The Progress of Christian Life
[In the excerpt below, Pepler places Rolle at the head of English mysticism. Reserving most of his attention for Rolle's English works, Pepler looks at Rolle's experiences and terminology in relation to broader conventions of medieval mysticism.]
The New Light
Richard Rolle has been called 'The Father of English Mysticism' and it is to him we turn for the first introduction to mysticism in its strict sense among English writers. He was born some hundred years after the Ancren Riwle was written, and yet he is historically the first of the group of English mystics who experienced and wrote about the higher degrees of mystical prayer. Perhaps the greatest era of English sanctity had already passed when he was born in the last decade of the thirteenth century. There had been a succession of men and women from the time of Venerable Bede who had been led by the Spirit of God to transports of divine love and wisdom. But they had not been reflective in the way that the men of the fourteenth century were reflective so that the description of their lives does not enlighten later generations as to the nature of their prayer or their manner of reaching high degrees of contemplation. Rolle, amidst a profusion of Latin and English writings, did proclaim these hidden experiences, and his message was received with enthusiasm.
Geographically Rolle represents the most northerly point of the mystic path which seems to have run from Eckhart's Germany to the Low Countries, across the North Sea to East Anglia and so up to Yorkshire where Richard was born near Pickering just before 1300. Some have suggested that the trade route of the Yorkshire wool which crossed to the lower Germanies was responsible for opening the avenues of thought to the mystical teaching of Eckhart's disciples. This may well be so, for the spiritual seldom works entirely independently of the material, and it is not unlikely that Richard's father held some humble post in the important export business. Rolle himself ran away from Oxford to become a hermit before he was twenty, and there is no clear indication that he received at first any other influences for a mystical life than an incomplete ecclesiastical education with a reaction thereto, as well as a devout and poetical nature. But after spending some years as a hermit he completed his studies in Paris and there, apparently, first attained to real mystical heights of prayer. Of the period after that when he was back in Yorkshire Miss Hope Emily Allen has written: 'He then lived where he might have met anyone, from the king down, have had access to any book written, and learned of any movement stirring in the Church.'1 And whatever may have been the influence on him, this situation in spite of his retired life gave him a wide audience in that part of the world. His experiences were dramatic and his language poetic and full of romantic metaphor so that he soon had disciples, both men and women, and was exercising sway over most of the spiritual writing of the period. It was inevitable that with such popularity the greater number should have mistaken his teaching and seized on the romance without understanding the meaning symbolised by the metaphor, so that after a while a Carthusian came to declare that he had known more men to be ruined by Rolle's writings than to have profited. The author of the Cloud of Unknowing takes these false followers to task as well: 'Oftimes the devil feigneth quiant sounds in their ears, quaint lights and shining in their eyes, and wonderful smells in their noses: and all is but a falsehood' (c. 57), and Walter Hilton has to caution his readers about such lights and 'feelings of comfortable heat and great sweetness' (Scale, p. 2, c. 29). Both these refer to a too literal understanding and copying of Rolle's special experiences. No one, however, has doubted the authenticity of Rolle's own mystical enlightenment and the accuracy of his interpretation thereof, and his effect stretched beyond the purely religious sphere of prayer and contemplation to that of English poetry.
It is his genuine mystical experience coupled with his emotional way of expressing that experience which suggests him as a model of the illuminative way. There is little emphasis on the hardships of purgation. An ascetic he undoubtedly was; but his writings in general speak of the joy of love rather than of the pains of penance; they certainly are not concerned very much with the purgative way. From the first he refers to himself as the 'sitter', because he had chosen that posture as the most conducive to contemplation as well as the most comfortable. Yet we could not easily class him among the higher ranks of those who have largely experienced the joy of perfect union in the unitive way. However diligently we may apply the interpretation of metaphor and analogy his constant insistence on the heat of love in his breast as being also a physical thing limits the scope of the love: he cannot have borne the full impact of the Todo y Nada of St John of the Cross.
We refer here, of course, more to his writings than to his own personal life. He was regarded by many after his death as a saint and an Office was composed for the celebration of his feast. He may therefore have reached the intimacies of union which mark the final stages of sanctification. But from what has come down to us of his own life he seems to have spent most of his years, which were untimely in their ending, in that somewhat uncertain and fluctuating time of the spiritual life called by many the Illuminative Way and by St Thomas the age of the Proficient—a term which conveys movement and development rather than a quiet rest. He seems to have passed to his comparatively quickly. In a celebrated chapter of the Incendium Amoris he describes how he came to the burning fire of love:
Three years, except three or four months, were run from the beginning of the change of my life and of my mind, to the opening of the heavenly door: so that the Face being shown, the eyes of the heart might behold and see by what way they might seek my Love, and unto him continually desire. The door forsooth yet biding open, nearly a year passed until the time in which the heat of everlasting love was verily felt in my heart2 (c. 15).
Certainly he regarded himself as having attained practically the highest degree in the spiritual life, for later in the same chapter he speaks of 'the high degree of Christ's love' which had been granted him, and concludes that the soul 'ascends not into another degree, but, as it were, confirmed in grace, as far as mortal man can, she rests'. That was his own opinion, but there is evidence to suggest that after he had received this special mystical gift he retained a good number of blemishes. Perhaps they were part of the bluff truculence of the Yorkshireman; he was somewhat resentful of opposition and inclined towards pride in his own graces. Apparently referring to his own special way of life he admonishes those who smile at it and regard it as uncanonical by asking: 'How do they dare to rebuke him whom rather they should honour as patron' (Contra Amatores Mundi). In his early writings he had challenged without sufficient humility—however right he may have been—the authorities of the Church and the spiritual state of many of the clergy. The effect of this lack of maturity led inevitably to persecution from diocesan officials as well as his own friends who had at first welcomed him hospitably. Yet gradually towards the end of his life his writings show a greater peace of mind and growing maturity which suggest that he is in fact reaching some further stage of union in love of God. It is mysterious that God's sudden mystical graces should leave the soul so much work to be done in adjusting her personal moral virtues to the situation. But it is a fact that many imperfections remain after these high passive graces have been bestowed. St Teresa herself was puzzled by this incongruity and put the difficulty, without resolving it, in her LIFE: 'How is it, when the Lord begins to grant a soul such sublime favours as that of bringing it to perfect contemplation, that it does not, as by rights it should, become perfect all at once?… How is it that it is only later, as time goes on, that the same Lord leaves it perfect in the virtues?' (c. 22, Peers, i, 143).
It is therefore later in life, after considerable change of domicile, passing hither and thither in the south and west of Yorkshire, that Richard finally settles down at Hampole in a quiet state of resignation. He is no longer concerned with what others think and say about him and his tendency to pride and arrogance is finally overcome. He is removed from the 'business of bodily things' partly by his greater retirement, but more through his greater interior peace. But his apostolic activities naturally increase, in the sense that he is constantly concerned with the spiritual upbringing of many devout religious and his fame as a man of wisdom and holiness begins to spread abroad and assist in a reviving of the Christian spirit. All this is characteristic of the age of the proficient with its early mystical experience and the consequent alignment of the normal life of the virtues with these special divine gifts. So that when death came, probably through assisting others during the Black Death in Yorkshire in 1349, Richard Rolle was really stabilished in the life of union and ready for its culmination in heaven.
In following the aim of this book to tap the spiritual literature in the English language before the Reformation, we should strictly leave out of consideration the greater part of Richard Rolle's writing which began in Latin. And this would in some ways be desirable because his English writings all belong to the later period when he was more surely rooted in the illuminative way. And they link up easily with the previous studies on the Ancren Riwle because he began to write in the vernacular for the sake of devout women who were in fact leading the life outlined in that Rule. His first English work was probably The English Psalter written for an anchoress named Margaret Kirkeby who came from Hampole but after his death moved her cell further north to Anderby. Later, a year before his death, he wrote The Form of Living for the same anchoress. This is another instance of the influence of these holy women on the English literature of prayer and the devout life. The Riwle begins the tradition and Rolle continues it a century later writing several books and many spiritual lyrics for these his spiritual daughters. After his day the tradition was firmly rooted in English life. Rolle however was by no means tied to the English tongue and a great deal of his work was Latin, in particular the greatest of his works, the Incendium Amoris which was probably written at the beginning of the last period of his life. It would therefore be narrowminded to exclude from present consideration the treasures of his Latin pen which can happily elucidate and enlarge the thought behind his English works. We are in duty bound to consider all his works in so far as they apply to the way of the proficients, a policy which demands the neglect of some of Rolle's more elementary writings which will for that very reason repay a careful reading apart from this study. Moreover two of the most important Latin works are obtainable in a fifteenth-century translation by Richard Misyn whose language helps to link us directly with the pre-reformation times.
It is not easy to fix any chronology in his writings except in so far as the English are usually later than the Latin. So that we make no attempt here to follow Rolle's development as reflected in the series of his own books, letters and hymns. The method most suited to our purposes is to base ourselves on the English writings and expand their content by reference to the more celebrated of his Latin works.
…. .
'The Opening of the Heavenly Door '
The period of 'great business', described by Rolle in the Incendium Amoris3 as the purgative way to 'sweetest rest' has passed and the obscurity of the night of the senses leads the soul on to this more secure life in Christ. The hermit was perfectly aware of the difficulties of the first period and the progress the devout man had to make to reach this sweetness. For some the progress is rapid and often accompanied by special graces from God.
They that are sickerly ordained to holiness in the beginning of their turning for dread of God, forsake sins and worldly vanities: and then they set their flesh under strait penance, afterwards setting Christ's love before all other, and feeling a delight in heavenly sweetness in devotion of mind they profit mickle. And so they pass from degree to degree and flourish with ghostly virtues; and so, made fair by grace, they come at last to the perfection that stands in heart, and word, and deed.4
He had himself passed through the normal stages in a matter of three or four years, and it is as well here to note in some detail the way in which God dealt with his own soul as described by his own pen. Each individual will reach this second length of the Christian life in a different way according to God's special designs and his own peculiar character; but the example set before us here will show how God works with those 'ordained to holiness'.
He had already been living some years as a hermit before he was given the opportunity to enter fully into this new way. God allowed him to be tempted in the solitude of his cell by a short and very sharp attack against his chastity. The temptation resembles in some ways that of St Thomas Aquinas in his prison, except that in Rolle's case the woman was a mere fantasy of someone he had loved previously to his adopting the hermit's life. The result of the triumph over this evil was something like that of St Thomas. The Gift of Fortitude had evidently been at work in his soul and the Spirit left within him as a consequence of the triumph a very sensible and intense devotion to the Holy Name. This may have been suggested by his Franciscan connections in Oxford, but it only came to life as a special source of grace at the moment of his victory.5 The experience seems to have been almost as strong and lasting as Thomas's being girded by the angels.
It was after this that the heavenly door was opened to him. 'Three years except three or four months were run from the beginning of the change of my life and of my mind to the opening of the heavenly door' (Incendium, c. 15, p. 70). The effect of this strange opening of the door was to reveal in some new way the Face of God: and from that day for a year he had a time of peace tasting the sweetness of the Name and contemplating the Face through the door which remained open. This was a time of quieting of his boisterous nature and the increasing of his desire for God; 'so that, the Face being shown, the eyes of the heart might behold and see by what way they might seek my Love, and unto him continually desire'.
Then, the year completed, Rolle received the special grace by which he is peculiar among the mystics, the heat in his breast which was physical as well as spiritual. This came to him of a sudden while sitting in chapel at meditation, but it remained with him permanently. After nine or ten months more was added the experience of heavenly song which also remained:
Whiles truly I sat in this same chapel, and in the night before supper, as I could, I sang psalms, I beheld above me the noise as it were of readers, or rather singers. Whiles also I took heed praying to heaven, with my whole desire, suddenly, I wot not in what manner, I felt in me the noise of song (p. 71).
This was no external physical sound: his thought was changed into continual song and the burst forth in joyful melody before his Maker but not so that it could be heard by other ears. Indeed his description of his state might find a modern parallel in that of Sister Elizabeth of the Trinity who discovered her special vocation described in the name of Laus Gloriae: 'A "Praise of Glory" is a silent soul, a lyre beneath the Touch of the Holy Ghost, from which he can draw divine harmonies… In the heaven of glory, the blessed rest not day or night saying "Holy, Holy, Holy.…" In the heaven of her soul the "Praise of Glory" begins now the task which will be hers for all eternity. Her chant is uninterrupted…' (quoted in The Spiritual Doctrine of Sister Elizabeth, p. 100). This passage of the modern Carmelite compares curiously with the account of heavenly song given by Rolle. The latter certainly had a peculiar mystical experience but it was fundamentally associated with the doctrine of grace as lived and understood by the former. Although Rolle describes what he felt and heard in terms of the senses it is evident that what he is trying to express is beyond such material things. He distinguishes later between two types of ravishing or rapture; the first takes the soul out of the senses so that 'he plainly feels nought in the flesh', which can happen to saint and sinner alike, and the second is 'the lifting of the mind into God by contemplation' which is the lot of the true lover (Bk. 2, ch. 7, pp. 161-2). This second type of rapture leaves the soul in possession of, and with dominion over, all faculties; this would make it possible to have some sensations such as physical heat and sound, which are associated with the really spiritual experience in the depth of the soul, without distraction or disturbance.
In trying to assess the nature and depth of this mystical experience we must turn to St Thomas on the subject of prophecy and visions, for the Angelic Doctor maintains that the pure manifestation of divine truth in contemplation without any emotional counterpart whatever is the highest experience which is in fact beyond prophecy. He will not admit that to have a counterpart in the imagination or external senses is anything but a lessening of the purity of this mystical intuition (II-II, 174, 2). This may be hard for the humanist to accept, but St Thomas will only agree that things of the senses in this context and in this life are for use only, for some practical purpose not for human perfection as such. Later, in heaven, there will be an outpouring from the mind transformed by vision into the lower powers and also into the body (II-II, 175, 4 and 1) for it is only after the resurrection that man can attain his full integrity. Consequently if there is a purpose in having imaginative or sensible expressions of the inner contemplation of truth he agrees that they should also be present, for the usefulness of the experience will be enhanced by the union of the two.
'When a particular supernatural truth has to be revealed by means of corporeal images, he that has both, namely the intellectual light and the imaginary vision, is more a prophet than he that has only one, because his prophecy is more perfect' (II-II, 174, 2 ad 1).
In this sense we might regard the double nature of Richard Rolle's experience as being granted to him as a teacher and master in the way of prayer. The sensations of heat and sound were given him not as part of his own perfection in the prayer of the illuminative way, but in order to lead others to it by the power of the experience. He himself insists that the inner ravishing of the spirit which may be likened to St Thomas's 'intellectual light' is the only thing of importance, confirming 'the shapeliness of the unseen life in the loving soul' and ravishing him 'to the height of contemplation and the accord of the angels' praise' (Incendium, I, c. 15, p. 73). In this he is in agreement with all the great saints who have reached the true heights of contemplation and his more external sensations are merely to be regarded as utilities, means of understanding what is meant by love and praise in their fullness.
In delaying on this outward aspect of Richard Rolle's initial experience we are not suggesting that he is a type to be followed in that particular respect. Every individual has his own grace conformable to his own personality. Grace is not a substance, not even a spiritual substance, poured out by God into rows and rows of souls like empty vases needing something to fill them. Certainly Christ merited by his death grace for all mankind and the Church preserves in her treasury these infinite merits to be conferred upon those chosen and fitted by God to receive them. But a too material conception of grace would lead us to expect the way to holiness to be exactly the same in every individual, as though having filled a hundred barrels one would expect all the taps to be turned on and pour out liquid in the same way. Grace is a habit which qualifies the soul so that each soul is possessed of it in its own individual nature, just as knowledge of the same subject will have its different emphasis and colouring in different men. And the more powerful the grace the more individual does it become; for two great theologians who have given their minds to the study of the same great dogmas on which they agree, will express themselves in far more different and variegated ways than two seminarians who have barely assimilated the elements of the science from textbooks. For this reason the first stages of the spiritual life are more uniform in different people than the later stages. The purgative way is more easily traced in the lives of saints and sinners; but the illuminative and unitive ways become more and more 'peculiar' in their manifestations in each individual.
This fact of the 'diversity of Gifts' must be borne in mind when reading the life of any saint, but in particular in reading the personal and somewhat autobiographical writings of holy men and women on the spiritual life. The fundamental truth must be sought in the midst of the personal manifestations. The reader must never be diverted from an evergrowing directness towards God. It often happens that a person will model himself upon someone he has known or read about, someone who was evidently one of God's darlings; and despite frequent warnings he will find himself doing what he thinks his hero would have done in similar circumstances, praying as he imagines his hero prayed, seeking the same special graces as his hero received. But the hero of course was in direct communication with God so that it is impossible to copy him in truth without in a sense forgetting all about him and becoming more directly in touch with God. So the saints are given us as our models not so much to be copied, but in order that we may see how God worked with their special characteristics and learn more of the wonderful ways of divine grace in the individual soul. This is, as one would expect, Rolle's own teaching:
Divers gifts truly are disposed to God's lovers: some are chosen to do; some to teach; some to love. Nevertheless all the holy covet one thing and run to one life, but by divers paths; for everyone chosen goes to the Kingdom of bliss by that way of virtue in the which he is most used. (Incendium, II, 6, p. 153.)
It is needful to delay on these matters here, at the outset of the illuminative way, because the diversities of God's ways become more manifest as we have explained, and many souls are given special assistance from God to confirm them in the right way. But it often happens that a devout Christian who has never had any kind of experience of this nature remains in this second period without knowing at all that he has reached it. One who has been faithful from the beginning, has had no violent reaction from the ways of God but has followed as diligently as might be the light that the he has received in faith, will have gone through the purifications permitted by the divine will in a true spirit of union with the Cross, and while regarding himself as still a humble beginner will in fact be enjoying the special union with Christ or even the prayer of quiet, which is one characteristic of the proficient soul. He must not be disquieted by finding none of the extraordinary graces he reads or hears about in the lives of others.
At the same time God often in the beginning of special periods of development will grant these extraordinary graces, not in any way as rewards for generous cooperation with his will, not as essential in any way to the Christian life, but precisely to encourage and lead the soul on to greater desires and greater heights of union. Visions, significant dreams, unmistakable 'coincidences' or special feelings or comforts at prayer are not necessarily signs of sanctity, though they are often, as in the case of St Bernadette's visions, signs of God's election to sanctity. Someone at the beginning of this second period may hear a voice speaking to him from God, may see the figure on the crucifix move and incline towards him, may have a wonderful light to see all things in relation to God's love, may see a complete vision of heavenly joys or dream of some saint or of our Lord himself; these experiences if genuine are not the reality but only the sweet caresses of God the Lover showing his love and winning the soul. They are beginnings, enticements to enter. They are like the Gloria and the angels' appearance to the shepherds or the star appearing to the kings to introduce them to Christ the Lord. No store is to be set by them in themselves; they are almost trivial. At first they seem to be of breathtaking importance, but they are soon gone, merely sweet memories to keep the soul content in times of prolonged loneliness. If Richard's heat and song remained with him for long it was a great exception.
The parallel between this period of second conversion and illumination and that of the apostles from the Passion to the Ascension is clearly outlined by Père Garrigou-Lagrange in the Three Ways of the Spiritual Life (English edition, p. 31). Basing the parallel upon St Catherine's Dialogue he shows how our Lord appeared after the Resurrection to draw them into this new way, to console and to enlighten them. It was only the beginning of their life as apostles and the manifestations were tangible, but they did not last for more than forty days. And yet we can imagine the life time of complete preoccupation with God spent by the two disciples who went to Emmaus. 'And their eyes were opened, and they knew him.' It is unlikely that those eyes, the eyes of their spirit, were ever closed again; it is unlikely that they ever ceased from thinking of him and knowing him. Still the years rolled on after Pentecost and never again did he so manifest himself. Did they pine and fret at his absence? Their eyes had been opened and they knew; they knew his presence was in the soul, that it did not require the outward appearance, the walk to Emmaus, the sitting down to dinner, the breaking of bread. 'He vanished out of their sight.' He remained with them more intimately than ever before, and he never left them. They could say, as Richard Rolle echoed so many centuries later, that their hearts had been burning within them in his company. But the inner reality of that burning heart never disappeared though the feeling had gone when he vanished. So the good Christian who happens to have received some extraordinary grace at the beginning of this new way of enlightenment must not pine for its repetitions, must not look for it as necessary to his life. It was only the beginning. He may go many years without any more outward response from God. It is strange that this period is often marked more by an apparent deprivation of God than of any consolations or experiences.
As we, standing in darkness, see nothing, so in contemplation that invisibly lightens the soul. No seen light we see. Christ also makes darkness his resting place, and yet speaks to us in a pillar of a cloud. (The Mending of Life, c. 12, Misyn-Comper, p. 239).
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Hesitations in the Face of Love
If we are right in supposing that when Richard Rolle describes the third and highest degree of love he is really considering the illuminative rather than the unitive way, we can fit him very neatly into a pattern of spiritual development. Thus we discover his own personal experiences of burning love and heavenly sound entering into his description of 'Singular Love' which is in his own eyes the most perfect state. The special but accessory favours which he had received from God at the beginning of this new way of life were the love in his breast which was so fervent as to convey even a physical sensation of heat and an interior sound of heavenly music. And these we find as part of the permament state of love which he calls 'Singular.'
Singular love is when all comfort and solace are closed out of thy heart but that of Jesus Christ alone. It seeks no other joy. For the sweetness of him who is in this degree is so comforting and lasting in his love, so burning and gladdening that he or she that is in this degree may feel the fire of love burning in their souls…then the soul is Jesus-loving, Jesus-thinking, Jesus-desiring, only breathing in the desire for him, winging to him, burning for him, resting in him. Then the song of praise and love is come.…(The Form of Living.)6
But although this way of love seems to be very permanent and very comfortable 'so that the soul is so much comforted in the praise and love of God, and till death comes is singing spiritually to Jesus and in Jesus and of Jesus' (id.), nevertheless there are many sins which are still lurking in the soul even after the hardships of purification and which are still hindering the completion of the process of supernaturalising the whole man. There are times when the soul is given more special assurances as to the pureness of its love, but never can a man be satisfied or complacement about his state. He is always in danger, however many graces God may have poured upon him.
In this degree of love thou shalt overcome thine enemies, the world, the devil and the flesh. But nevertheless thou shalt always have fighting whilst thou livest: and till thou dost die it behoves thee to take care to stand so that thou fall not into delights, neither in evil thoughts, nor in evil words, nor in evil works (Ego Dormio, Heseltine, p. 95).
And he says elsewhere that no man can completely slay 'engendered concupiscence' nor live so as never to sin in this life (Fire of Love, Misyn, p. 158).
This is a salutary observation at all times and helps to explain how the really devout Christian is never the complacement one, and how the further advanced a man is on the way to perfection the more conscious he is of the danger of sin and of his own weakness. But it is a lesson which must be most urgently dinned into those who have passed through the initial stages of purification, have been given perhaps some of these 'experiences' which from time to time announce the beginning of a new phase, and are probably at the gateway to his singular way of love which St Thomas calls 'proficient'. For it is very easy to remain at the very gate and yet to miss the opportunity of pushing it open and stepping forward. If a man has progressed so far he will be tempted to feel that he is fairly 'safe', that the peace and virtue that have come to him are proud possessions, that any experience of God's presence he may have had was as though God has said, 'Well done thou good and faithful servant' and that he may definitely class himself among the elect. The result of these temptations if they are yielded to—and they are subtle and insidious temptations which easily deceive—is that progress ceases, and the man relapses into a pride or conceit which is very self-satisfied and which leads him to patronise others. The sign of this pride is a certain unteachableness in matters concerning the spiritual life; he holds on to his own opinions with a vehemence altogether out of proportion to their importance; he is unwilling to accept a contrary opinion even from his director or other authority. He feels so secure in the gifts that God has given him that he begins to act as so many heretics have acted, basing his certainty on an interior inspiration which he regards as of the Spirit, instead of on the outward judgment of authority.
The proud, truly, says Rolle, and those full of wrath seem to themselves so worthy that they can suffer nothing…. And that they have taken up they always defend, though it be false or untrue; and neither with authority nor reason will they be overcome, that they should not be seen to have said what were unaccording. And when they are untaught—and that they wot well—yet they will behave as if they were inspired in all things that belong to God. (Fire of Love, Misyn, p. 43.)
There are surely many heretics who have begun well and have arrived at this second main stage of their life and then fallen into pride of intellect and confidence in their own 'spirit'.
By now the grosser sins have been overcome and even the more fleshly and sensual temptations will have ceased and the good Christian may have become so accustomed to that type of sin and temptation that the new forms catch him unawares; if he is not still conscious of the deep-rooted self-love which remains even through all that previous era of purification he will be easily led into conceit. Indeed the conceit of the 'pious' and the 'devout' is almost proverbial: they never recognise it in themselves, being too occupied with their experiences and interior states to be conscious of their overbearing attitude towards the rest of the world.
Wherefore they change the joy of incorruptible cleanness to wantoned beauty which shall not last. This soothly would they not do unless they were blinded with the fire of froward love, the which wastes (away) the burgeoning of virtue and nourishes the plants of all vice. Forsooth many are not set on womanly beauty nor like lechery, wherefore they trust themselves saved, as it were, with sickerness (security); and because of chastity only, which they bear outwardly, they ween they surpass all others as saints. …(id. p. 16).
Strangely in contrast with this sense of eminence and security there sometimes appears also an envy of others' spiritual well-being, an instinctive feeling of bitterness when a neighbour shows signs of holiness or of divine favours. This is a strange temptation in one who has been seeking the good and desiring to love God wholly, and often it is only a passing feeling which is quickly recognised for its ugly character. Nevertheless sometimes it does provide a very real obstacle to entering into this new way.
In contrast to 'the true soul' who casts out pride and wrath, Richard Rolle describes the envious man who raises ill reports about his neighbour, who feels downhearted when others are praised. 'But the soul the which is but a little kindled with heavenly contemplation cannot seek that vain glory of slipping (i.e. passing) praise…. For where any are that love God, they truly desire the profit of their fellows as of themselves' (id. p. 123).
Perhaps the most inevitable obstacle to a full entry into the illuminative way is the continual existence of weakness of character and of personal idiosyncrasies. For although the purifications have cleansed a good deal of the dross, a man's character has not been transformed or changed in any fundamental way in the first stage. He still lives and acts in a very human way and his own personal characteristics will still be present. The quick-tempered man will not give way to his temper wilfully, but he will remain irascible and easily riled. The sentimental man will find himself carried easily away by enthusiasm for passing things, such as the latest miracle or the sayings of some new ecstatic. Rolle himself does not show what would now be called psychological insight in this matter. He was not in danger of turning into himself; his spirituality was very objective so that he is mainly concerned with deliberate and outstanding sins on the one hand and the love of God on the other. But certain it is that these weaknesses appeared to him as the great stumbling block to progress (cf. Fire of Love, Misyn, p. 168).
The constant failure in one particular direction will often keep a man for long in the first stages of the spiritual life. It is only when he is willing to be plunged into the night of the senses that he releases himself from these imperfections and this very hu man mode of life. Especially, too, in the matter of the virtues, he must be ready to relinquish his habitual attitude towards them; he must not continue to exercise them as though he were only just beginning. He has to be generous and ready to be open-hearted and magnanimous for otherwise he will gauge his actions by what he is used to being instead of by what he is called to be. St Thomas, in speaking of the increase or lessening of charity, points out that it is of the nature of charity that it can itself never diminish without wholly being extinguished. If you love God, you cannot then proceed to love him less. Of itself the virtue brings a total love or none at all. And yet by a continuous lack of generosity the soul can be weakened and put in a state where what is contrary to charity may easily prevail. The reason is that venial sin itself is concerned with the things which lead to God rather than with God himself. Any sin that is directed against God himself would be serious and destroy charity which is concerned with him alone. Therefore venial sin is not directly against charity but only against the things that lead to charity; but venial sin does diminish charity indirectly by removing the means through which it usually works. Love of God will be shown in acts of obedience, consequently constant venial sins of disobedience will hamper the exercise of charity. In this way a man without falling into grave sin, which is not so likely at the end of the purgative way, will perhaps remain ungenerous and even careless in the matter of venial sins. He will hesitate to step any further forward.
Père Garrigou-Lagrange, writing of those who are shy of this new invitation of Christ, says: 'The proficient, who is content to behave as a beginner ceases to progress and becomes a "retarded soul". There is a considerable number of such souls and we do not take sufficient account of it. How many there are who set about developing their minds, extending their knowledge of their external activities…and yet take little trouble to grow in supernatural charity, which should have pride of place and inspire and enliven our whole life.…' (Perfection Chrétienne et Contemplation, p. 230.) There will be many priests and those in charge of the spiritual welfare of Christians who will agree with this author with regard to the number who make a certain progress and then fall back into the uncertain state of the beginner because they are not ready to live really supernaturally but cling on to their old human ways.
Rolle for his part makes a continual plea for a complete turning to Christ. It would be a hopeless task to begin to quote him on this topic. He never ceases from urging his readers to hand themselves over completely to the love of Jesus. He is too principally concerned with contemplatives and even solitaries and he gives the impression that even many of these men and women hesitate on the edge of this new sea of love, not being prepared to plunge in. The third degree of love is contemplative love, which seeks solitude, and if his readers want to open their hearts to this love which is in God's gift alone, they must seek only Jesus with unstinted generosity.
And therefore it behoves thee to forsake all worldly solace, that thy heart be bound to the love of no creature nor to any business on earth; that thou mayest be in silence, ever stable and stalwart, with thy heart in the love and fear of God. (Ego Dormio, Heseltine, p. 98.)
Always he is urging these solitaries to prepare their hearts for true love of Jesus.
Through the activities of spiritual exercises and the possibilities of mortification in the purgative way, the individual has learnt sufficiently how to subjugate his spirit to the human mode of Christian prayer and action. Now his spirit needs to be wholly surrendered to the Holy Spirit in order to live in the fullness of Christian life. It is therefore necessary to open the door which leads out into the darkness of the night of the senses. This new form of purification, which proceeds from God's own activities, is evidently necessary to overcome these tendencies to satisfaction and tardiness. This night of the senses is the first characteristic of the illuminative way and it follows the easy dalliance of the soul by God at the conclusion of the first stage.
The unsuspecting reader may at this stage throw up his hands in despair: what! more purifications, nights, darknesses, hardships, crosses: one would have thought that after the first stage of purification the Christian might be able to find some peace and joy somewhere. It would be an understandable mistake to regard these nights in terms of the hardships of the first stage of the spiritual life, for one who knows only that cross of striving to be virtuous and mortifying his passions and vices. But the 'purifications' to which the soul is now submitted are not to be compared with those that have gone before. It is almost a mistake to use the same word. That is why Richard Rolle is such an excellent guide to this new period, for he speaks always in terms of the love of Christ. And the dark night of the senses is first and foremost a new state of love. It is in fact a very positive thing. A recent writer thus distinguishes its principal characteristics: 'It is essentially a state of infused contemplation…. It is secondarily and as an accessory a state of suffering and purification' (La Pratique de l'Oraison Mentale, by Dom Belorgey, II, p. 25). This is a just distinction and it is important to realise that it is in itself a matter of a new kind of contemplation, rather than a new kind of mortification. It involves the latter, and certainly a good deal of pain is necessary to eradicate the pride and selfishness already alluded to. The nature of this contemplation frequently mentioned by Richard Rolle, theologically described by St John of the Cross, and placed in the centre of controversy in modern times will require a separate chapter. Here we will concentrate on the secondary aspects as they refer to the imperfections and temptations which beset the soul as it approaches this new life.
God leaves those who are making progress, says St John of the Cross, 'so completely in the dark that they know not whither to go with their sensible imagination and meditation: for they cannot advance a step in meditation…their inward sense being submerged in this night, and left with such dryness that not only do they experience no pleasure and consolation in the spiritual things…but they find insipidity and bitterness in the said things…. He (God) sets them down from his arms and teaches them to walk with their own feet, which they feel to be very strange for everything seems to be going wrong with them' (Dark Night, I, 8). And the Mystic Doctor proceeds to describe the signs which show this aridity to be the work of God rather than backsliding darkness.
The hermit of Hampole describes this state of dryness rather briefly when he is dealing with the length of time taken after the first conversion before a man can reach this true contemplation. He insists that it is in the gift of God above and is only 'gotten in great time and with great labour' (Fire of Love, Misyn, p. 134).
Profiting little by little at the last they are made strong in spirit. Then afterward they have received sadness of manners, and so far as this present changeableness suffers have attained to stability of mind; for with great travails is some perfection gotten (id, p. 19).
But the insipidity of holy things which oppresses the soul at this time may account for his lack of appreciation of the liturgy. For it is true that one who is really being called into this second way of love will strangely enough find all the things which had been at first such an inspiration become curiously meaningless. The mind can recognise their goodness, their utility, their theological soundness, but the spirit can make nothing of them. The splendours of the Christmas celebrations are assented to by the mind but the soul feels high and dry, wishing almost to run away from the great solemnities of Midnight Mass and the sweet holiness of the Crib—to run away into a corner alone. No wonder St John of the Cross says that everything seems to be going wrong.
Because in the Kirk of God there are singers ordained in this degree and set to praise God and to stir the people to devotion, some have come to me asking why I would not sing as other men when they have oftimes seen me in solemn masses (Fire of Love, p. 132).
Of course for Rolle this difficulty arose mainly from the presence of the inward gift of song and the somewhat individualistic desire to be alone with this special experience, and yet it describes well the feeling of one who may have found great relish in the full solemnity of the liturgy and then suddenly finds it all withdrawn. He is naturally dismayed, and naturally also misunderstood by all those around who bide by the obvious teaching and encouragement of the Church. This is the way to praise God, join in the spirit of the liturgy, offer Mass with the people and sing happily in the services of the Church. Yes, replies the wondering soul, that is the way but it leaves me utterly cold. Rolle suffered much from the attacks of good-living people who noticed that he preferred low Masses and did not join in the singing even when he appeared at High Mass. And we may say in general that this is a period of misunderstandings and persecution from good people. It is particularly hard, for the poor individual is sufficiently perplexed by his own inward dryness; he cannot be sure where he is or what is happening to his spirit. Perhaps he is thrown aside after all, discarded by God because of his lack of generosity. And then authority steps in and tells him he is self-opinionated, proud and over-confident of his own views. His friends tell him he has ceased to be friendly and has removed himself to a distance, those who looked upon him as a budding saint tell him how disappointed they are in his apparent failure. His work seems not to prosper, his time of prayer is a torture. Indeed this is a night. Perhaps his critics are right; what use to continue in a life which has become almost meaningless?
Usquequo Domine oblivisceris me in finem? 'How long Lord forgettest thou me in the ending? How long away turn thou thy face from me?' The voice of holy men that covet and yearn the coming of Jesu Christ, that they might live with him in joy…. His words may none say soothly but a perfect man or woman that has gathered together all the desires of their soul and with the nail of love fastened them in Jesu Christ, so that they think that one hour of the day were overlong to dwell from him, for them longs aye for him.7
The tempests and trials can only be overcome by the certainty of this longing which remains despite the apparent insipidity of spiritual things. Accedia brings a very different tastelessness, one which has no desire and no love for God. This is no acidity but aridity brought by God upon the soul to humble it, to increase its thirst for himself; to make it understand it can turn to no one but to him only, to him who has the power to heal and to perfect. Nothing now remains of much interest or desire save God alone. The things that were on the way to God, the acts of worship, the joy of companionship, the thrill of doing an act of mercy for his sake, these remain good and indeed very good, but they no longer retain much attraction in themselves. It is a Night of the Senses; the senses can find no joy in their natural object, in sights and sounds and feelings. This may be an unnatural state, against the nature of the senses, held back as it were by God from relishing what he had made them to relish, but it is needful for the birth in the soul of infused contemplation.
Ghostly gifts truly dress a devout soul to love burningly: to mediate sweetly; to contemplate highly; to pray devoutly; and praise worthily; to desire Jesu only, to wash the mind from filth of sin; to slaken fleshly desires; and to despise all earthly things; and to paint the wounds and Christ's cross in mind; and, with an unwearied desire, with desire to sigh for the sight of the most glorious clearness. (Fire of Love, Misyn, p. 112.)
…. .
Prayer from God
Anyone who has reached the period of spiritual life known as the Night of the Senses will find that prayer has so changed its character as to be almost a new kind of human activity. Hitherto the time devoted to actual prayers will have been divided up between liturgical practices and private meditations. He will have become accustomed, perhaps through the habits formed during many years, to set about these devotions in a methodical way, always bearing in mind the adage that the good Christian, while leaving all to God in his spirit, must act as though all depended on himself. He will have learned a manner of assisting at Mass; he will have recited the same number of Paters and Aves, acts of contrition and charity, while he kneels beside his bed morning and night; his rosary or 'stations' will be prominent in his regular horary; and finally his times of quiet at meditation will be organised by a method, interspersed with 'acts' and sometimes be predominantly concerned with struggles against distractions and drowsiness. For these many years he may be said to have been trying to acquire prayer, to make it his own by his own efforts.
Now God begins to make the Christian's prayers into his (God's) own form of spiritual converse. The movement of the spiritual life comes from a divine rather than a human source. The soul finds that it can no longer acquire habits or states of prayer; it is almost forced to leave the initiative to God. The 'acquisitive' attitude gives place to the state of receptivity of God's actions; the infused virtues and above all infused contemplation require the soul to be passive rather than active in its way of prayer. We have already quoted the modern writer who has summed up the illuminative way as being essentially a state of infused contemplation, and we have noticed how Richard Rolle grew less comfortable in assisting at the liturgical functions of the Church. The effect of the new gifts God now gives the soul is to make it more than ever desirous of being alone and retiring from the activities, both internal and external, of its former life. For this middle state must necessarily incite a conflict between the active concerns of the earlier state and the quietude of the union to which the Christian is progressing. It is probable that now the communal liturgical prayers appeal less than at any other age of the spiritual life. Later the Christian strengthened by the power of infused contemplation and nourished by the spirit of quiet will return to these external forms of worship with a greater intensity and a wider capacity to share these spiritual goods with his fellow Christians. Thus Rolle visualises a time of union when all activities, even the most physical, are gathered into the life of uninterrupted prayer:
We can forsooth if we be true lovers of our Lord Jesu Christ think upon him when we walk, and hold fast the song of his loves whiles we sit in fellowship; and we may have mind of him at the board and also in the tasting of meat and drink. At every morsel of meat and draught of drink we ought to praise God…. And if we be in labour of our hands what lets us to lift our hearts to heaven without ceasing to hold the thought of endless love?8
This state of union has not been reached in the progressive with which we are concerned. Then the prayers of the Mass and the Office will be relished in a far deeper, more unified and affective manner. Now the Christian wants to be quiet and away from external preoccupations.
In this respect Rolle's language is borrowed from Jeremias who received the burning coal upon his lips. The soul should now be receptive of this infused love of God, coming down from its source in the bosom of the Father. This glowing ember must be allowed to rest in man's heart so that lying there it may soon set fire to that on which it rests.
'By the continuance of prayer the soul is burnt with the fire of God's love: our Lord truly says by his prophet…' (Jer. 33, 29) 'Are not my words as burning fire?' The psalm (118, 140) also says…'Thy speech is hugely burned' (Misyn, p. 91).
The insistence on acquiring virtues and the habit of prayer, the continued attachment to active forms of devotion, these stirrings which arise from the soul rather than from God only create a barrier to the divine gift; the burning ember is thrown out, not being allowed to rest where it might burn and begin a conflagration:
There are many now that forthwith cast out the word of God from the mouth and heart, nor suffering it there to rest in them; and therefore they are not burnt with the heat of comfort but bide cold in sloth and negligence, even after innumerable prayers and meditations of scripture, because forsooth they neither pray nor meditate in mind (id.).
Certainly prayer has to remain active in character until such time as God himself chooses to turn its course aside into this new and heaven-sent way of receptivity. But it is easy to hold on to the innumerable prayers at the time when God is striving to effect the change. It is attachment to active prayer which prevents the burning love from descending into the heart.
When St Thomas is speaking of the attention due to vocal prayer he lists three ways in which the mind can be occupied with what the lips are saying—the first is to the actual recitation of the words of the prayer, the second to the meaning of the words. Both these represent an active form of participating in liturgical prayer as well as in recitation of private devotions. But it is the third way which is most fundamental and necessary to all prayer and that is rather by the intention of the will than by the attention of the mind; it may be present in the unlettered and stupid as well as in the most highly elevated soul whose every faculty is absorbed in God and forgetful of all else. The mind here is attentive not necessarily to the words but to the goal of prayer, namely God—ad finem orationis, sc. ad Deum (II-II, 83, 13). He goes on to say that prayer in this life can only be 'without ceasing' in so far as it proceeds from the desire of charity, that love which is a gift of God and which keeps every thought and action in contact with this very finis orationis! 'Prolixity in prayer', he says, 'does not consist in the asking for many things, but in this that the affection for the one thing to be desired is continued' (id. 14, c. ad 2). This the heart of prayer as outlined by St Thomas must be borne in mind in considering the illuminative way in general and infused contemplation in particular. It shows that the prayer itself consists in an act of the will in loving God rather than in any act of any other virtue, even the virtue of religion. This act comes from an infused virtue, a gift from God which must necessarily reach the soul as a perfect gift as it does not in itself depend on the previous activities—the presence of the burning love of God does not of itself depend on the fact that the man has been making frequent and increasing acts of charity, but rather on the act of God placing that love in the soul, and God's action itself will have no blemish. And this means also that the feelings and emotions are not necessarily involved but that the will alone receives at least the principal virtue, the burning gift of love.
These considerations are important when we consider Rolle's language which so often conveys the atmosphere of intense emotional sweetness and delight; whereas the night of the senses has in fact isolated and to a certain extent destroyed these feelings and sensibilities. So that a passage such as the following must be read in the light of this fundamental reality of the finis orationis, the actual love of God springing from the will under the divine action.
Truly the more I am lift from earthly thoughts the more I feel the sweetness desired…. I beseech he kiss me with the sweetness of his refreshing love, straitly halsing me by the kissing of his mouth so that I fail not.
Ghostly gifts truly dress a devout soul to love burningly; to meditate sweetly; to contemplate highly; to pray devoutly; and praise worthily; to desire Jesu only, to wash the mind from filth of sin; to slaken fleshly desires; and to despise all earthly things; and to paint the wounds and Christ's cross in mind; and, with an unwearied desire, with desire to sigh for the sight of the most glorious clearness (Misyn, p. 112).
This is the genuine prayer springing from the infusion of love and remaining independent of the senses and emotions. He clearly states that meditation is turned into songs of joy (id. p. 68) and that the soul must continue to pray and meditate until such time as the 'heart is ravished in prayer to behold heavenly things' so that 'passing earthly things' it may be made perfect in Christ's love (id. p. 116). And there is one outstanding passage which we may be permitted to quote at some length as it brings us to the centre of the question of infused contemplation which is the principal characteristic of this stage in spiritual development, and gives a true understanding of this prayer which rests in the will in a more and more continuous act of love:
The clearer certain the love of a lover is the nearer and the more present to him God is. And thereby he joys more clearly in God, and the more he feels of his sweet goodness that is wont to inshed itself to lovers and to glide into the hearts of the meek with mirth beyond comparison. This forsooth is pure love:… The sharpness of his mind being cleansed, is altogether stabled into the one desire of everlastingness; and with freeness of spirit he continually beholds heavenly things—as he that is ravished by the beauty of any whom he beholding cannot but love.
But…ravishing is understood in two ways. One manner forsooth is when some man is ravished out of fleshly feeling…. [Rolle here describes the effects of the intensity of desire of God outlined by St Thomas at the end of II-II, 83, 13 c.] Another manner of ravishing there is, that is the lifting of the mind into God by contemplation.9
Rolle continues to describe the effects of the inshed love leading to contemplation in relation to 'wisdom unwrought' and to the mind passing into 'stableness'; in other places too he refers to this stableness which comes from Jesus Christ after the Christian has prepared for it by meditation.10 The change in prayer is thus described in terms of the coming of the Word into the heart to rescue it from 'the waverings of the mind' and to quieten it. It is the first prayer which may be said to be a direct act of God on the soul not also acquired by the exercise of the mind and will:
Which things are they that allure us to conform us to God's will? There are three. First, the example of creatures that is had by consideration: the goodliness of God that is gotten by mediation and prayer; and mirth of the heavenly kingdom that is felt in a manner by contemplation.,11
There can be little doubt that the Yorkshire mystic in these passages is referring to what is now known as infused contemplation and which has been for some years the subject of dispute in comparing it with what is called acquired contemplation. We need not concern ourselves very closely with the modern discussion but it is interesting to note that the distinction between two types of contemplation, or contemplative prayer, had in Rolle's time been already of long standing, having been drawn by one who exercised an influence on fourteenth-century Oxford. This was Richard of St Victor, who had died late in the twelfth century but who had played a great part in the development of St Bonaventure's spiritual doctrine, and St Bonaventure has left his mark on Rolle.12 Richard himself had made a threefold distinction of the 'quality of contemplation'; the expansion of the mind (mentis dilatatici) which does not overstep the limits of human ingenuity and application; the raising of the mind (mentis sublevatio) when a certain divine liveliness diffuses the understanding but without carrying it out of itself; the transformation of the mind (mentis alienatici) when the divine activity goes quite beyond the powers of the understanding. He says that the first comes from human activity (and must therefore be an 'acquired' contemplation), the third from divine grace alone (and we should call it 'infused'), the second from a combination of the two activities. This second type of contemplation is difficult to analyse for he says that human effort is supported and elevated by grace; but it may well be the fruit of meditation and discursive prayer which leads the soul on to the abandonment of human forms and to this receptive attitude in which it may become subject to the divine influence.
This division, which is echoed by Rolle in the final quotation from the Mending of Life above, would seem to correspond with experience and psychological development. For as a rule a man will not undergo a sudden and complete change-over from human discur sive activity to an equally complete passivity to the divine form of contemplation. There is a period in which the soul cannot meditate or occupy itself with its own considerations in prayer, but when the divine infusion is only perceived as a momentary actual grace bestowed at rare intervals. This is 'the space of life between' which has been described by a modern writer specifically as 'acquired contemplation', 'a contemplation in which a certain divine infusion comes to the assistance of the soul, so that it may hold itself in the presence of God by a gaze of living faith'.13 It is an expression which is of some use in describing the period at the beginning of the night of the senses when 'active' prayer (liturgy or meditation) becomes increasingly difficult and a new type of aridity descends on the soul. The mind and heart together can practise a type of loving gaze on God which is made more practicable by the aridity—the dark night—sent by God. There is here a mixture of activity and passivity which St Teresa calls the prayer of recollection and Richard of St Victor mentis sublevatio.
The modern discussion is first of all a matter of names; for 'acquired contemplation' is a term not found among the great mystical writers. But secondly, and more seriously, some of those who use this terminology maintain that the normal route to perfection will lead only to this half-active, half-passive state in which the heart must be all the time maintaining its effort to gaze at the divine face. They aver that the fully infused contemplation is a mystical phenomenon lying off the beaten track and granted only as an exceptional grace to the chosen few who happen to be so favoured. It will be safer to return to the older terminology and the broader and more integrated view of the earlier teaching as expressed by Richard Rolle. For him, as for St Teresa and St John of the Cross, the word 'contemplation' is used for that perception of the divine 'Clearness' granted by God at first fitfully but eventually with that 'stableness' which gives the Christian a constant inner certainty of the presence of God and a constant outpouring of love. This state, which must characterise the illuminative way, according to Rolle is not a gratia gratis data but a stage in the normal development of the soul as its powers are gathered into a closer and closer unity and as God prepares it to be transfixed wholly by the fiery dart of his love. He speaks of it, for example, in the chapter on 'Clearness of Mind' in The Mending of Life. A man by spiritual reading, prayer and meditation can so cleanse his mind that he can 'have his mind busy to God' (St Teresa's loving gaze of affection)—'for in this degree all the thought is dressed to Christ; all the mind, although he seems to speak to others, is spread unto him'. And thus the soul prepared both by its own and by God's action is prepared for the next step when 'full oft a wonderful joy of God is given and heavenly song is inshed' (Misyn-Comper, p. 228).
The soul has been prepared by this cleansing for the activity of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost hitherto bound down by venial sins. The purgative way has gradually overcome the attachment to the slight sins and selfcentredness which had prevented the Holy Spirit from working on the soul. The gifts of wisdom and understanding, of counsel and fortitude, they are all there in the first infusion of grace, but the soul cannot be moved promptly and instinctively as it should by their power because it has tied itself to the earth as the Lilliputians tied Gulliver by the hundreds of tiny threads of venial sins. When, however, the soul has generously purified herself from these evil bonds then it is the normal development of the Gifts that the Holy Ghost should begin to work directly and instinctively upon the soul. This is infused contemplation, the essence of the illuminative way and the normal experience of those who are growing in grace. Rolle sums it up beautifully in the last two chapters of The Mending of Life.
O sweet and delectable light that is my Maker unmade; enlighten the face and sharpness of my inward eye with clearness unmade, that my mind, pithily cleansed from uncleanness and made marvellous with gifts, may swiftly flee into the high mirth of love; and kindled with thy savour I may sit and rest, joying in thee, Jesus. And gazing as it were ravished in heavenly sweetness, and made stable in the beholding of things unseen, never save by godly things shall I be gladdened (id. p. 229).
To me it seems that contemplation is the joyful song of God's love taken into the mind with the sweetness of angel's praise. This is the jubilation which is the end of perfect prayer and high devotion in this life (id. p. 237).
Many people are naturally timid about this doctrine lest they fall into some kind of illuminism or quietism. They are reasonably hesitant about relinquishing their hold on their own activities. It is easy to be swept away on the tide of sloth into an ocean of delusion, moved hither and thither on the face of this awful deep by figments of their imagination—voices or visions, violent or vaunting devils, voluptuous angels or vainglorious vanities. Infused contemplation suggests by its very sound a launching out into the deep for which they are unprepared and which fills them with the dread of the unknown. Such people must comfort themselves with the assurance that these supernatural gifts, this infusion of divine powers (the virtues—and above all the virtue of charity) do not take place without the parallel preparation and cooperation of the man himself. If mystical states were all exceptional or extraordinary well might they fear, for there would be no relation between their own 'acquired' state and the sudden overpowering reality of the divine. But there is a correspondence between the two. The soul must be for ever vigilant and for ever increasing in humility in its surrender to the divine action. Rolle insists on this constant activity, as it were on the threshold of the soul:
It must be taken to with all busyness that we wake in prayer, that is to say not to be lulled by vain thoughts that withdraw the mind and make it forget whither it is bound and always let, if they can, to overcome the effect of devotion; the which the mind of the prayer would perceive if he prayed with wakefulness, busyness and desire. (Fire of Love, I, 22, p. 92.)
There is little danger of a false illuminism, untethered and fickle which cannot be driven in the shafts with reason and common sense, so long as the Christian is wholehearted in his penance and generous in his response to the day-to-day demands of the virtues. He will not abandon prudence, but he will discover that in response to his fidelity, wisdom and counsel will descend upon him and perfect his prudence. St John of the Cross may lead the way without being suspect.
When the faculties had been perfectly annihilated and calmed, together with the passions, desires and affections of my soul, wherewith I had experienced and tasted God after a lowly manner, I went forth from my own human way and operation to the operation and way of God. That is to say, my understanding went forth from itself, turning from the human to the divine; for when it is united with God by means of this purgation its understanding no longer comes through its natural light and vigour, but through the divine Wisdom wherewith it has become united (Dark Night II, 4. Peers, I, 405).
…. .
The Prayer of Quiet
Young enthusiasts for the life of prayer cannot be too frequently reminded of the danger of applying directly to their own persons the doctrines they read about. As they grow older they often become so self-conscious or introspective that they cannot read the lives of saints or descriptions of mystic states without discovering parallels in their own interior lives. This is a weakness not confined to spiritual matters, for we remember the hero of Three Men in a Boat who began reading a medical handbook and soon decided that he had symptoms of all the diseases therein described except 'housemaid's knee'. This is typical of those who read spiritual or physical medicine. It is necessary to repeat the warning against this form of introspection before beginning to discuss in detail the more passive forms of prayer and the higher states of the spiritual life. Certainly in general all men are called to these passive ways of the spirit, but by no means all men, not even all who are interested, reach to these states. And of those who are raised to a more passive prayer it may be said that there are hardly two alike, so diverse is the direct action of God upon the soul. Readers, therefore, must be resolutely objective in their approach to the subject. For their own personal problems they should be more ready to refer to their director or confessor who often has a clearer insight into their state than they have themselves. The doctrine of the great mystics, like St John of the Cross or St Teresa, should be read in a wide, more comprehensive spirit by which the reader is led to see how wonderfully God works in the souls of the just, and thus to return indirectly to his own relationship with God. These pages, too, are a study of the doctrine of the English Mystics—a study, not a self-scrutiny. They should be read as the devout theologian reads books and articles about divine things—he is certainly involved personally in them in his life, but his study retains an abstractive character which only after study will have its reflex action on his own spiritual life.
The chief characteristic, then, of the illuminative way is a prayer which is caused by God rather than by the free will of man; and it is the consideration of this form of prayer which demands an objective approach, particularly if studied in relation to the very singular manner of Richard Rolle. He needs to be studied rather than copied as a model. Indeed Rolle himself makes this clear:
For I do not say that thou or another that reads this shall do it all; for it is God's will to choose whom he will to do what is told here, or else another thing in another manner, as he gives men grace for their salvation. For various men take various graces of our Lord Jesus Christ: and all shall be set in the joy of heaven, that ends in charity. Whoever is in this degree has wisdom and discretion to love according to God's will.14
This degree in which God works as he wills brings an habitual mindfulness of God. The mind and will must necessarily be occupied with the general needs and activities of life; but even at such times when a person is busied about household duties or the requirements of a livelihood the habit of the presence of God remains. The habit may, and often is, deliberately brought into action by a conscious desire for and knowledge of God present in the soul and in all created things round about. But even when the acts of mind and will are concerned with other things God is present as a companion is present in a room with a friend who is concentrating all his faculties on some delicate work of his fingers or some deep mental problem. The friend 'knows' his companion is by his side but does not revert to it by an act of his mind; he is conscious in a passive way of companionship. So too God's companionship pervades the whole life of a man in this degree like an atmosphere. The man requires no words to speak with the divine companion; he hardly needs to make a deliberate act of his will; for all his will is permanently resting in God.
'Rest' is perhaps the key word to this type of prayer. It comes frequently in Rolle's account of the perfect form of life and prayer. It is the mark of 'spiritual circumcision' when all the attachments to this world have been cut off by the purgative way and the night of the senses, and the soul is set apart as the Jew of old from the Gentile.
When a man feels himself in that degree, then is a man circumcised spiritually, when all other business and affections and thoughts are drawn away out of his soul, that he may rest in God's love without entanglement with other things. (Of Delight in God, Heseltine, p. 105.)
In one place Rolle admits that idleness destroys this heat of God's love which is otherwise habitual; and this we should expect since the greatest enemy to the prayer of rest or quiet is its material semblance the name of which is sloth. But he says also that weariness from travel or immoderate occupation also drives it away, and likewise being 'given without measure to disputation' (Fire of Love, Prologue: Misyn, p. 13). From this we may conclude that unnecessary or protracted journeyings and suchlike activities which employ the mind and will too much with material things are enemies to the habit as well as to the act of this consciousness of God, are in other words contrary to the rest and quiet of which he speaks.
And moreover sleep gainstands me as an enemy; for no time heavies me to lose save that in which, constrained, I yield to sleeping. Waking truly I am busy to warm my soul, thirled [pierced] as it were with cold, the which when settled [in the sense that dregs settle] in devotion, I know well is set on fire (id. p. 12).
Yet neither sleep nor any other activity except it be in some sense sinful and turning away however slight from God can break into this rest so as to disturb it seriously.
Afterward truly strongly and well used in praying, and given to high rest in meditation…his affection goes up so that the entrance is opened, in the beholding of heavenly mysteries, to the eye of his mind…. Nevertheless (his soul) gladly suffers adversity that happens, for sweetly she rests in the joy of eternal love. And all these things that happen can not destroy that joyful song that she had received…. (id. bk. 2, c. 6, pp. 154-5).
The soul that rests in God in this way is evidently borne up by his presence as a swimmer resting from his exertions floats borne up by the deep of the ocean, immersed and yet supported without effort on his part. The resting in God seems to be closely allied to the prayer of quiet which might be called a speciality of St Teresa's. She describes it as the beginning of rest when the soul need not be continually at work. The will, she says, is occupied, has been made captive—'imprisoned by God, as one who well knows itself to be the captive of him whom it loves'. God begins to communicate himself to the soul in a new and unexpected way (cf. Life, chapter XIV).
As we have seen, this communication from God is the beginning of infused contemplation, and this contemplation lies at the heart of the prayer of quiet. A new kind of rhythm is set in motion in which the sudden manifestations of God ripple across the smooth surface of this restful certainty of God's presence. The soul is constantly mindful of God, and he in turn brings new treasures of grace to the soul when it is itself feeling powerless and unable to move of itself. The explanation of this state must be sought in the doctrine of the gifts, for it is now that the soul is sufficiently freed from entanglements of venial sin and worldly attachments for the Holy Spirit to be able to use his gifts. Rolle is as insistent as St Teresa that the world must by now be utterly given up, cut away by a ruthless severing of all earthly ties. This is the doctrine which often terrifies, but which is absolutely necessary as a prerequisite to the full working of the gifts.
St Teresa gives examples of how the Holy Spirit worked through his gifts when the prayer of quiet came upon her Her feeble knowledge of Latin was suddenly illumined so that she could read the Psalter as though it were in Spanish, and further she could penetrate the meaning of the Spanish so that the Psalter began to reveal its mysteries without special study or mental argument. This was the gift of understanding which is the special feature of the illuminative way. Rolle shows that the other gifts are also at work, for example that of Fear of the Lord. This new state of love casts out all fear of any but God, and overcomes pain, so that the soul 'feels no dread of any creature' (Fire of Love, i, 26. p. 110). And so a gentle and undisturbing fear of anything which might in any way offend God or remove that sweet and now constant presence pervades the soul and keeps it clear from any new entanglements with the world. 'And he greatly dreads lest he be drawn into these things that the least grieve him' (id. ii, 6, p. 157).
This is a fear which springs wholly from love and is not the contrary passion which is cast out by love; it is a gift which the Spirit uses at the approach of evil or temptation to keep the soul free from worry or disturbance. A modern analogy might be found in the sensitive cell which is used as a burglar alarm; the slightest shadow cast over it reacts so as to set off the bells; in this way the household may rest untroubled by fears of being robbed unawares. So also the gift of fear helps to preserve the rest and quiet within the soul; it need not be anxious about being taken off its guard or falling unwittingly into evil.
But the principal gift, as we have said, is that of understanding which provides the illumination from which this stage gets its name. St Thomas, in his question on this gift, points out how the unaided intellect of man so often cannot pierce below the superficial appearances of things. We are prone to mistake accidentals for the essential reality beneath, words for their meaning, likenesses and figures for the truth they signify. We need a supernatural light to pierce through the words of the Bible, or to plunge into the divine reality which lies hidden behind all the sacramental manifestations of God's work. This gift, therefore, corresponds to the sixth beatitude—'Blessed are the clean of heart for they shall see God', not merely because man must be pure and purified before he can sense the divine truth in things but also in so far as the mind itself has to be freed from the bondage of vivid imaginations and purged of obfuscating errors. All this the gift of understanding does once the soul has been freed by various purifications from contamination with merely earthly things.15 This new light which penetrates into the depths of reality like some new intellective way is a perfection of faith; it does not provide any new kind of knowledge; it is in fact a prompt and penetrating glance into the truths of faith, prompt to the sudden movement of the Spirit.
Rolle says in his prologue to the Fire of Love that he is writing not for the learned and scientific men who are in fact so concerned with the superficial things—the simple will 'pass temporal things' and reach this endless rest and all their knowledge contributes to their loving rightly (p. 13). There are in fact many parallels to St Thomas's teaching, referred to above, in Rolle's Mending of Life, particularly in the chapters where he writes of cleanness of mind and of contemplation. After writing of the mind's eye being taken up to behold heavenly things, yet still as in a shadow and in a mirror, he continues:
Although truly the darkness of sin be gone from an holy soul, and murk things and unclean be passed, and the mind be purged and enlightened, yet whiles it bides in this mortal flesh that wonderful joy is not perfectly seen. Forsooth holy and contemplative men with a clear face behold God; that is either their wits are opened, for to understand holy writ…. As one might say all lettings betwixt their mind and God are put back. (The Mending of Life, Misyn, p. 239.)
Although the gift is a permanent possession of the soul's so that Rolle can write that the mind is 'enlightened with sweet mystery' and that God has 'opened to mine eyes the window of contemplation' (Fire of Love, ii, cc. 2 and 5, pp. 137, 151), yet it cannot be used actively like an additional faculty. It does not mean that a person at this stage of life can at will see the face of God within the external drapery of words, signs or material creation. The gift makes it possible for the mind to be moved instinctively, with immediate promptitude, to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit whenever the latter chooses to raise the veil leading more deeply into the mysteries. The way is illuminative because of these sudden flashes of understanding rather than from a permanently diffused brilliance. A man must still use logic, reasoning and argument to learn more about divine truths at other times than when the Spirit is in fact enlightening him. In other words the illuminative way with its gift of understanding does not spell illuminism; it does not mean that it creates an élite of inspired gnostics who have been raised to a new form of knowledge where theology would be out of place.
It is interesting to notice in respect of this illumination of the gift of understanding that Richard Rolle employs the simile of the sunbeam which was later a favourite with St John of the Cross. We may compare chapter 28 of the Fire of Love (Book i, p. 119) where he likens this enlightening fire of the Holy Spirit to a sunbeam with the following passage of St John of the Cross where he is treating of this same state of enlightenment: 'Let this suffice now to explain how meet it is that the soul should be occupied in this knowledge, so that it may turn aside from the way of spiritual meditation, and be sure that, although it seems to be doing nothing, it is well occupied…. It will also be realised…that if this light presents itself to the understanding in a more comprehensible and palpable manner, as the sun's ray presents itself to the eye when it is full of particles, the soul must not therefore consider it purer, brighter and more sublime'. (Ascent, ii, 14. Peers, 1, p. 126.) The Spanish mystic has perfected the simile and shows that although meditation and discursive reasoning in prayer may for the most part become impossible, yet the light vouchsafed does not bring an easy and palpable understanding, but is more like the sunbeam shining where there are no particles to make it manifest, shining more penetratingly, more purely, more 'darkly'. And yet it has not yet reached the purity of the light of wisdom. This the highest of all the gifts which proceeds more directly from the intensity of perfect love is characteristic of the way of union. Naturally this gift too has been released by the new freedom from wilful venial sins but it is not as yet the predominant gift. Rolle, however, looks forward to it when he speaks of the ravishings of love:
They also are called ravished by love that are wholly and pefectly given to the desires of their Saviour, and worthily ascend to the height of contemplation. With wisdom unwrought are they enlightened, and are worthy to feel the beat of the undescried light, with whose fairness they are ravished (Fire of Love, ii, 7. p. 162).
Another sort of gift begins also to make its appearance at this time, namely a certain assurance from God that the person favoured by these graces will never fall away but will reach the fulfilment of his destiny in heaven. Before this time he will have had nothing more to judge his state from than the general hope shared by all who do what is asked of them and make use of the sacraments. But we often find in the mystics some more personal assurance than this general way of guessing that one is in a state of grace. Evidently it does not imply a Calvinistic idea of predestination and an experience of that special choice. It depends on the co-operative will of the man himself and on his perseverance. But Rolle says that once souls have been strengthened and enlightened in this way, they will be specially comforted. 'And if they at any time begin to err, through ignorance or frailty, he soon shows them the right way, and all that they have need of, he teaches them.' (Form of Living, 2, Heseltine, p. 20.) And he speaks elsewhere of knowing he is in a state of charity which he will never lose and of being confirmed in grace (cf. Mending of Life, c. 10, p. 228; Fire of Love, i, 15, p. 72). But he makes a more special claim on one occasion: 'He that has this joy, and in this life is thus gladdened, is inspired of the Holy Ghost: he cannot err, whatever he do it is lawful. No mortal man can give him counsel so good as that is that he has in himself of God Immortal' (Fire of Love, i, 11, p. 55).
He quotes in reference to this special gift the favourite text that 'the spiritual man judgeth all things'; but goes on to say that it would be presumption for anyone to think he had this gift, for even the highest contemplatives are not given it, and that it is granted but seldom and to few. He implies, however, that in some way the exceptional man to whom this gift is granted will know of the gift; he seems to suggest even that he, Rolle, had received some such assurance of inerrancy. This is not a claim peculiar to Rolle and we shall find it later appearing in a rather dubious form in Mother Julian. Indeed, among those who have reached the stage of prayer of which we write an assurance of this kind, imagined or real, is not unknown at the present time. Yet if it be true it must be kept clear of any note of determinism and it must not interfere with the essential freedom of will and variety of knowledge and judgment in the individual. It may, however, be some kind of special experience in which a very few are privileged to share more deeply in the eternal knowledge of God. Rolle speaks of it here in connection with the gift of counsel; and it might be regarded as a divinely guaranteed prudential judgment.
Yet when such an assurance is given in reality it could only be granted to the one who would not in fact misuse it by turning it into a subject for conceit or presumption. The very fact that he misused such an assurance should prove at once that it was in fact only a subjective fancy and not an objective promise. Perhaps we could discover a parallel to this exceptional knowledge in the inevitability and yet freedom of choice involved in the workings of efficacious grace. In this way it might be some sort of conscious realisation of what is in fact a reality behind the scenes of every predestined soul. It is not impossible for God to make such a revelation; but it would not be, as the Calvinists would have it, an ordinary grace of God. The Church teaches explicitly that no one in this life can presume to claim to belong to the number of the elect. 'For, except by some special revelation, it is impossible to know whom God has chosen for himself.' This is the clear statement of the Council of Trent against the Calvinist position (cf. Denzinger, nn. 805 and 826). But the Council does allow for an occasional peculiar manifestation of God's choice, and it is probably to this that Richard Rolle and other mystics refer. But it is evidently a gift which of necessity must be ignored even by the very few to whom it is granted.
These are however special graces and do not form the usual furniture of the illuminative way. The Christian who is enlightened now by the gift of understanding will yet be often plunged in darkness and uncertainty. Aridity of a very deep and penetrating nature is still often the only outward aspect of his prayer. As the aridity had attacked his sensitive faculties in the night of the senses, so his 'enthusiasm' had died, and by now he has come to depend far more on the will of God working in the purity of his own will and mind. With this sensible dryness goes a bitter and burning desire and an intense love which is almost purely a thing of the will. And these last two features of the illuminative way are of course so characteristic of Richard Rolle that they will require another chapter for their treatment.
…. .
Love of the Word
We cannot take leave of Richard Rolle without listening to his principal message and the one which is the dominant theme of the illuminative way. His greatest work was on The Fire of Love, his most unique mystical experience was the burning of love in his breast, and his poetry which did more than anything else to spread his spirit among his contemporaries is concerned with the sweet love of Jesus, his spouse. Love is thought, with great desire of a fair Loving.16
The illumination as we have seen comes principally from the shining of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in the beginning of infused contemplation. But this light cannot of course be separated from the Word whose function it is to enlighten the understanding. Indeed the activities of the second and third Persons of the Blessed Trinity in this respect cannot be separated; it is the one action of the Verbum spirans amorem.
The mind truly disposed to cleanness, receives from God the thought of eternal love…[and it is necessary that this] mind be fully knit unto Christ, and it lasts in desires and thoughts of love—the which are certain and endless intent—and which thoughts, wherever he be, sitting or going, he meditates within himself without ceasing, desiring nothing but Christ's love. (Fire of Love, 25, Misyn-Comper, p. 107.)
This is typical of Rolle and of the period we are here considering. One of the sweetest joys now is to meet Jesus, the Word Incarnate, in this new and more intimate life of love.
On the side of the creature lover there has grown up through the various purifications and the 'cleansing' of his mind a desire far purer than when he first set out to serve the Lord. At first the yearning of the soul for God was occasioned principally by the knowledge of the duty of loving God above all things, then came the fuller understanding of the will of God as a personal love for the soul which in its turn responded more spontanteously in its longing; and now that the divine touch has been laid on her the soul begins to experience an almost bitter desire for the Beloved. Commenting on the opening verse of Psalm 12, Rolle says:
The voice of holy men, who covet and yearn the coming of Jesus Christ, that they may live with him in joy, and complaining of delaying, says: 'Lord, how long forgettest thou me, in the ending,' which I covet to have and to hold, that is 'how long delayest thou me from the sight of Jesus Christ, who is the very ending of my intent?' 'And how long turnest thou thy face from me?' that is, 'When wilt thou give me a perfect knowing of thee?' These words may none say truly save a perfect man or woman who has gathered together all the desires of her soul and with the nail of love fastened them in Jesus Christ.…(cf. H. E. Allen, English Writings of Richard Rolle, pp. 10-11).
The beginnings of love have stirred up a desire which in its turn feeds love and prepares the way for the divine love to descend more completely into the dwelling of his choice. 'For the longer we live the hotter we desire thee, and the more joy we feel in thy love, and painfully we hie to thee' (Fire of Love, 26, p. 110).
This desire regarded from the ascetic point of view arises from the renunciation of wordly, material desires and concupiscence. Rolle offers his book to those who 'all things forgetting and putting aback that are longing to this world, they love to be given only the desires of our Master' (Prologue, Misyn, p. 13); and in the eighth chapter of the first book he describes how they must fly all worldly attractions, and staunch the wounds of fleshly desires. He calls this 'highest poverty'; indeed it represents the cutting away of earthly ties and attachments; and in The Form of Living he gives as the first two signs of a man's being in charity that he has no covering of earthly things, and that he has a fervent longing for heaven so that he can find no joy in this life (cf. Heseltine, Selected Works, p. 46).
But this negative way of regarding the quenching of earthly lusts can only reveal a superficial aspect of the new-found joy in desiring. For it is not possible merely to destroy all human yearning. The heart is made to desire, and to destroy its every longing would be to destroy human life itself. Mere repression achieves ill results, as is manifest in a thousand ways in modern neurotic conditions. To insist that a man should not fix his heart on any creature without showing him an alternative object would dry up the spring of life. This in fact explains why some people who have forsaken the world by vow and state of life become withered in spirit, narrow in outlook, bitter in company. They have few desires and these are mostly of a negative character; they often become valetudinarians because they are conscious only of what they lack; being without joy in living they seek it in vain in physical health.
St Thomas teaches that poverty of itself is a negative state rather than a dynamic virtue, for it cuts away rather than fills up. One must cut the painter and push out into the deep in order to catch the big fish; but the cutting in itself is only the occasion of the catch—one does not haul in the fish with the stumpy end of the painter. Rolle follows the same teaching as the Angel of the Schools in this matter of the 'highest poverty'.
Truly by itself poverty is no virtue but rather wretchedness; nor for itself praised, but because it is the instrument of virtue and helps to get blessedness, and makes any eschew many occasions of sinning. And therefore it is to be praised and desired. It lets a man from being honoured, although he be virtuous; but rather it makes him despised and over-led, and cast out among lovers of the world. To suffer all which for Christ is highly needful (The Mending of Life, 3. Misyn-Comper, p. 205. Cf. Form of Living, 10. Heseltine, p. 42).
Our Lord himself takes the place of all these worldly desires. The positive fulfilment of desire in him is the only human way of assuaging all the variety of yearnings in the heart of man. It is as though all the rivulets of passing human wishes, the craving for little luxuries and human comforts, all flow into the one great stream of the burning desire for Christ himself. He is man and he is God, and he can fulfil all the passions of human nature by transforming them in some way into a part of divine love. So strong can this stream become as to convey the soul to the very threshold of death itself in a flood which is the exact contrary to the desire of self-destruction in suicide.
'Thou truly art my Treasure, and all the desire of my heart; and because of thee I shall perfectly see thee, for then I shall have thee.' And I spake thus to death: 'O Death, where dwellest thou? Why comest thou so late to me, living but yet mortal? Why halsest thou not him that desires thee? Who is enough to think [excogitare] thy sweetness, that art the end of sighing, the beginning of desire, the gate of unfailing yearning? Thou art the end of heaviness…. Behold I grow hot and desire after thee…. Behold I truly languish for love; I desire to die; for thee I burn; and yet truly not for thee but for my saviour Jesu.' (Fire of Love, 16. Misyn-Comper, pp. 74-5.)
Quia amore langueo. This is the theme not only of all Rolle's main work, but also of all the medieval spiritual literature; and it is a theme which is only realised in life by those who have entered into the new world of delights granted by infused contemplation.17 Of course the sinner as soon as he had turned from his evil ways had received the gift of infused charity with the influx of grace; but charity in this life is a movement towards the beloved object. In heaven all will be at rest for desire will be fulfilled and love will reign perfect in its possession. But here it is always, or should be always, growing, moving towards its object. 'Lord Jesu, I ask thee, give me movement in thy love withouten measure', says Rolle, and a little later he defines the love of man on earth precisely in terms of this gradual reduction of the desire into the joy of possession: 'What is love but the transforming of desire into the thing loved?' (Fire of Love, Misyn, pp. 78 and 79.)
The whole of the way towards God, the entire extent of the progress of the spiritual life is, of course, simply a development in charity which gradually absorbs all the faculties of a human person, his intellect included, and brings them to cohesion point in God. At first charity lies almost hidden, like the foundations of a building, at the back of the active life of purification in which the moral virtues predominate. Charity is the form, the extrinsic form, of the patience and mercy, the humility and penance of the first steps in the spiritual life. Yet of necessity activity, service, prudential and 'moral' considerations hold sway. But as these virtues develop they become more and more rooted in love, and the extrinsic form itself begins to overshadow all others. At first a man will put up with trials because he knows that this is necessary, that God demands it, that it will cleanse his spirit and that patience is a human perfection. But there comes a time, if he has been growing up spiritually, when he will do all for the love of God; he will be patient because he loves our Lord and follows him by love step by step in the Passion.
This is, therefore, the point when the active life of the moral virtues gives place to the contemplative life of the theological virtues. This fact is borne out, as we shall see later, by Walter Hilton in his Scale up which the active only ascends to a point where he may have some fitful glimpses of the full transformation; but it is for Hilton the full re-forming of the soul in 'faith and feeling' where the contemplative really takes over. And this formation of the soul 'in faith and feeling' seems to correspond closely with the contemplative life of Rolle whose love of God seems to diffuse his whole being.
For Hilton the final stage of 're-forming in faith and feeling' would seem to be the state of union when love has transformed everything into God, but there is a lesser degree in which the mens, the supreme part of the soul, has not entirely been changed by the Gifts of the Spirit; so, as we should expect, contemplative life begins properly with the first regular influx of infused contemplation. And this is the period when the soul first really languishes for love.
The soul has approached closer than ever before to God, not, as St Thomas says following St Gregory, by physical paces but by steps of love. Rolle has himself set out briefly his measure of these steps of love. For instance in the Mending of Life: 'First therefore we are taught righteousness and corrected of ill by discipline; and after that we know what we should do, or what we should eschew. At the last we savour not fleshly things, but everlasting heavenly and godly' (Misyn, p. 209).
Or at great length in the eighth chapter of The Form of Living he sets out three degrees of love. The first he calls 'Insuperable', that is, that it is not conquered by temptation or adversity—'when nothing that is contrary to God's love overcomes it, but it is stalwart against all temptations and stable, whether thou be in ease or anguish'. Secondly, 'Inseparable' love comes 'when all thy heart and thy thought and thy might are so wholly, so entirely, and so perfectly fastened, set and established in Jesus Christ, that thy thought goes never from him'.
The third degree is highest and most wondrous to win. That is called Singular for it has no peer. Singular love is when all comfort and solace are closed out of thy heart but that of Jesus Christ alone. It seeks no other joy…. Then thy soul is Jesusloving, Jesus-thinking, Jesus-desiring, only breathing in the desire for him, singing to him, burning for him, resting in him (The Form of Living, Heseltine, pp. 35-7).
But it would seem that all these degrees of love are already within the contemplative mould of the illuminative way for he says that even in the first degree a man may say 'I languish for love'. And elsewhere, in the Fire of Love, he describes the 'heat', the 'song', and the 'sweetness' of this love which he himself experiences.
It is particularly noteworthy that our Lord, the Word Incarnate, plays the central part in this transformation in love. The Blessed Trinity of course lies as background of all thought and of all love, but at this point it is necessary to gather all the human forces into the power of love, and that it is achieved in the way God designed by sending his Son as our human brother. This delight in the manhood and Godhead of our Lord inspires all Rolle's lyrics and these more than any other of his writings influenced the religious thought of the anchorholds and contemplatives as well as the more pious section of the populace of Rolle's day. His vivid picture of the piteous bleeding of Christ in 'My king that was great' is paralleled closely by the whole of Mother Julian's Revelations which sprang from the same sort of concrete realisation of the pains of Christ:
Naked is his white breast
and red his bloody side;
was his fair hue,
his wounds deep and wide.
His hymns to the Holy Name, his songs of love, his more penitential lyrics like 'All vanities forsake', his hymn to the Creator, all are centred round the person of our Lord who dominates his poetic imagery as well as his love.18 Theologically this movement springs from two important sources. First we find Rolle writing of the Son in relation to the Trinity as God, and in relation to ourselves as man.
The Father, Life, getting the Son, Life, has given to him his whole substance…. Truly the everlasting Son of the Father is become Man in Time, born of a maiden, that he might gainbuy man from the fiend's power. This is our Lord Jesus Christ: the which only be fastened in our minds the which for us only was tied on the cross. Nothing truly is so sweet as to love Christ. (Fire of Love, Misyn, p. 36.)
And he goes on to hint that we should not attempt to plumb too deeply with our minds the mystery of the Trinity, and to be content in this respect with the Son made man, hanging on the Cross. Secondly there is the doctrine of the mystical body which inspired in one way or another the majority of the English Mystics.
Every mortal man ought to consider that he will never come to the heavenly Kingdom by the way of riches and fleshly liking and lust, since, forsooth, it is written of Christ…that Christ behoved to suffer and so enter his joy. If we be members of our Head, Jesu Christ, we shall follow him; and if we love Christ, it behoves us to go as he has gone (id. p. 84).
The member of the body is now not merely directed by the head but is in love with the head, conformed to it. His virtuous life is a life of Christ; he acts virtuously because he follows Christ who acts in this way; he accepts the will of the Father because he is in the Garden of Olives watching the seat of blood moistening the soil of the world. Life now is Christo-centric, to use an awkward but meaningful modern expression. Here may we find a meeting place for all the genuine writers on the spiritual life. St Augustine is as eloquent on the love of Christ as is St Bernard. The Imitation has been considered to be 'unmystical' in tone, and yet the seventh and eighth chapters of the second part have the same accent and tone as Rolle: 'If thou seek Jesu in all things, thou shalt find Jesu…. Among all therefore that are dear to thee, let Jesu be solely thy darling and thy special friend.' Or again in the De Adhaerendo Deo, attributed to St Albert and almost as formative of pre-reformation spirituality as The Imita tion, we read: 'There is no other way by which we may be drawn away from outward and sensible things into ourselves and so into the divine secrets of Jesus Christ, than by the love of Christ, than by the desire of Christ's sweetness, so that we may feel, perceive and taste the nearness of Christ's divinity.'19
Rolle, in his descriptions of the transports of the love of Jesu, however, has not entered into the final union, which has been called beyond all others 'transforming'. He is not relying on feelings or sensible consolations, but he is still very imaginative in his conception of the meaning of union. He recognises its wholeness, and how this love of God embraces every aspect of a man's life bringing with it true integrity (cf. Fire of Love, Misyn, pp. 99-100). But there is still a certain distance, however brief, between the soul and God, a distance which those who have experienced the heights of love cross with further steps of love. To make this clear we may compare a passage of Richard Rolle with a similar one from the Living Flame of St John of the Cross. Thus Rolle writes:
Therefore if our love be pure and perfect, whatever our heart loves it is God. Truly if we love ourselves, and all other creatures that are to be loved, only in God and for God, what other in us and in them love we but him?… He that truly knows to love Christ is proved to love nothing in himself but God. Also all that we are loved by and love—all to God the Well of love we yield…wherefore nothing but God he loves and so all his love is God (Fire of Love, i.c. 19, Misyn, p. 87).
This fine passage, which brings out a great deal of the nobility of Rolle and his attractiveness, yet suggests that there remains a sense of otherness; the soul still feels distinct from God though linked so closely in this deep activity of the will. St John of the Cross, however, in describing the final transformation of love, the most complete that can be attained in this life, would seem to draw out a new meaning in Rolle's words 'all his love is God'. We quote only a short passage from this tremendous description of the union of love:
For the will of these two is one; and even as God is giving himself to the soul with free and gracious will, even so likewise the soul having a will that is the freer and the more generous in proportion as it has a greater degree of union with God, is giving God in God to God himself, and thus the gift of the soul to God is true and entire.
We shall find this further transformation of love more clearly indicated in the two greatest of English mystical writings, The Cloud of Unknowing and the Revelations of Mother Julian of Norwich. Richard Rolle is in many ways the leader of the mystical movement and often seems to have approximated to the highest forms of love. But these others, perhaps being more hidden and therefore less tempted by the snares of pride, seem to have drawn still closer to the end of all loving.
Notes
1English Writings of Richard Rolle. Introduction, p. 23.
2 All quotations from the Incendium Amoris are taken from Richard Misyn's fifteenth-century translation edited by Miss F. M. M. Comper and published by Methuen.
3 Chapter 18, Misyn's translation edited by Comper, pp. 83-4.
4Incendium Amoris, c. 28, p. 119.
5 Cf. Richard Rolle of Hampole, edited by C. Horstman, vol. 1, p. 191.
6 Quoted from Selected Works of Richard Rolle, by G. Heseltine (London, 1930), p. 37.
7 The whole of this Commentary on Psalm 12 should be read in this context. I have here modernised the first paragraph from English Writings of Richard Rolle, H. E. Allen, p. 11. Cf. also Fire of Love, Misyn, p. 40.
8The Fire of Love, Bk. 2, c. 10. Misyn trans., Comper ed., p. 178. This compares closely with St Teresa's description of the Prayer of Union in her Life, c. 17 (Peers ed., I, 102).
9The Fire of Love, Bk. 2, c. 7. Misyn-Comper, p. 161-2. Italics are mine.
10 Cf. The Mending of Life, cc. 7 and 8, same edition, pp. 220-1.
11 Id. c. 4, p. 208. Italics mine.
12 Cf. 'L'Oraison' Cahier de la Vie Spirituelle, pp. 26 sqq. L'Oraison dans l'Histoire, by P. Philippe, O.P. The passage of Richard of St Victor here referred to is Benjamin Major, 5, 2. (P.L. 196, 170.)
13St John of the Cross, Doctor of Divine Love, by Father Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen (London, 1940), pp. 115-16.
14Ego Dormio. Heseltine, Selected Works of Richard Rolle, p. 97.
15 Cf. Summa Theologica, II-II 8, art. 1 and 8.
16 Cf. The Life of Richard Rolle with his English Lyrics, F. M. M. Comper, p. 248.
17 It is useful to compare this medieval outpouring with the words of Dom Belorgey in the description of the joy of finding Jesus once more in the prayer of Quiet (La Pratique de l'oraison mentale, vol. 2, p. 72).
18 For these lyrics cf. the volume already cited by F. M. M. Comper.
19Of Cleaving to God. Translated by Elizabeth Stopp (Blackfriars Publications).
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