Salesian Literature

Chapter 4  :  Rapture – the first type

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Ecstasy is given the name of rapture, since it is a state in which God attracts us and lifts us up to him.  Rapture is called ecstasy, because it takes us out of ourselves, holds us above and beyond self, to make us one with God.

 

Wonderfully gentle, charming, delightful as God’s attractions are, his goodness and beauty exert such a powerful influence on the soul’s attention and concentration that it would seem we are not merely uplifted, but transported, swept away. On the other hand, wholehearted assent and fervent impulse speed the soul in the wake of God’s attractions, so that it seems as though it not only rises and ascends, but throws itself, soars out of itself into the very godhead.

 

It is exactly the same with the base ecstasy, or shameful rapture, which the soul experiences when the allurement of animal pleasures tears it away from its natural spiritual dignity, and degrades it.  In so far as the soul deliberately runs after that wretched sensual pleasure, and rushes out of itself – out of its spiritual state, that is – it is said to be in sensual ecstasy; but in so far as the sensual enticements, attractions, exert a powerful influence, sweep it off its feet – so to speak – to a lower state, it is said to be transported, carried out of itself.  Animal gratification deprives it so violently of the use of reason, of intelligence, that – as one of the greatest philosophers[1] remarks – a person in that state is like a man in an epileptic fit; he has completely lost his wits.

 

When it comes to spiritual ecstasies, however, they are of three kinds: ecstasy of intellect, ecstasy of will, ecstasy of activity.  The first is towards enlightenment, the second towards fervour, the third towards good works; the first is caused by wonderment, the second by devotion, the third by exercise.

 

Wonderment is the result of our meeting with a new truth that we neither knew nor expected to know.  If this new truth also contains beauty and goodness, then the wonderment to which it gives rise is delightful in the extreme.  So, when God deigns to endow our minds with a special enlightenment through which they reach unusual heights in the contemplation of his mysteries, then they grow in wonderment as they discern more beauty there than they had ever imagined.

 

Philosophy and science are the result of wonderment; and so, in exactly the same way, are contemplation and mystical theology.  Since wonderment, if it is extreme, lifts us out of ourselves by eager attentiveness and concentration of mind upon heavenly things, it cannot but result in ecstasy.

 

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[1]  Hippocrates

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