Dear Father Angelo,

I mean to demonstrate that the Word of God gives life by showing that acting in accordance with it releases certain substances that contribute to human well-being and happiness. Since I was a child, I have been drawn to philosophical questions and feel that religion is perhaps experiencing a moment of crisis, overshadowed by the cold reasoning of science. I wonder if hypothesizing a connection between the two by directing thoughts as described deviates from God’s plans and, indeed, unwittingly contradicts them.

I kindly ask you to clarify this, and I thank you again.

Priest’s answer

Dear friend,

1. Despite your good wishes, your attempt cannot succeed because they are two different levels. They are not irreconcilable, but they are different.

Grace, in fact, is a reality of the spiritual, indeed, supernatural, order. It cannot be quantified in any way.

Whereas what you call substances that contribute to human well-being and happiness are of the sensible and natural order, which can be emitted in any other natural state of contentment.

2. Secondly, the state of grace can sometimes be accompanied by the absence of any contentment.

These are the so-called dark nights of the senses and the spirit, which St. John of the Cross spoke of extensively and which many saints experienced for many years.

3. It is incorrect to equate the degree of spiritual consolation with holiness.

This is the risk run by many new converts who find enthusiasm and fervor in prayer and identify it with the holiness of life.

Of course, God ordinarily draws them to himself with bonds of gentleness, as we read in the prophet Hosea: “I drew them with human cords, with bands of love; I fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks; Yet, though I stooped to feed my child, they did not know that I was their healer” (Hos 11:4).

Holiness of life, on the other hand, consists in the practice of virtues, beginning with humility, which constantly reminds us that we are poor sinners.

4. Those who confuse spiritual consolation with holiness try to organize beautiful services, complete with music and singing that touch the heart.

These are all beautiful and even necessary things.

But to think of being a saint simply because one enjoyed a particular service is a great illusion.

5. A true journey of spiritual life begins when we commit ourselves to stripping off the old self with its evil inclinations and putting on the new, as St. Paul reminds us in Colossians 3:9-10.

In us, the old self is the nature tainted by Adam’s sin, with the countless defects that have accumulated and left it inclined to evil and sometimes subjugated by evil inclinations to the point of feeling incapable of fulfilling the natural law itself.

The new self is the nature regenerated, rectified, and revived by the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Spiritual progress consists in achieving that purity of heart and that docility to the promptings of the Holy Spirit that increasingly conforms us to the Lord’s sentiments.

6. St. John of the Cross describes this path of purification well when he says: “

It must be known, then, that the soul, after it has been definitely converted to the service of God, is, as a rule, spiritually nurtured and caressed by God, even as is the tender child by its loving mother, who warms it with the heat of her bosom and nurtures it with sweet milk and soft and pleasant food, and carries it and caresses it in her arms; but, as the child grows bigger, the mother gradually ceases caressing it, and, hiding her tender love, puts bitter aloes upon her sweet breast, sets down the child from her arms and makes it walk upon its feet, so that it may lose the habits of a child and betake itself to more important and substantial occupations. The loving mother is like the grace of God, for, as soon as the soul is regenerated by its new warmth and fervour for the service of God, He treats it in the same way; He makes it to find spiritual milk, sweet and delectable, in all the things of God, without any labour of its own, and also  

great pleasure in spiritual exercises, for here God is giving to it the breast of His tender love, even as to a tender child (cf. 1 Peter 2:2-3). 

Therefore, such a soul finds its delight in spending long periods—perchance whole nights—in prayer; penances are its pleasures; fasts its joys; and its consolations are to make use of the sacraments and to occupy itself in Divine things.

In the which things spiritual persons (though taking part in them with great efficacy and persistence and using and treating them with great care) often find themselves, spiritually speaking, very weak and imperfect. For since they are moved to these things and to these spiritual exercises by the consolation and pleasure that they find in them, and since, too, they have not been prepared for them by the practice of earnest striving in the virtues, they have many faults and imperfections with respect to these spiritual actions of theirs; for, after all, any man’s actions correspond to the habit of perfection attained by him” (Dark Night, I, 1-3).

7. In conclusion, there can be progress, and great progress, in spiritual life even in very bitter situations for the soul and body.

Your desire is undoubtedly beautiful, but unattainable.

Souls are always won for Christ through the cross!

I bless you and remember you in prayer,

Father Angelo

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