Chapter Seven

    There are seven days in the week, seven sacraments, and seven deadly sins. Plainly, even though seven does not take us all the way to ten, God intended that seven be, also, a number that signified fullness. This is the first chapter in this book in which I have paid much attention to the numbering thereof, but it must be relevant - the numbering - because Providence has cunningly arranged that I should end the previous chapter and begin this one at such a time as to bracket precisely the weekend on which my dear little city held its centennial celebration. Nelson was officially a hundred years old - as an incorporated city - back in the spring - when I had to lead a court house full of souls in the singing of God Save the Queen - but the come-one-come-all grand celebration was delayed until the beginning of August. March is not much of a month for all the outdoor activities that were deemed to be fitting to such a significant occasion. Outdoor concerts, fireworks, and a two-hour long parade are not well-suited to March in our part of the world. On the official day, in fact, it was cold and raining, and all people involved were grateful for the roofs of the courthouse and the foyer of the refurbished building where Nelson holds most of its live theatre and musical performances. On that day was celebrated the legalities of a city's creation, with formalities, costumes, and cake. The summer affair, God bless it, was much more a party, although it was also a party much more enjoyable because of the solemnities that had preceded it.
    Life is like that: if we really wish to party, we must prepare in sobriety; true ecstasy is no enemy of true law, and good preparation can include even a bit of purgation, including the fact - or at least the possibility - that not everyone gets to go to the ball.
    And death, for the great majority of us, is the same thing - and I am talking about those who have eluded hell - there is this state, known to sensible men as purgatory, in which we must tarry in order to let God sort out the lesser follies and wasted opportunities of our earthly life, and also where the grave sins, even though confessed, abandoned, and to some extent overcome through penance, still might require a certain recompense.
    Oh, in this life, to be utterly at home in the great, tender, all-encompassing peacefulness of the Fatherhood of God. Yet how can there be peace, before God, without penance, without acknowledgement in full of the punishment deserved, without the full and complete utilization of all the means the Father in his love and mercy has designed for us through his Son and through his Church?  But, when all those channels have been explored and capitalized upon - albeit only with the aid of God's finest graces - what could possibly be more satisfying, rewarding, and reassuring than to experience the great descent of this peace of the Father and his presence? One in fact "sees" the essence of God here, with the intellect, and understands that there is nothing more to be desired in this life. An utmost abundance of words, really, cannot describe such an encounter; only he who has experienced it knows what I refer to. And only he or she knows the long and patient effort and endurance God demands of those who will come to such a rest in the midst of the toil, trouble and tumult of this earthbound life. Yet, to make matters worse, in a sense, this effort and endurance must not be simply in the face of trials that come from without. Complete perfection requires that the soul must further deal with interior trials, with the contemplative purgation that comes from God alone - or the devils as well, with God's permission, and this severe a programme seems to be rare.
    The night of the spirit, as John of the Cross calls it, while it is among the greatest of gifts in quality, is the least quantitatively bestowed. Certain commentators have made grave errors in this regard, in our time, and the present papacy had neglected to correct them. It is one thing to appreciate another's suffering; it is something else entirely to grant that suffering a greater degree of effect than God providence can allow.
    The Church's doctrine, of course, is abundantly clear on these distinctions, fundamentally through Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila, who both cover all the categories and their proper divisions, and Thomas Aquinas does all thinkers and searchers genuinely interested in the whole truth the great favour of spelling out so thoroughly the differences between the two great hemispheres of the Christian life, the active and the contemplative. Nor are these saints alone in their understanding, but they might be said to be the most systematic of authorities, and thus preferable for establishing the rights of truth against the errors and neglect and inexperience of the times. And yet it must also be considered that where the contemplative life is in question, the times are forever out of joint, out of touch, out of sight. It is almost impossible for the actives to comprehend the inferiority of their own work, to honestly and humbly recognize and admit, withing their activity, the essential value even to their own work of the prayers of the hidden souls. To no small degree this blindness is as prevalent among Church leaders as it is among souls of much less ecclesiastical authority, and from time to time it becomes so serious a factor as to provoke God to punishment. In the Middle Ages Richard Rolle, the English mystic, sternly chastised the bishops of his country for their worldliness. He was taken little stock of, and England subsequently lost the Faith. In the early Eighteenth Century the bishops of France had a similar attitude toward Louis de Montfort, the great apostle of the Virgin Mary, and within a few decades their country was turned upside down by the Revolution. God intended contemplative souls not only to hear Him, but to be listened to by men and women.
    But men and women are much inclined, ever since Eve first gave him an ear, to listen to the Devil, the Father of Lies, as Christ called him. Thus our first mother, with Adam's complicity, gave Satan , the otherwise impotent, a kind of parenthood. Instead of an endless line of Gods sons, full of light and wisdom, due to the lack of sin and constant, cheerful, obedience, we became an all but endless string of bastards, stuffed with darkness and folly and a constant appetite for studying everything except the right directions.
    We come into this whirligig of bad will and confused intellect honestly enough, of course, because none of us since Adam and Eve have been born into Paradise, although Jesus in his manhood, being the son the the Virgin Mary - and the Son of God - reinstated that lovely situation on his own behalf and even shared it in no small degree with Saint Joseph, his foster father. Yet - and so - if we are to continue to honour the give and take of honesty between God and ourselves, we must consider also that through the Incarnation and His Church we have been offered the road back to Paradise. But ah, such a road! How to find it, and when it is discovered, how to travel its sometimes seemingly infinite distance? So skilfully do the world, the flesh, and the devil obscure the gate to this highroad, making such effective use - against the very spirit of God and its presence - of all the folly we were born into, that it must always be counted as an enormous event in grace when a soul actually takes its first realistic look at perfection and the spiritual life.
    Note that I say realistic, and I insist on the qualifying adjective because of the danger of extremely inadequate intentions toward all that is best in the life with Christ, the Trinity, the Virgin Mary and the saints. In our times the mystical life is in great danger of being held in an entirely false view, as a road to power, unlimited consolation, self-gratification, and a route to an erroneous exaltation of the female half of mankind. The mystical life is indeed the source of the most valuable powers, but only through the crucifixion of the Divine Incarnation and a rigid schedule of obedience to qualified spiritual direction that is infinitely more demanding than any other forms of discipline, as admirable and useful as they may be.
    Any of man's endeavors worthy of admiration demand skill, training, study, and continual discipline. The arts, sciences, politics, and athletics all know this so well that I would scarcely bother to mention such an obvious principle in so general a way were it not for the constant danger of inexperienced souls regarding the spiritual life, as it has to do with religion, as some kind of vague pastime for people who are no good at anything else. Interestingly enough, such an attitude is not held only by ordinary people, as it were, who may or may not have a working relationship with religion, but it is also far too common among professionals: bishops, priests, and religious. Are they malicious, or simply ignorant? Or, does the Catholic Church have within itself, in every generation, unpleasant little pockets of replicas, or perfect imitations, of the Sanhedrin? Anyone setting out seriously to follow the life of the spirit should be prepared to realize that I do not exaggerate. It can be all too easy for a soul that knows the spiritual life to be staring at a collar, a habit - or lack of habit as is so often the case now - and realize the teaching Jesus faced with a Caiaphas, a Pilate, at the very best a doubting Thomas. Let the spiritual man, the gazer, have even the inner sense of the Divine touch, and his companion has so often nothing but sensuality, as John of the Cross speaks of the inward follies of a self-indulgent imagination, and perhaps certain outward follies of sense as well.
    Of course such conflicts occur between the mystic and those fully in the world as well. It cannot be that professional clergy and religious are his only enemies of the hidden life. But of course it is always more painful to find the hebetudo mentis, as John of the Cross calls it, the dullness of mind, in those who are sworn to try their best to live by the quickness of the spirit. One expects it from the world, one does not expect if from the Church, even though history has sadly proved that so many have entered religion in order to do anything but the will of God. And Christ has warned of these hypocrisies, profusely, yet we are always disappointed when we encounter them, and the spiritual soul, like an ox leaning into the harness in front of a plow, heaves from an extra depth of his prayer life.
    Yet those "in the world" should not feel automatically let off the hook of responsibility toward their own spirit, for in the simple order of metaphysics, of the natural law, they are no less capable of exercising their intellects and wills in order to lift themselves clear of the swamps of materialism, sentimentality, disordered desires and unworthy ambitions. Virtues of the ordinary sort are available to all, and once we have worked at virtue for a time, we can safely look to that which lies beyond. And just as a stout glass of a vintage wine is the legitimate reward of a good day's ordinary labour, so is a passage like the following an example of that which comes to the soul who works well in the vineyard of the virtues, both moral and meditative:  "The soul, then, will frequently find itself in this loving or peaceful state of waiting upon God without in any way exercising its faculties - that is, with respect to particular acts - and without working actively at all, but only receiving. In order to reach this state, it will frequently need to make use of meditation, quietly and in moderation; but, when once the soul is brought into this other state, it acts not at all with its faculties, as we have already said. It would be truer to say that understanding and sweetness work in it and are wrought within it, than that the soul itself works at all, save only by waiting upon God and by loving Him without desiring to feel or to see anything. Then God communicates Himself to it passively, even as to one who has his eyes open, so that light is communicated to him passively, without his doing more than keep them open. And this reception of light which is infused supernaturally is passive understanding. We say that the soul works not at all, not because it understands not, but because it understands things without taxing its own industry and receives only that which is given to it, as comes to pass in the illuminations and enlightenments or inspirations of God.
    "Although in this condition the will freely receives this general and confused knowledge of God, it is needful, in order that it receive this Divine light more simply and abundantly, only that is should not try to interpose other lights which are more palpable, whether forms or ideas or figures having to do with any kind of meditation; for none of these things is similar to that pure and serene light. So that if at this time the will desires to understand and consider particular things, however spiritual they be, this would obstruct the pure and simple general light of the spirit, by setting those clouds in the way; even as a man might set something before his eyes which impeded his vision and kept from him both the light and the sight of things in front of him.
    "Hence it clearly follows that, when the soul completely purifies and voided itself of all forms and images that can be apprehended, it will remain in this pure and simple light, being transformed therein into a state of perfection. For, though this light never fails in the soul. it is not infused into it because of the creature forms and veils wherewith the soul is veiled and embarrassed; but, if these impediments and these veils were wholly removed (as will be said hereafter) the soul would then find itself in a condition of pure detachment and poverty of spirit, and , being simple and pure, would be transformed into simple and pure Wisdom, which is the Son of God. For the enamoured soul finds that that which is natural has failed it, and it is then imbued with that which is divine, both naturally and supernaturally, so that there may be no vacuum in its nature.
    "When the spiritual person cannot meditate, let him learn to be still in God, fixing his loving attention upon Him, in the calm of his understanding, although he may think himself to be doing nothing. For thus, little by little and very quickly, Divine calm and peace will be infused into his soul, together with a wondrous and sublime knowledge of God, enfolded in Divine love. And let him not meddle with forms, meditations, and imaginings or with any other kind of reasoning, lest his soul be disturbed, and brought out of its contentment and peace, which can only result in its experiencing distaste and repugnance. And if, as we have said, such a person has scruples that he is doing nothing, let him note that he is doing no small thing by pacifying the soul and bringing it into calm and peace unaccompanied by any act or desire, for it is this that Our Lord asks of us, through David ...: Learn to be empty of all things (that is to say, inwardly and outwardly) and you will see that I am God."  
    Learn to be empty of all things . . . ah, what a vast programme, and all the more difficult of attainment, in a sense, because so often it seems as if this emptying of all things is in direct opposition to call to a charitable action, or to a most necessary work or piece of study. I would be profoundly dishonest if I tried to pretend that such emptying is always easy, or immediately discernible as to need. The opportunities for good works are endless. Yet no need on earth is greater than the need of the souls in purgatory, and prayer more than action moves God to change the hearts of sinners. What I have quoted at such length from John of the Cross is not only a great gift of the spiritual life in itself, but is also most useful to the souls one prays for, and these are one of our best excuses for taking such comforts, or, more accurately, not interfering with their bestowal. What God hath joined, i.e., the soul and Himself, let no man, not even said soul, put asunder. Sometimes we try to scruple against the Spirit's generosity, as if we knew how to do good better than He does.
    But I add this commentary by way of footnote, as it were. My real reason for this lengthy excerpt from the fifteenth chapter of the second book of the Ascent of Mount Carmel is its rather tidy explanation of the rhythms of my life, as the psychologists and educators all tell us, I was supposed to be trying to figure out my professional future. John of the Cross is not only instructing and admonishing religious souls in this passage, he is also nicely detailing God's objections to a lifelong diet of a too particular form of thinking, and where these objections take concrete hold early enough, they will interfere not only with meditation but with actual studying. Most educators will not like to hear this, but the Lord made it plain just before I entered grade ten that He had lost all interest in my trying to carry on as a top student in the ordinary academic way. Against all school work but the essential I was prevented by grace from concerning myself and I was diverted from being a scholar into a general reader, and even at that I was a general reader with a considerably simplified mind, much delighted simple to be at peace with the universe, yet quite unaware, within the work ethic of my basically Protestant upbringing, that I was in fact participating in my special form of intellectual development. And any wisdom I might have thought of myself as acquiring I attributed as much to my favourite story tellers as I did to God.
    As I write this, the eldest daughter of one of those writers is forty-eight hours away from a professional visit to Nelson. There is to be a book-signing, some reading, and no doubt a fair amount of catching up. Forty-four years ago the daughter and I were both enrolled in our first year at the University of British Columbia and got to know each other as members of the campus newspaper club. In recent years she has been bringing out edited selections from her father's writing and now she has published her own original work, the story of her mother and father and their children growing up beneath a writer's roof. Over the years quite a few of my old Ubyssey cronies have written successful books, but this is the first time one has started off a book-launching tour in Nelson. That too is a sign of fullness, and complete fullness comes only from obedience to the kind of passive activity John of the Cross is speaking of. To understand what the saint is saying here, more important, to understand the work of God in such a predicament, is to understand how the mystic is, in his non-work, concerned with and in the work of others, especially others dear to him.