According to the belief of most people,
sanctification of self is the goal toward which the Carthusian strives. To
prune and purify the soul; to ennoble it by the practice of the virtues,
patiently exercised, vivified and nourished in the forcing-house of the
monastery; in order to taste at last the pure blessedness of living and dying
in the Law of the Lord – surely this is more than enough to justify a man in
giving up the world, and very likely some of those who come to the solitude
have no wider or deeper desire.
This is a very lofty purpose and surely worthy
of a soul’s devotion, and yet it does not contain the blissful secret which is
the first principle and essence of our life. At the beginning of our spiritual
journey, most of us are drawn toward the realm of these desires, but gradually
we come to know that this is not the Promised Land, and to feel that we are
called to possess a more hidden, a more real and a purer Eden.
To attain to the lofty goal, enfeebled fallen
man lacks one single quality, the holy audacity to aim high enough, to dare to
draw at the zenith the slack bow of his love and faith. He who with a single
heart desires the righteousness of the Kingdom of God receives also in full
measure the crown of glory, and to him it is granted to dispense to souls the excellent
wine of triumph from the Eternal Feasts. But from the soul that hath aimed her
desire at self-hallowing, or any other lower goal, shall be taken away even
that for which she hath yearned. To live by God alone and for God alone, that
is the heart of our secret and the true essence of our solitude. It is also the
one condition of our victory: for everyone who, eschewing all other, hungers
and thirsts after God alone possesses Him All in All.
To wish for nothing else, to know nothing else,
to have nothing else, but God and God alone; “to be nothing else, so that only
thou be God,” to quote the profound words of a contemplative soul: that is a
just description of the life of any soul in this place that is true to her
calling. Every other care beside this one and only Love is superfluous.
Anything that has no part in the infinite self is too small for the human
heart. Far, far above our scrannel holiness, our righteousness so impure that
it is almost blasphemous, above even the gifts of grace with which we are
enriched; above all social, all human, even all spiritual, ideals; beyond every
temporal striving; in God alone: that is where life eternal begins for us even
while we are still here on earth.
It is not possible to formulate a “theory” of
this kind of life or to express in words its essence: it is too simple. “To
love,” “to live in naked reality” – that is all that we can say with human
words. In order to convey some faint conception of this life, we have no choice
but to make known its effects upon the soul that is swallowed up therein, and
to show their relation to the theological mysteries and the life of the Church.
But in so doing we are descending from the heights; we are exchanging the pure
gold of silence for the base metal of words.
For a long time more, until its transformation
is perfected, the soul that is made one with its God doubtless commits faults
and registers relapses, at any rate in appearance. But these very imperfections
become occasions of love, and feed the flame wherein the gazing heart has its
permanent abode. Its own frailties amaze not nor hinder it, no more than do its
virtues, for it has arrived at the meeting place of two infinites, its own
infinite need for mercy and the infinite mercy of God. From the bottomless
abyss where these two abysses meet, the heart unwearyingly draws up, like
water, both the humble trust and the clear, calm thankfulness which fused
together are the perfect hymn of praise.
The soul to which it
has been granted to despise the world and to despise itself to the point of
entire self-oblivion – or, to go to the root of the matter, the soul which
possesses the ability to see as nothing everything that is nothing – such a
soul, being detached from itself, sees how the Divine Wisdom supplants its
selfhood. When the image of every creature and all limited desires have been
swept away by the continuous trials which have purified it, then it becomes
that spotless mirror whereof Solomon speaks, the Face of the Father is
reflected in it, and it is identified with Him in glory incomprehensible, and
Love ineffable.
We have been selected
from out of the world and called to the secret garden of solitude for the good
pleasure of God, to assuage the inexpressible thirst of Love rejected. These
thoughts are beyond the range of our minds and hearts, and there is no hope at
all of our being understood by those to whom no such experience has come. But
mankind is deaf to this call; he draws away from God’s kiss. And so Love shut
out, Love suppliant, Love crucified, has chosen certain souls from among the
weakest and the poorest, to take comfort at least in them.
God is Love. Thus He
wills and can will only Love, and the divine thirst of Jesus can be assuaged
only by love. To comfort Jesus; to let God’s will be fulfilled in us; among
thankless mankind to be Christs, in whom the Father may live and perfect His
adorable work – that is the mystery of our calling. In the soul that gives
itself over to Him and consents to the total sacrifice in which all love finds
fulfillment, God quickens His Word. Such a soul belongs no more to the
generations of earth; it is no longer the daughter of the flesh, nor of its own
will, but it is born of God in the fullness of every moment. Its life is drawn
from the Divine Life; it knows God with the knowledge wherewith He knows
Himself; it loves Him with the love wherewith He loves Himself; it has become
Truth, perfected praise; it is uttered with the Word. In short, it corresponds
to the pattern contained from all eternity in the blessed Being of God; it is
simply that which God wills. In it are confirmed the prophetic words of the holy
Books: “This is my rest forever and ever: here will I dwell, for I have chosen
it.” “And the bridegroom shall rejoice over the bride, and thy God shall
rejoice over thee.”
Thanks to those
hearts that are reborn in love, Christ continues to live upon earth, and to
suffer for the salvation of men and the glory of the Father; for they may in
very truth say: “And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me.” And, because
of this transformation of personality, it is proper for them too to say: “Our
conversation is in heaven.” They know too the inner meaning of the following
words: “Blessed are the clean of heart.” “He that seeth me seeth the Father
also.” “And this is the will of my Father that sent me: that everyone who seeth
the Son, and believeth in him, may have life everlasting.” “I will that where I
am, they also whom thou has given me may be with me; that they may see my glory
which thou has given me...that they may be one, as we also are one: I in them
and thou in me; that they may be made perfect in one.”
The emanation from
these hearth fires of love is incalculable, for by virtue of their union with
Christ such souls are kings even as He is King. We must put it more strongly,
even at risk of being misunderstood: such souls deliver the world. By acting
only in and through God the man of prayer puts himself at the center of all hearts;
he influences all; he gives to all of the fullness of the grace which he knows
and by which he is possessed.
On the mountain heights of contemplation, the
Carthusian abases himself to the lowest depth of the abyss of not being, where
he lays upon himself absolute death of self and total detachment from the
world, thus making actual his shining ideal: IN SOLITUDE TO LIVE BY GOD ALONE.
