitude which is felt for creatures in themselves; they do not mean that we ought not to occupy ourselves with them in any way for G.o.d's sake. The great doctor explains his meaning in clear terms later on in this work.

[9] 1 Pet. v. 7.

[10] Phil. iv. 6.

[11] Ps. liv. 23.

[12] Ps. lxxii. 28.

[13] Ps. xv. 8.

[14] Cant. iii. 4.

[15] Wis. vii. 11.

[16] Matt. xvi. 26.

[17] Luke xvii. 21.

[18] Albert the Great supposes here that we give ourselves equally to G.o.d and to creatures, which would be wrong, and not that creatures are subordinated to G.o.d, which would be a virtue.

[19] This must be understood to mean that G.o.d is the princ.i.p.al and supreme end of all created activities.

[20] The perfect image of G.o.d in man does not consist merely in the possession of those faculties by which we resemble Him, but rather in performing by faith and love, as far as is in our power, acts like those which He performs, in knowing Him as He knows Himself, in loving Him as He loves Himself.

[21] In scholastic theology the term "form" is used of that which gives to anything its accidental or substantial being. G.o.d is the "accidental form" of the soul, because in giving it its activity He bestows upon it something of His own activity, by means of sanctifying grace. Yet more truly may it be said that G.o.d is also the "form" of the soul in the sense that it is destined by the ordinary workings of Providence to partic.i.p.ate by sanctifying grace in the Being of G.o.d, enjoying thus a partic.i.p.ation real, though created, in the Divine nature.

[22] We must avoid these things in so far as they separate us from G.o.d, but they may also serve to draw us nearer to Him if we regard them in G.o.d and for G.o.d.

[23] It is by the intelligence and will that man actually attains to this, but the use of the sensitive faculties is presupposed.

[24] The sensitive faculties, if used as a means, often help us to draw near to G.o.d, but when used as an end, their activity becomes an obstacle.

[25] This teaching is the Christian rendering of the axiom formulated by the Philosopher: "h.o.m.o sedendo fit sapiens"--"It is in quiet that man gains wisdom."

[26] This is especially true for religious.

[27] By this is meant that the Holy Scriptures, though always presupposed as the foundation of our belief, of themselves give only an objective knowledge of G.o.d, while that which the Holy Ghost gives is experimental.

[28] G.o.d knows and loves Himself in Himself by His own nature, while we know and love Him in Himself by grace.

[29] A very striking feature in the doctrine of this book is that it requires first the perfection of the soul and the faculties, whence proceeds that of our actions. Some modern authors, confining themselves to casuistry, speak almost exclusively of the perfection of actions, a method less logical and less thorough.

[30] Prov. viii. 31.

[31] The exterior powers of a man are the imagination and pa.s.sions; the interior his intelligence and will, which sometimes find themselves deprived of all the aids of sensible devotion.

[32] In truth, all the designs of G.o.d in our regard are full of mercy, and tend especially to our sanctification; the obstacles to these designs come only from our evil pa.s.sions.

[33] The book "De Spiritu et Anima" is of uncertain authorship. It is printed after the works of St. Augustine in Migne's "Patrologia Latina,"

vol. xl., 779.

[34] This darkness is the silence of the imagination, which no longer gains a hearing, and that of the intellect, which is sufficiently enlightened to understand that we can in reality understand nothing of the Divinity in itself, and that the best thing we can do is to remove from our conception of G.o.d all those limitations which we observe in creatures. The reason of this is that we can only know G.o.d naturally by means of what we see in creatures, and these are always utterly insufficient to give us an adequate idea of the Creator.

[35] Ps. lx.x.xiii. 8.

[36] We only lose G.o.d, the uncreated Good, by an unlawful attachment to created good; if we are free from this attachment, we tend to Him without effort.

[37] The subsequent condemnation, in 1687, of this doctrine, as taught by Molino, could not, of course, be foreseen by Blessed Albertus writing in the thirteenth century.

[38] John xiv. 6.

[39] And this she does because creatures no longer occupy her, except for G.o.d's sake.

[40] This is so because, according to true philosophy, the essence of a thing is distinct from its existence.

[41] Every actual cause is more intimately present to its accomplished work than the work itself, which it necessarily precedes.

[42] John i. 3, 4.

[43] We cannot always experience Divine things, and at first we can only compare them to the things which we experience here below.

[44] We deny that there is in G.o.d anything which is a mere potentiality, or an imperfection. We deny in Him also the process of reasoning which is the special work of the faculty of reason, because this implies the absence of the vision of truth. We deny "being as it is found in creatures," because in creatures it is necessarily limited, and subject to accident.

[45] "Nom. Div.," i.

[46] Exod. x.x.xiii. 11; Num. xii. 8; Heb. iii. 2.

[47] It would be well to quote St. Thomas, the disciple of Albert the Great, upon this important doctrine: "A thing may be said to belong to the contemplative life in two senses, either as an essential part of it, or as a preliminary disposition. The moral virtues do not belong to the essence of contemplation, whose sole end is the contemplation of truth.... But they belong to it as a necessary predisposition ...

because they calm the pa.s.sions and the tumult of exterior preoccupations, and so facilitate contemplation" ("Sum.," 2, 2{ae}, q.

180, a. 2).

This distinction should never be lost sight of in reading the mystic books of the scholastics.

[48] John xvii. 3.

[49] Ps. xvi. 15.

[50] This admirable doctrine condemns a whole ma.s.s of insipid, shallow, affected and sensual books and ideas, which have in modern times flooded the world of piety, have banished from souls more wholesome thoughts, and filled them with a questionable and injurious sentimentality.