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

Volume II calls me from across the room like the Green Goblin mask.

On the Eucharist: “This source of graces is so lofty and so fruitful that the properties of refreshing water and the opposite qualities of burning fire may be compared to it. What is divided in material things is united in the spiritual life, and especially in the Eucharist, which contains not only abundant grace, but the very Author of grace.”

Faith “enlightens us somewhat like the night, … There is a light and shade which is extremely beautiful. That we may see the stars, the sun must hide, night must begin. Amazingly, in the obscurity of night we see to a far greater distance than in the day; we see even the distant stars, which reveal to us the immense expanse of the heavens.” (p. 361).

“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).