I Want to See God: A Practical Synthesis of Carmelite Spirituality

by P. Marie-Eugene

Following in the footsteps of the Masters of Carmel, Father Marie-Eugene has set forth this synthesis of the rich doctrinal teachings of the Carmelites with the sureness born of a long and deep contemplative experience, thus offering an ever vital doctrine to men and women of our times. By bringing to light the divine dynamics of baptismal grace, Father Marie-Eugene opens up the paths of contemplation and holiness to all, in the midst of ordinary life. He points out the way of love, the fullness of Christian life. This book and its companion work, I Am a Daughter of the Church, illustrate the untiring search for God through time and the need for reliable spiritual Masters.

Genres: Catholic, Theology, Spirituality, Religion, Christian, Prayer, History

552 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[booklady]

9/10/2026: I will post updates to the chapters of THE FIRST STAGES in reverse order as I complete them and put them in correct order when I finish the entire book. The rest of my personal notes are below.

7/10/2026: Have finally reached THE FIRST STAGES, p. 151, ‘Entrance to the Mansion’. Up till now have been reading PERSPECTIVES, which I did with my community. Sadly, I will have to do the next bit on my own as I am taking a year’s family leave, but hopefully I will be able to watch classes on video.

9/25/2026
CHAPTER 5 - Spiritual Reading: in progress...

CHAPTER 4 - The Prayer of Recollection:
A. Description: by effort of will soul collects together all faculties, recollects all outward senses (closed eyes), with recognition that all worldly things are toys, enters into self to be with God; constant striving for intimacy with God
B. How to attain: best method, to fix one’s thoughts on Master Who is present; each one will then exercise strategies most helpful in keeping this intimate converse with God; soul must put forth energetic effort in using prayer methods described in previous chapter to extend over entire day and penetrate whole of life
C. Excellence: contact is living one; soul goes to Christ with whole being, supernatural and human, all are hungering for divine and God; brings us to our proper place; quieting of faculties; opens horizons far beyond first stages of prayer

CHAPTER 3 - Prayer in its First Stages:
- To turn towards God is already to pray; but this filial movement must be: 1) regulated; 2) enlightened and 3) sustained.
- A. Vocal Prayer:
-- Pater, perfect prayer, Church puts on lips of priest at most solemn moment of Holy Sacrifice.
-- Exterior, perfectly human, par excellence the prayer of the multitudes, simple, profound, expresses convictions of all, intimate feelings of each, carries and unites souls in fervent and sublime atmosphere
-- Can become a way to perfect Contemplation
- B. Liturgical Prayer:
-- Vocal prayer has special value here; par excellence act of religion; borrows words of Holy Spirit inspired texts from Sacred Scripture
-- Official prayer of Church, prayer of priesthood of Christ in Church, in which we share through Baptism
-- Must be vivified--like every other vocal prayer--by interior prayer
- C. Meditated Reading:
-- Mental prayer is goal; some need to learn through reading
-- Desirable book suggests and provokes reflection, arouses affections, awakens soul and keeps in presence of God
- D. Meditation:
-- When faculties strengthened and nourished to do without support, soul can enter mental prayer through meditation
-- Consists of making reflections/considerations on subject chosen in advance to arrive at fruitful conviction/resolution
-- Teresa's teaching in Interior Castle: '...if you would progress a long way on this road and ascend to the Mansions of your desire, the important thing is not to think much, but to love much,'

CHAPTER 2 - At the Point of Departure:
- Teresian spirituality has no other end than to organize the soul to fly to God.
- Any growing detachment for exterior things is one of the characteristic signs of progress being made by the soul in the second Mansions.
- The spiritual person in the world will need a rule of life, a plan that is stable, yet flexible, which will fix precisely the obligations of his/her state and time for prayerful converse with God.
- Beginners engage in mental prayer before acquiring virtues; the contemplative must practice virtue to progress in contemplation.
- Teresa emphasizes three dispositions necessary for beginners:
-- A Resolute Will, Warrior Spirit; Courage above all things. “There will be suffering! It is not in these early Mansions … that it rains manna.” There is much good counsel here on the types of trials to anticipate, the importance of perseverance, etc.
-- Discretion and Liberty of Spirit. Violence in applying the ‘warrior spirit’ can destroy all the good. All must be done gently, with love, in keeping with one’s own abilities.
-- Great Desires: Teresa was known for her magnanimity, and it is something she valued above much else in her nuns and friars. ‘Great desires are the mark of great souls.’ This goes well with Humility as both rest on faith in the all-powerful mercy of God.

CHAPTER 1 - The First Mansions:
- Only those in a state of grace can enter the castle. Most souls have good intentions, but are ‘anemic’, i.e., absorbed in the affairs of the world.
- Attached/preoccupied with worldly concerns, it is difficult for the Christian life to grow in such souls. These souls rarely turn to God, Who although present in the soul is so hidden and cannot be seen or felt as the soul remains in such darkness.
- The devil, however, can wander freely in the first Mansions luring weak souls into serious sin.
- Mortal Sin haunts Teresa and she does all she can in her writings to make us aware of its dangers to our soul. A soul in mortal sin is literally dead and ‘none of the good works it may do will be of any avail to win it glory. More eloquently than all the speeches and all visions, the drama of Gethsemane discloses the destructive power of sin’. This is why we must meditate on the Passion of Christ.
- Finally, we are given Teresa’s own vision of Hell which she described in The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself. This vision arouses immense pity in the heart of Teresa and probably most who read it. p.165


PERSONAL NOTES & OBSERVATIONS:

10/9/2026: My precious Carmelite sister, Betty, partner throughout our six years of formation, Clothing, First and Definitive Promises (2021), who made her Marian Consecration with me on the Solemnity of the Assumption in 2013 was very sick this summer and in and out of hospital, mostly in. She finally died peacefully on the 26th of August. [Redacted ... ] I lost my entire kindle library of mostly spiritual books, many of which were the Carmelite books from formation.

Today in Adoration I was reading, I Want to See God, and on page 220, I came across these words of St. Teresa of Avila from The Life of Saint Teresa of Ávila by Herself, where she was complaining to the Lord,

‘When a great many books written in Spanish were taken from us, and we were forbidden to read them, I was very sorry, for the reading of some of them gave me pleasure and I could no longer continue this as I had them only in Latin. Then the Lord said to me: "Be not distressed, for I will give thee a living book.”

While I am hardly bereft of books as Teresa was – indeed I have this marvelous book about her not to mention all the many solid hold-in-your-hand books written by her at my fingertips. Even so, these words comforted me greatly when I read them and they still do now. How much greater to have the Living Word! For some time, I have felt that my books often get in the way of my time with Him. Give me that Living Book, Jesus, Yourself, the Word made Flesh, ever so much better than all the books I could ever buy anywhere.

Pray for me, Betty as I am praying for you.

1/27/2026: In Chapter 3, Knowledge of Self, Marie-Eugene says much the same that Fr. Basil W. Maturin wrote in his book, Christian Self-Mastery: How to Govern Your Thoughts, Discipline Your Will, and Achieve Balance in Your Spiritual Life which I just finished. When I run across the same exact guidance from spiritual authorities who come from diverse backgrounds, countries, timeframes, orders, etc. I KNOW I am on to something crucial. Knowing yourself, your weaknesses, primary sins, and also your strengths must be a lifelong effort, and it is primarily achieved through comparison of self to Jesus, not to any other fallible human being(s).

1/1/2026: Reading this in Definitive Formation over the next two years.


PRIOR REVIEWS:

February 16, 2025: According to my record here, this is my third read through and in spite of making careful notes, highlights and allowing time for prayerful pondering and meditation, I still don’t feel I have gone very deep with this book. One would need to be well-versed with Teresa’s Interior Castle and the repertoire of John of the Cross to fully appreciate this. I have read Interior Castle twice but not recently and as for St. John, all I can say is I finally got through The Ascent of Mount Carmel after three attempts but am far from feeling comfortable with it. However, since making my First Promise as a Secular Carmelite, I’ll begin studying him now in-depth and hopefully that will change.

Had thought I would go on to the P. Marie-Eugène’s sequel, I Am a Daughter of the Church, but instead I turn to some books to assist me with understanding John of the Cross. Will come back to this. Highly recommended to all Carmelites and anyone truly serious about the spiritual life and willing to work.


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January 5, 2018: Slowly, ever so slowly, I read a few pages of this, set it down and then come back to it a week (or more) later. It is not hard to pick up again. In fact, it is easier that way. To read too much in too short a time makes it too difficult to absorb, like too much rainfall in a small area. The ground cannot absorb it and the water rolls away.


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November 9, 2017: ‘When the soul journeys in its vestment of faith, the devil can neither see it nor succeed in harming it, since it is well protected by faith—more so than by all the other virtues—against the devil, who is at once the strongest and the most cunning of enemies.’ St. John of the Cross Faith lifts the soul above the domain of the senses, over which the devil can exercise power, and introduces it into the supernatural world, into which he cannot enter. p.118


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August 25, 2017: I have already read this ... but it was many years ago and long before I was a Secular Carmelite. It was one of the most challenging books (then) I had ever read and yet, I remember thinking it yielded the most reward for the effort. Looking forward to returning to it now and then going on the sequel which I have not read, I Am a Daughter of the Church.

[Paul Hoehn]

I wasn't sure whether I would enjoy or even make it through this dense volume when I began (don't pay attention to my dates read on here). The tone felt too scholastic, the viewpoint too close to French ultramontanism. I didn't feel drawn to the project of practically synthesizing Carmelite spirituality, which feels to me uniquely spontaneous and resistant to systematization. But I am always interested in learning more about the Carmelite tradition, which I find so inspiring. At first, I found the quotations from St. Teresa of Avila to be so much livelier than P. Marie-Eugène's prose. But then the volume began to become more of a dialogue between two complementary voices. More characters were introduced: St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, St. Elizabeth of the Trinity; other, less familiar Carmelite thinkers like the scholastics of Salamanca; and other non-Carmelites like St. Thomas Aquinas and some special favorites of mine like St. Angela of Foligno and St. Gertrude of Helfta. And so, even as the text proceeds through a series of the stultifying format of numbered sections and subsections, I Want to See God ends up remarkably lively, not to mention informative and inspirational. My mind was even truly blown a few times (as in the final section concerning faith). I wouldn't recommend this as a first foray into Carmelite spirituality, synthetic though it may be, unless you are coming from a more scholastic/theological background. For that I would recommend either Peter Slattery's Springs of Carmel for a survey or St. Thérèse's Story of a Soul for a truly incredible "case study." But if you are looking to deepen your understanding of Carmelite spirituality, to synthesize impressions from various experiences and sources, or even to ground your prayer life in the rich Carmelite tradition, this volume is well worth the read. After 550 pages, I am genuinely excited to start the next volume!

[Jack]

I regularly reference this book and it has significantly helped my understanding of the Carmelite Saints. My personal highlights are the sections on:

-God's presence in our souls
-Self knowledge
-The Good Jesus
-Teresian Asceticism
-Gift of Self
-Humility
-Interior Silence

[C.]

Wonderful synthesis of Carmelite spirituality ~ it touches on everything that I love about the Carmelite way. Very easy read, though the book is somewhat lengthy.

[Maria]

This is a very profound book. It goes into depth on the mystery of God's presence in us. One will never want to sin after reading this book! This grace of His presence is too great!

[Fr. Nicholas Blackwell, O. Carm.]

A great resource book to have. There are certain chapters particularly that on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which would be very helpful to have and make regular reference to and to pray with in one’s life. The author at times will go on diatribes with extensive examples to try to make his point. Also, the last quarter of the book is very heavily dependent on St. John of the cross way more than Saint Teresa. In this section, you could tell he’s focusing moron the “spirituality of the reform” then on Teresa Avila herself.

[Clare Asper]

Pre-read note: Our local small class with my oblate master is starting this book, having just finished "Jesus of Nazareth" by Pope Benedict XVI. Not a Benedictine work, and I was a little surprised to see it win out over Bl. Columba Marmion in the voting, but there is a deep devotion to many of the Carmelite saints at the abbey. St. Elisabeth of the Trinity is my own oblate patron, so I'm looking forward to learning more about the spirituality that shaped her.

[Helen Mary]

I think this thing took me two whole years to finish. But time well spent. This is probably the only theology-centric book that I'll ever read in my lifetime, especially as it's the most (if not the only) comprehensive tome on Carmelite spirituality and mysticism. It's impossible to consume this book in a month because each page is so meaty with insights, historical references and footnotes. It's very enriching spiritually.

[Walt]

Incredibly profound book on the Catholic faith and Carmelite spirituality. This one needs multiple reads as the first only scratches the surface.

[Cris]

This is a very practical book about the process, difficulties and hopes for a contemplative vocation. The title comes from the words of young Teresa of Avila running off to be killed by moors, but it encapsulates the calling of every human. Things that seemed to me to be unique in this book were: specific advice on spiritual warfare (hide in virtue until Mansion 6), that the soul will be purified over time before being charged with a task, and that prayer fruitful in understanding must eventually give way to simply spending time with him. Helpful: Rest in the other works of mercy. Challenging: the final loss of all realizations and images as the soul gets caught up in simple contemplation.