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The soul is the first act and principle of all the
vital movements of man, and, as Aristotle expresses
it, the principle whereby we live, feel and
understand: whence it follows, that we know the
different kinds of life from the difference of
movements; so much so, indeed, that animals when
entirely without movement are entirely without life.
Even so, Theotimus, love is the first act or
principle of our devout or spiritual life, by which
we live, feel and move: and our spiritual life is
such as the movements of our love are, and a heart
that has no movement nor affection, has no love; as
on the contrary a heart possessed of love is not
without affective movement.
As soon therefore as we have set our affection
upon Jesus Christ, we have consequently placed in him
our spiritual life. But he is now hidden in God in
heaven, as God was hidden in him while he was here
below. Our life therefore is hidden in him, and when
he shall appear in glory, our life and our love shall
likewise appear with him in God.
Hence S. Ignatius (Martyr) as S. Denis relates,
said that his love was crucified, as though he would
say: my natural and human love, with all the passions
that depend on it, is nailed to the cross; I have put
it to death as a mortal love, which made my heart
live a mortal life; and as my Saviour was crucified
and died according to his mortal life, so did I die
with him upon the cross according to my natural love,
which was the mortal life of my soul, to the end that
I might rise again to the supernatural life of a love
which, because it can be exercised in heaven, is
consequently also immortal.
When therefore we see a soul that has raptures in
prayer, by which she goes out from and mounts above
herself in God, and yet has no ecstasy in her life,
that is, leads not a life elevated and united to God,
by abnegation of worldly concupiscences, by
mortification of natural wills and inclinations, by
an interior sweetness, simplicity, humility, and
above all by a continual charity; - believe,
Theotimus, that all these raptures are exceedingly
doubtful and dangerous; these are raptures fit to
stir up men to admiration, but not to sanctify them.
For what can it profit the soul to be ravished
unto God by prayer, while in her life and
conversation she is ravished by earthly, base and
natural affections; to be above herself in prayer and
below herself in life and operation, to be angelic in
meditation and brutish in conversation? It is to halt
on two sides,(1) to swear by the Lord anti swear by
Melchom.(2)
In a word it is a true mark that such raptures and
ecstasies are but operations and deceits of the evil
spirit. Blessed are they who live a superhuman and
ecstatic life, raised above themselves, though they
may not be ravished above themselves in prayer. There
are many saints in heaven who were never in ecstasy
or rapture of contemplation. For how many martyrs and
great saints do we see in history never to have had
other privilege in prayer than that of devotion and
fervour. But there was never saint who had not the
ecstasy and rapture of life and operation, overcoming
himself and his natural inclinations.
And who sees not, I pray you, Theotimus, that it
is the ecstasy of life and operation that the great
Apostle principally speaks of when he says: I live
now, not I, but Christ liveth in me;(3) for he
himself explains it in other terms to the Romans,
saying that: Our old man is crucified with him,(4)
that we are dead to sin with him, and that we are
also risen with him to walk in newness of life, that
we may serve sin no longer.
Behold, Theotimus, how two men are represented in
each of us, and consequently two lives; the one of
the old man, which is an old life; like, they say,
the eagle's, which having grown into old age can but
drag its wings along, and is unable to take flight:
the other is the life of the new man, which also is a
new life, like that of the eagle, which, being
disburdened of its old feathers, now shaken off into
the sea, takes new ones, and having grown young
again, flies in the newness of its strength.
In the first life we live according to the old man,
that is, according to the failings, weaknesses and
infirmities contracted by the sin of our first
father, Adam; and therefore we live to Adam's sin,
and our life is a mortal life, yea death itself. In
the second life we live according to the new man,
that is, according to the graces, favours, ordinances
and wills of our Saviour, and consequently, we live
to salvation and redemption, and this new life is a
lively, living and life-giving life. But whosoever
would attain the new life, must make his way by the
death of the old, crucifying his flesh with the vices
and concupiscences(5) thereof, burying it under the
waters of holy baptism or penance: as Naaman drowned
and buried in the waters of Jordan his leprous and
infected old life, to live a new, sound, and spotless
life; for one might well have said of him, that he
was not now the old, leprous, corrupt, infected
Naaman, but a new, clean, sound, and honourable
Naaman, because he was dead to leprosy and was living
to health and cleanness.
Now whosoever is raised up again to this new life
of our Saviour, neither lives to himself, nor for
himself, but to his Saviour, in his Saviour, and for
his Saviour. So you also reckon, says S. Paul, that
you are dead to sin but alive unto God, in Christ
Jesus our Lord.(6)
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