The Battles of the Interior Life
By Fr. Conor Donnelly
(Proofread)
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins, and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.
We are told in St. Luke, “Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Luke 4:8).
When the soul successfully surmounts the first hurdles of the interior life, the soul returns to God with the conviction that it must serve him, not for the delight it finds in the things appertaining to his service, but solely for his sake, and for the sake of union with him as the end for which we have been created.
It is now clearly seen that seeking God is not a matter of delight, but of a steady struggle to overcome defects, root out our vices, and practice virtues.
With this end in view, prayer takes on a new tone.
Already in the early stages, strong and deep convictions have been formed with regard to fundamental truths. The soul now occupies itself seriously with the means of realizing the consequences that flow from those basic truths.
The principle of those consequences is this: God must be won at all costs, and the life which does not issue in close union with him is a failure.
Acts of sorrow and regret are still frequent, but they have changed somewhat their tone and character. Formerly, they proceeded principally from a hatred of the acts of sin because of the evil consequences they involved. Now repentance tends to become a dislike of sin as being destructive of the moral beauty to which the soul aspires.
The soul realizes its own fundamental weakness. It sees that the source of its sin lies deeper than it at first thought. It thought it had only to make an act of the will in order to be good. It thought it had only to will to change, and immediately spiritual tastes would replace earthly ones. It finds that it can will, and will very strongly, to change, and yet no change follows. It believed that there was nothing more in sin than the act, and that with the cessation of the act would disappear the root of the sins.
It had not yet realized that the habit of self-will and self-indulgence is rooted out only by a long course of self-denial.
The evil that it still finds strong in itself makes it understand that its own conversion to good has not destroyed in it the source of corruption.
It has become clear that this source can be dried up only by a laborious pursuit and practice of the acts of the virtues contrary to the vices it finds rooted in itself.
It knows too that its own efforts count little, but that much can be achieved with the help of Our Lord. It trusts to his goodness for that help.
Its chief aim at this stage becomes the acquisition of the virtues, and it sets itself to a study of the means to acquire these virtues and to overcome the opposite vices.
The soul becomes ardently eager for its own perfection and feels a deep humiliation and shame at its imperfections.
It asks the Lord earnestly to assist it to acquire these virtues and to raise it to the perfection it ambitions.
Souls at this point often experience an acute spiritual jealousy of others whom they see advanced in the way of perfection. They are pained at the humiliating contrast presented by their own miserable state.
This ambition and jealousy show that there is a large measure of self-love and self-esteem in the desire to become perfect. They importune Our Lord more because they desire to see themselves perfect than to see God served.
Acts of virtue are frequent. The soul gives itself eagerly to the practice of them because it has confidence that it can, with God’s cooperation, attain the end it has set before itself.
The life of Jesus forms the ordinary subject of meditation. The soul desires to contemplate him in the practice of the different virtues in order to stimulate itself to the desire of them and to learn how to practice them after the manner of its divine model.
Our Lord on his side cooperates more strongly, impressing the imagination powerfully with the details of his mysteries, and forming the intelligence to a more perfect understanding of the principles underlying his life on earth.
The soul is carried away by the beauty and desirability of a life lived after the pattern he has traced.
When in prayer, owing to the strong way it is affected by the beauty of the conduct it contemplates, it believes itself strong against its own weakness, and it thinks that it can easily imitate the Lord’s virtue.
Outside of prayer, it finds its weakness. It believes itself at times to be virtuous, but fails under the test. Pained at its own failure and seeing in prayer alone a remedy, it returns to it with eagerness and multiplies its petitions.
The acts of the will become more numerous and gradually replace in prominence the acts of the intellect. The Lord gives good inspirations in plenty. His direction is stronger and more manifest. The virtues begin to grow feebly because the soul is schooling itself to act under the inspiration of grace and is partially successful.
The rule of life is carefully observed. The soul is attentive to its inspirations, but is still full of the seeds of faults. These escape it on many occasions, particularly faults of impatience, irritation, and jealousy. The habit of prayer, however, grows, and the practice of it becomes less difficult.
By the aid of the particular examination of conscience, it succeeds occasionally for a certain length of time in producing the acts of one or other of the virtues.
This temporary success lulls it into security and cheats it into the belief that the virtue in question is firmly rooted in the soul. A sudden surprise, an encounter not prepared for, causes it to relax into impatience, uncharitableness, irritability. And it realizes with keen disappointment that the virtue it fondly hoped that it possessed is yet far from being acquired.
The days as they pass witness a constant alternation of these successes and failures. The spiritual combat is a series of beginnings. After much effort, little progress is to be noted apparently. The soul finds itself as prone to criticism, ill temper, and sensuality as ever. It begins to wonder.
Tested by actual experience, how can his words, “Ask, and you shall receive” (John 16:24), be found to be true? The soul has asked again and again, and it has not received.
This is the ordinary state of good souls. Their faults are numerous enough, but their conscience is delicate and reproaches them for any want of generosity in God’s service. The source of their failures is to be traced to their want of detachment from creatures, but especially detachment from themselves.
Their notion of holiness evinces that they pursue not so much the service of God as their own perfection. They do not want to be miserable and imperfect. Their self-love rebels against that. Hence, they pursue virtue for its own sake, and they hate vice because it is degrading and ugly.
Nevertheless, the action of the Lord is strong upon them and increases continually, while the action of their souls, hitherto somewhat feverish and full of natural effort, becomes calmer and less complex.
Their prayer tends to be more effective and has fewer and simpler considerations.
In the light of the illuminations the soul receives from its divine guide and director, it observes in itself defects which would before have passed unobserved or which would have been regarded as not worth considering.
Our Lord reproaches it for any infidelities, and especially for any natural attachments that it tends to allow itself to contract. It is given clearly to understand that the Lord will not have a divided heart, and that his love demands perfect detachment.
The danger for the soul at this juncture is serious, because it can become ensnared by its own striving after perfection. It is sincere in its belief that it is actuated by an earnest desire to draw closer to God, but in reality, since it has as yet made little progress in detachment, its love of God is not pure. It contains a heavy mixture of alloy.
It is its own goodness, its own perfection, its own purity that the soul is enamored of. The ideal of itself perfect draws it and inspires its efforts. God is not excluded from this ideal, for the call to perfection comes from God, and it is in obedience to this call that the spiritual enterprise has been engaged in. But not having as yet a clear idea of what constitutes its perfection, the soul unwittingly is drawn on mainly by the anxiety to see itself equipped with virtue. Its own moral beauty, seen in thought as an object capable of being realized by the aid of God, is what the soul is in love with.
St. John of the Cross speaks of the vanity described here, and of how common an obstacle it is. “There are many Christians in our day who have certain virtues and who do great things, but all of no use to them in the matter of everlasting life because in them they do not seek that honor and glory which belongs to God alone, but rather the empty satisfaction of their own will.”
The soul thinks that this moral excellence is what God has appointed to it as an end to strive after. The snare is a subtle one. It is not easy for the inexperienced to see that there is a refined self-love involved in this struggle after virtue, or rather after oneself virtuous. It is God, not virtue, that must be loved, since virtue is a means to an end.
Not seeing this clearly, the soul is unawares sweetly captivated by an ideal that is human and created.
The weakness generated in the soul by this leaves it exposed to be captivated by other forms of created good, and to seek its own satisfaction there. The devil seizes this opportunity to ensnare it by one of its predominant tendencies. The soul is easily led to form an obstinate attachment to its own excellence, proposed to it under the guise that makes the strongest appeal to its temperament.
The ambitious soul is carried away by the desire of praise, of success, of position. The pursuit of all this will be made to appear as in line with one’s progress in perfection and the service of God. The affectionate and attractive soul will be tempted to exercise its power and to attach others to itself, ostensibly in the interests of God. The cold and upright will be easily betrayed into a spirit of self-righteousness, domineering, harshness of judgment, uncharitableness, and want of consideration for others.
Because of the love of self that has insinuated itself into its pursuit of virtue, the soul may readily fall victim to one or other of these temptations. There is still another and a common danger to which it is exposed through this base alloy of self-love that is mixed with its love of God. Just as it is attracted by that created object, its own excellence, so it may easily be drawn to the real or fancied good in other creatures.
At this stage, the soul, owing to its imperfection, can easily form attachments to creatures. These attachments are usually based upon the discernment of real excellence in the object. The soul, accustomed to love its own excellence, easily succumbs to the attraction of excellence in others. The affection called forth by what is really good will appear to be justifiable and according to God. It often has, in fact, spiritual beginnings. But such attachments to creatures, no matter how good, will at this stage of the soul’s progress eventually degenerate into something really harmful.
The good that is loved remains a created good. An idol is set up in the heart alongside of God. The inordinate love of the created cannot exist by the side of the love of the Creator. The Holy Spirit is driven from his rightful place, and the soul becomes insensible to his inspirations. Spiritual progress is impeded, and retrogression begins. What is more dangerous still is that this retrogression is imperceptible and will have reached an advanced stage before it arouses attention.
The reason is that the soul, having acquired by its previous efforts habits of regularity of prayer and of other pious practices, does not lose these habits immediately, and can continue for a considerable time invested with the outward form of spirituality, after the inner spirit has taken its departure.
This temptation to love a created excellence in oneself or others, an excellence that is wrongly thought to be closely connected with the attractiveness of God, marks a decisive moment in the interior life. Our Lord has shown it how to resist it. We must always be on our guard and never rely to any extent on the progress that we have made.
Pious souls are prone to be strongly drawn towards those whom they think have been for them an inspiration to good, and whose qualities of mind or soul they admire. In all these cases, there is the appeal of created beauty to the soul most sensitive to that appeal. There is a danger of enslavement. As long as there is a strong attachment to self in the soul, and at this stage there is such an attachment, it is almost morally impossible that its love for others will not be tainted with selfishness. It is almost certain, therefore, that it will be inordinate and impair the friendship with God.
We can love creatures properly only when our love is disinterested. We love them as we should when we love them in God and for his sake. As long as we are lovers of self in our tendency towards God, there is danger that the affection we contract for creatures will be inordinate. We shall love creatures purely when we love God purely. That will be when we love God with perfect detachment from self. It is then, and then only, that we can safely pour out our affections on creatures.
We attach ourselves to creatures without danger when we are perfectly detached from them and from ourselves. The inordinate affections of which there has been question can have relation to every created attraction that can warm the human imagination.
Those who have made headway in spirituality by the overcoming of their sensuality can become enslaved to riches, honors, distinctions, positions, the esteem of others, as well as to the beauty, mental or physical, of those who have charm of mind or body.
If the soul is to advance, it must be jealous of its freedom. It must maintain complete liberty with regard to all creature charms at any cost. It must be resolute in the determination not to allow itself to be subjugated by any charm except the charm of God, because it is written, “Thou shalt adore the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Luke 4:8).
I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and Lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
EW
Based on Progress Through Mental Prayer, “The Second Stage in the Transformation,” by Edward Leen, C.S.Sp. (Sheed & Ward, 1935).