Bl. John Ruusbroec

"...the unity of our spirit has two conditions: it is essential, and it is active. You must know that the spirit, according to its essence, receives the coming of Christ in the nakedness of its nature, without means and without interruption. For the being and the life which we are in God, in our Eternal Image, and which we have within ourselves according to our essence, this is without means and indivisible. And this is why the spirit, in its inmost and highest part, that is in its naked nature, receives without interruption the impress of its Eternal Archetype, and the Divine Brightness; and is an eternal dwelling-place of God in which God dwells as an eternal Presence, and which He visits perpetually, with new comings and with new instreamings of the ever-renewed brightness of His eternal birth. For where He comes, there He is; and where He is, there He comes. And where He has never been, thereto He shall never come; for neither chance nor change are in Him. And everything in which He is, is in Him; for He never goes out of Himself. And this is why the spirit in its essence possesses God in the nakedness of its nature, as God does the spirit: for it lives in God and God in it. And it is able, in its highest part, to receive, without intermediary, the Brightness of God, and all that God can fulfil. And by means of the brightness of its Eternal Archetype, which shines in it essentially and personally, the spirit plunges itself and loses itself, as regards the highest part of its life, in the Divine Being, and there abidingly possesses its eternal blessedness; and it flows forth again, through the eternal birth of the Son, together with all the other creatures, and is set in its created being by the free will of the Holy Trinity. And here it is like unto the image of the most high Trinity in Unity, in which it has been made. And, in its created being, it incessantly receives the impress of its Eternal Archetype, like a flawless mirror, in which the image remains steadfast, and in which the reflection is renewed without interruption by its ever-new reception in new light. This essential union of our spirit with God does not exist in itself, but it dwells in God, and it flows forth from God, and it depends upon God, and it returns to God as to its Eternal Origin. And in this wise it has never been, nor ever shall be, separated from God; for this union is within us by our naked nature, and, were this nature to be separated from God, it would fall into pure nothingness. And this union is above time and space, and is always and incessantly active according to the way of God. But our nature, forasmuch as it is indeed like unto God but in itself is creature, receives the impress of its Eternal Image passively. This is that nobleness which we possess by nature in the essential unity of our spirit, where it is united with God according to nature. This neither makes us holy nor blessed, for all men, whether good or evil, possess it within themselves; but it is certainly the first cause of all holiness and all blessedness. This is the meeting and the union between God and our spirit in the nakedness of our nature."

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Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P.

"...charity has a special need for purgation because of the existence of a counterfeit charity compounded of culpable indulgence and weakness or humanitarian sentimentality. It seeks the sanction of true charity, and by its contact, often sullies it. The chief conflict of our day is not between what is good and what is evidently and cynically malicious, but between true and false charity. What was said of false Christs in the Gospel could apply to this so-called charity: "For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets." They are more dangerous when covert than when openly known as real enemies of the Church.

Optimi corruptio pessima. The worse kind of corruption is that which attacks the best in us, the highest of the theological virtues. If there is nothing in the world better than true charity, there is nothing worse than false, for the more an apparent good resembles some real and great good the more it attracts and imperils us.

If foolishness and more or less conscious cowardice leads those who ought to represent true charity to give occasional approval to the false, incalculable evil may result. Persecutors accomplish much less for they fight in the open, and we are clearly bound to oppose them or, if need be, to give our Lord the testimony of our blood in martyrdom. More could be said, but this is not the place for it. Yet a simple glance at the subject can give us a deeper appreciation of the necessity for purifying charity to free it of all dross, of all that seemingly resembles it but really forms only a silly or perverse caricature of virtue.

To remind ourselves how much more we need the purifying cross than most of us think, we have only to notice how much that is human insinuates itself into works for God. When the Lord desires to make one of His servants a saint, the divine will may be terrible on poor human nature. Years of suffering come, when the soul must carry the cross daily; but after it has passed through the time of trial, it rejoices because of what it has been through, understanding at the last something of the necessity of the cross for Christian life. Without the cross no Christian can become spiritual and really live the divine life, so mercifully accorded to us."

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Therapy of Spiritual Illness

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Orthodox Psychotherapy

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The Science of Spiritual Medicine

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St. Thomas Aquinas

"...intellect and will: these are not acts of any parts of the body."

"...in the brain... animal forces culminate..."

"...four interior powers of the sensitive [soul] - namely, the common sense, the imagination, and the estimative and memorative powers."

"All things are said to be seen in God and all things are judged in Him, because by the participation of His light, we know and judge all things; for the light of natural reason itself is a participation of the divine light..."

"The meritorious knowledge and love of God can be in us only by grace."

"...understanding is an intellectual principle higher than our intellect - namely, God..."

"...reason... whereby it apprehends the truth about something. This act is not in our power: because it happens in virtue of a natural or supernatural light."

"...will is a power of the rational soul, which is caused by God..."

"...passion is properly to be found where there is corporeal transmutation. This corporeal transmutation is found in the act of the sensitive appetite, and is not only spiritual, as in the sensitive apprehension, but also natural. Now there is no need for corporeal transmutation in the act of the intellectual appetite: because this appetite is not exercised by means of a corporeal organ."

"Virtue... establishes the mean between passions."

"The intellect is above... time..."

"...the soul moves the body..."

"...the soul by its very essence is an act."

"...God alone is pure act..."

"...in God alone His action of understanding is His very Being. Wherefore in God alone is His Intellect His essence: while in other intellectual creatures, the intellect is power."

"...the Word of God is born of God by the knowledge of Himself; and Love proceeds from God according as He loves Himself."

"...the intellect... is the form of the human body."

"...the soul is the primary principle of our nourishment, sensation, and local movement; and likewise of our understanding."

"...the soul in its essence is the form of the body, and the faculties, too, are all rooted in the essence of the soul."

"...powers that are principles of the soul's operations, are united in the essence of the soul."

"...the corporeal creature is governed by the angels."

"...angels propose the intelligible truth to men under the similitudes of sensible things... the human intellect... is strengthened by the action of the angelic intellect."

"Intelligence arises from memory..."

"...the higher part of the reason is the province of wisdom, while the lower part is the domain of knowledge... [St. Augustine] ...directs human acts according to Divine rules."

"...by like acts habits are formed..." [Aristotle]

"...the intellect knows itself not by its essence, but by its act."

"...habits, like the powers, are known by their acts."

"...the first thing understood of the intellect is its own act of understanding."

"...the human intellect, which neither is its own act of understanding, nor is its own essence the first object of its act of understanding, for this object is the nature of a material thing... that which is first known by the human intellect is an object of this kind, and that which is known secondarily is the act by which that object is known; and through the act the intellect itself is known, the perfection of which is this act of understanding."

"...the intellect in act is the object actually understood." (Matter, potency; Form, act)

"The necessity of prayer is based on the necessity of actual grace." [Adolphe Tanquerey]

"The will is the name of the rational appetite; and consequently it cannot be in things devoid of reason."

"...the intellectual light itself which is in us, is nothing else than a participated likeness of  the uncreated light in which are contained the eternal types."

"The knowledge which we have by natural reason contains two things: images derived from the sensible objects; and the natural intelligible light, enabling us to abstract from them intelligible conceptions."

"Our intellect both abstracts the intelligible species from the phantasms, inasmuch as it considers the natures of things in universal, and, nevertheless, understands these natures in the phantasms since it cannot understand even the things of which it abstracts the species, without turning to the phantasms..."

"...the image of the Trinity is to be found in the acts of the soul, that is, inasmuch as from the knowledge which we possess, by actual thought we form an internal word; and thence break forth into love. But, since the principles of acts are the habits and powers, and everything exists virtually in its principle, therefore, secondarily and consequently, the image of the Trinity may be considered as existing in the powers, and still more in the habits, forasmuch as the acts virtually exist therein."

"...human knowledge is assisted by the revelation of grace. For the intellect's natural light is strengthened by the infusion of gratuitous light; and sometimes also the images in the human imagination are divinely formed."

"...the love of God is better than the knowledge of God; but, on the contrary, the knowledge of corporeal things is better than the love thereof."

"...the intellect understands that the will wills, and the will wills the intellect to understand."

"...man's natural light, which is what makes him intellectual, is from God."

"...God is the author of the intellect power, and... he can be seen by the intellect."

"God infuses into man, over and above the natural faculty of reason, the light of grace whereby he is internally perfected for the exercise of virtue... man's mind is elevated by this light to the knowledge of truths surpassing reason... man's affective power is raised by this light above all created things to the love of God..."

"...the end of the spiritual life is that man be united to God, and this union is effected by charity..."

"Charity is not any kind of love of God, but that love of God, by which He is loved as the object of bliss, to which object we are directed by faith and hope."

"...charity, unlike faith and hope, is inseparable from the state of grace and from the indwelling of the Blessed Trinity in us..." [Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange]

"...the primal union of man with God is by faith, hope and charity..."

"...whoever has charity has all the gifts of the Holy Ghost..."

"...God's act of understanding, which is His being, is measured by eternity..."

"Just as God's understanding is His existence, so likewise is His love."

"...when we pray we ought principally to ask to be united to God..."

"We need to pray to God, not in order to make known to Him our needs or desires but that we ourselves may be reminded of the necessity of having recourse to God's help in these matters."

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St. Catherine of Siena

"...memory in order to receive Your benefits, by which he participates in the power of the Eternal Father; and intellect that he might know, seeing Your goodness, and so might participate in the wisdom of Your only-begotten Son; and will, that he might love that which his intellect has seen and known of Your truth, thus participating in the clemency of Your Holy Spirit."

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