Salesian Literature

Chapter 3  :  The supreme degree of union – suspension of the faculties, and rapture

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In whatever way union of soul with God is achieved, then – consciously or unconsciously – God is always responsible for it.  No one can become one with God without going out towards him; nor can anyone go out towards God unless attracted by him.  The divine bridegroom made this clear, when he said: Nobody can come to me without being attracted towards me by the Father who sent me (Jn. 6:44).  The bride in the Song of Songs also expressed the same idea in her exclamation: Draw me after thee where thou wilt; see, we hasten after thee, by the very fragrance of those perfumes allured (Cant. 1:3).

 

Two things are needed for this union to be perfect; it must be unadulterated, it must be strong.  After all, I can go up to people to talk to them perhaps, or to see them better, or collect something from them, or enjoy the perfume they are wearing, or lean on them.  Undoubtedly, at such times, I approach them, attach myself to them; but the approach, the union, are not my main ambition – I am only using them as ways and means for getting something else.  However, if I go to someone, attach myself to him for no other reason than to be near him, to enjoy that proximity, that union – then the approach I make is for union pure and simple.

 

People approach our Lord in similar ways.  Some come to listen to him, like Mary Magdalene; others to be cured, like the woman who had an issue of blood; others to adore him, like the wise men; others to serve him, like Martha; others to overcome their disbelief, like St. Thomas.

 

The Sulamite in the Song of Songs, however, searches for him in order to find him, and only wants to find him in order to hold him close, never to let go of him: I found him, she said: and now that he is mine I will never leave him, never let him go (Cant. 3:4).  Jacob (as St. Bernard remarks), when he held God in a firm grip, was willing to let him go as long as he received a blessing (Gen. 32:26); but the Sulamite will not let him go for all the blessings he has to give.  It was not God’s blessings she wanted, but God himself from whom all blessings come.

 

So it was with our Lord’s glorious Mother beside the cross …

 

“What are you seeking, Mother of life,” they might have asked her, “on that hill of Calvary, the place of death?”

 

“Mt son,” she would have answered, “My life’s life, that is whom I am seeking.”

 

“But why are you looking for him?”

 

“So as to be near him.”

 

“But death’s noose is about him now; the grave has caught him in its toils” (cf. Ps. 17:5; 114:3).

 

“Oh, but it is not happiness that I am looking for; he himself is all I seek.  The love of my heart has me seeking every where for the Child of my love, my dearly loved Son.”

 

What it comes to, you see, is this: such union breeds in the soul one only aim – to be with its beloved.

 

However, when union between the soul and God is exceptionally close and intimate, it is called inhesion, or adhesion, by the theologians.  The reason is that such union holds the soul captive, clinging, pressed and fastened to his divine majesty in such a way that it can scarcely disengage or free itself.

 

Look, for a moment, at that man over there – his attention caught and held by the charm of some haunting melody, or (to turn from the sublime to the ridiculous) by a trifling game of cards.  Try to get him away; you cannot.  No matter what demands his attention at home, he will not be torn away, even food and drink forgotten.

 

What, then, of the soul in love with God?  Heaven knows, it should find itself held in a much stronger grip – united as it is to the infinite loving kindness of God – when it finds itself captive, enamoured of perfections beyond compare!  So it was with that chosen instrument of God (Acts 9:15), who exclaimed: With Christ I am fastened to the cross, so that I may live to God (Gal. 2:19).  He was persuaded too that nothing, not even death, would separate him from his Master (Rom. 8:38-39).

 

Think, if you will, of a mother suckling her child.  If you try to detach the babe to put it in its cradle, since it is time for its sleep, it will struggle and strain with all its might to remain at its mother’s breast.  If you force it to let go with one hand, it will grasp her with the other; if you detach it completely, it will burst into tears.  It will go on crying for its mother until, by dint of rocking, it is sent to sleep.

 

Similarly, the soul that has reached the stage of union where it is captive, clinging to the divine goodness, can scarcely be detached from it – except at the cost of brute force and bitter anguish.  It is impossible to make the soul let go: if you distract the imagination, it will still hold fast with the intellect; if you turn the mind away, it will continue to cling with the will.  Even if you make the will give way, by some violent distraction, the soul will keep on turning back all the time to God.  it cannot be completely disengaged from him; as far as it can, it re-forges the links binding it to God by frequently stealthily coming back to him.  All the time it is experiencing St. Paul’s dilemma (cf. Phil. 1:23), for it is driven by two desires: to be relieved of all external activity, so as to remain inwardly with Christ; to go off, all the same, to the activity obedience imposes – an activity which that very union with Christ teaches it to be essential.

 

Now, as the Saintly Mother Teresa says so well[1], when union has reached such perfection as to hold us captive, clinging to our Saviour, it is identical with rapture, suspension of the faculties, elevation of soul. Only, it is called union, or suspension, or elevation, when it is short of duration; but ecstasy, or rapture, when it lasts for a long time.  The plain fact is that the soul is so closely, so tightly bound to God, it cannot easily be separated from him; actually it has gone out of itself into God.

 

To avoid any ambiguity, however, I would have you know that it is charity which binds us, that charity is the bond which makes us perfect (Col. 3:14); and the more charity a man has, the closer is his union and intimacy with God.  Now I am not referring here to that habitual state of union we may experience sleeping or waking; I am speaking of the active union which comes from love and charity in action.

 

Pretend that St. Paul, St. Denis, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Catherine of Genoa are alive today; that they are sleeping, worn out by all the work they have done out of love for God.  At the same time picture some good soul – not so saintly, however – enjoying the prayer of union.  Tell me, Theotimus, who is more united, closer to, more captivated by God – those great saints in their sleep, or that person at prayer.  The saints, of course; you can be sure of that.  Their charity is greater; their affections, though to some extent dormant, are so concentrated, so caught up in their Master, it is impossible to tear them away from him.

 

But if it puzzles you how anyone in the prayer of union, in ecstasy almost, is not so closely united to God as those who are asleep, however saintly they may be, remember this … The individual at prayer experiences a union which is more active, but the sleeping saints know a deeper actual union.  The saints already enjoyed union; they are not striving after it, since they are asleep.  But the soul at prayer is clearly striving after union, being actually engaged in that activity.

 

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[1]  Life, chapters, 18, 20.

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