Tristan Silva II’s Reviews > The Three Ages Of The Interior Life: Prelude of Eternal Life > Status Update

“We do not all climb the same slope toward the summit of perfection.” (314). “We do not have to copy in more or less servile manner another’s qualities, or enter a uniform mold that is the same for all. There is a great variety of human personalities, just as no two leaves or flowers are perfectly similar. [A] person’s temperament … must be transformed while keeping whatever is good in it.” (320).

This most recent bit goes through scripture and the earliest Church fathers to demonstrate that all maintain the 3 degrees of perfection: purgation, illumination, and union. One of the hidden gems of these books is being able to engage ancient writings and saints that I didn’t know would exist or would ever find on my own. On my own, I’d never find “Didymus the Blind” — but he’s got useful stuff to say!

“Would that I could persuade spiritual persons that the way of God consist[s] not in the multiplicity of meditations, ways of devotion or sweetness, . . . but in one necessary thing only, in knowing how to deny themselves in earnest, inwardly and outwardly, giving themselves up to suffer for Christ’s sake, and annihilating themselves utterly.” (p. 177) (quoting St John of the Cross).

Splendid

“A convert will tell you: ‘I read, reasoned, wished, and I did not arrive. Then one day, I don’t know how, on the street corner or at my fireside, I don’t know, but I was no longer the same; I believed.’” (p 55). I can confirm, a convert will say something like that.

Not going to lie, I was a bit worried about diving into this straight after two other books from Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange. I am not regretting this in the slightest; it is a page turner and absolutely wonderful. “There are those who seem to think it is sufficient to be saved and that it is not necessary to be a saint.” (p. 4). Banger.