Initial Part of Relationship with God: Purification

This is the start of a series on the process of relationship with God which culminates in His abiding in us and/or abiding in Him or unification. These three steps are reaffirmed by many Saints and spiritual masters, and I will do my best to share that with you. However, since our imperfection implicates inconsistency and the need for time to weed out hindrances the steps are not necessarily exclusive. There are times in which, by God’s Grace, we are able to offer up our suffering well and so glimpse unification, however, if there are other hindrances, vice, attachments, etc., we are hindered in the final two steps. We thus cannot attain unification with God without being fully purified of our sins and brought into the light of Christ because some part of us clings to the darkness and not Christ.

This is a stage of Christian maturity which is immaturity. The part is filled with input-output thinking, obligation, and not much love on our part. At this stage, God pursues the soul (as always), and the soul has allowed God to be heard. There is very little voluntary vulnerability at this moment in one's relationship with God. The soul is still holding to its own will, likely still desires (a) sin, and is unmotivated toward God in a way that does not involve the soul's need. God is understood to be a master and the soul a servant, however, this perspective is born of the veil of sin through which the view of God's true nature is obstructed. Thus, the sinner is caught between the lures of the enemy, the discovered beauty of life with God, and a reawakening of conscience. We inherently long for purification, the enemy tries to captivate us with empty promises/place obstacles on our path home, and God draws us in through desolation and consolation.

Peter meets Jesus and what we read that happens is a realization of Who God is, what He is like, and then what we have done to not deserve it. Spiritual writers speak of this stage as the kissing of the feet as a few women of the Bible are recorded doing for Jesus. God heals us where we are ready to be healed. This response comes from the realization of the need for purification. Penance then is a dramatic and difficult offering to God that should demonstrate the interior disposition of the heart that yearns to be free of sin and one with God. It is the romance to the love of God. This means that it is not always austere, but that it demonstrates the love of God in a way that is pleasing to God. As opposed to denying the body inordinately and immodestly of food nor scourging oneself, unless of course, the direction of a spiritual advisor and peace and love is moving one’s heart towards that in a clear way. Yet, it is God who purifies not ourselves, science is in favor of periodic fasting, and it is good for us but not willful neglect of God’s temple.

The enemy baits us and restains us. As we seek the worldly "answers" to our desires, the enemy will be sure to give us everything they can to make it seem like this is what makes us happy. This is apparent in the Garden of Eden. Man was made in God's "image and likeness"(). We were made to be like Him and disposed to desire such as a result, however, the enemy tempts Eve by saying God is restraining you from being like Him(). It is thus apparent that this temptation was a wonderfully skilled attempt. The enemy uses our deepest longings and misinforms us about how we fulfill those desires. The enemy will always strive for this since the goal is destruction at all costs. Therefore, as we begin to resist and become impervious to the enemy's advances, the enemy will use anything possible to discourage, undermine, etc. those who seek freedom with God and to make complacent/content those who don't.

From the depth of our being where God resides, God moves, cautions, and guides us. As we stray from good things and toward the selfish and myopic path of sin, God gently reminds us of what is right and just. As we seek the worst of sins, God reminds us of better and helps us realize the gravity of our sin. The pain of regret and good conscience prevents us from committing the worst sins e.g. killing a sibling because they are scarcely kind, etc.(@Cain). The joy of improving somebody else's life, of recognition from great achievement, and of resting one's head after a day of exhausting sacrificial charity draw us closer to God and away from evil. What the enemy can do is real, but God is more inner than our inmost self and it is only something the enemy can affect through our own will. Nothing can remove us from God's love and care but ourselves, namely our sins. God gives us fulfillment, peace, joy, and love from within, even as the enemy seeks to change our path and tries to bring us exterior ruin. The enemy may do what he wills with the outside, but only God and ourselves have power over our interior life.

In conclusion, the struggle is necessary and worth it. If we wish not to struggle against the lure of what is not good then we regress in the spiritual life, our iniquities continue to grow and our distance from God causes us to lose peace. If we struggle God's grace will slowly begin to heal our deepest wounds and fill our deepest longings. Fear not what can happen to the body, but the soul. What is the next step for us? Do we trust in God's love or do we insist we know best? "Spiritual desolation is the greatest of all enemies in the spiritual life".[1] What voice are we listening to and giving power to?

The greatest spiritual writers cover the subject of purification at length, including Saint Ignatius of Loyola whose first seven rules of discernment are below.

FN:

1. Gallagher, Fr. Timothy. "Overcoming spiritual discouragement"

Rules of Discernment:

1. In the persons who go from mortal sin to mortal sin, the enemy is commonly used to propose to them apparent pleasures, making them imagine sensual delights and pleasures in order to hold them more and make them grow in their vices and sins. In these persons the good spirit uses the opposite method, pricking them and biting their consciences through the process of reason.
2. In the persons who are going on intensely cleansing their sins and rising from good to better in the service of God our Lord, it is the method contrary to that in the first Rule, for then it is the way of the evil spirit to bite, sadden and put obstacles, disquieting with false reasons, that one may not go on; and it is proper to the good to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations and quiet, easing, and putting away all obstacles, that one may go on in well-doing.
3. Of Spiritual Consolation. I call it consolation when some interior movement in the soul is caused, through which the soul comes to be inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord; and when it can, in consequence, love no created thing on the face of the earth in itself, but in the Creator of them all. Likewise, when it sheds tears that move to love of its Lord, whether out of sorrow for one’s sins, or for the Passion of Christ our Lord, or because of other things directly connected with His service and praise. Finally, I call consolation every increase of hope, faith, and charity, and all interior joy which calls and attracts to heavenly things and to the salvation of one’s soul, quieting it and giving it peace in its Creator and Lord.
4. Of Spiritual Desolation. I call desolation all the contrary of the third rule, such as darkness of soul, disturbance in it, movement to things low and earthly, the unquiet of different agitations and temptations, moving to want of confidence, without hope, without love, when one finds oneself all lazy, tepid, sad, and as if separated from his Creator and Lord. Because, as consolation is contrary to desolation, in the same way, the thoughts which come from consolation are contrary to the thoughts which come from desolation.
5. In time of desolation never to make a change, but to be firm and constant in the resolutions and determination in which one was the day preceding such desolation, or in the determination in which he was in the preceding consolation. Because, as in consolation it is rather the good spirit who guides and counsels us, so in desolation, it is the bad, with whose counsels we cannot take a course to decide rightly.
6. Although in desolation we ought not to change our first resolutions, it is very helpful intensely to change ourselves against the same desolation, as by insisting more on prayer, meditation, on much examination, and by giving ourselves more scope in some suitable way of doing penance.
7. Let him who is in desolation consider how the Lord has left him in trial in his natural powers, in order to resist the different agitations and temptations of the enemy; since he can with the Divine help, which always remains to him, though he does not clearly perceive it: because the Lord has taken from him his great fervor, great love, and intense grace, leaving him, however, grace enough for eternal salvation.