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Introduction – Tonight we are talking about Spiritual growth, expanding our hearts to become more like the “garden version” of ourselves, or to rediscover the intimacy that Adam and Eve enjoyed with the Lord. A closer union with the one who breathed us into being,
I wonder how many of us even believe this is possible?
I wonder if in all the years we have spent gazing heavenward rather than inward we have learnt to believe that He is above us and unreachable?
The truth is you are invited into a love story, we are all invited into a love story. Where the lover gives everything to win the heart of his beloved. In fact He lays down His life for her.
Its a familiar love story, there is the pursuing, the encounter and acceptance, a growing in intimacy leading to a commitment, a total giving of self…a Holy and sacred union.
Why we need to grow
The purpose of growth is to rediscover plan A, to shed more and more of the darkness the world clothes us in and allow God present in us to shine more brightly into a world that desperately needs to see His light.
A journey inward, as John the Baptist tells us so “that we becomes less and he becomes more”
This maybe all sounds a little “out there” and airy fairy, not in line with our day-to-day experience. But that Holy Spirit already present within us from our Baptism, is allowed to flourish and change and form us from within and the fruit of that… us and others will see externally.
Fr Marie Eugene says God fills our souls but resides there as a stranger… that this journey is to discover the soul of our souls.
To remain static leaves us in an infancy, we never get to mature spiritually into the fullness of the whole experience He has written for us. We limit the change and the growth and the light we each are called to bring into the world. We cannot stop the war in Ukraine or Gaza, but we can make the Lord more present right where we are. This is how He can use us to change the world, one soul at a time.
The well-trodden path
My friends in heaven, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and Catherine of Siena, and many others, all give us a little map, not so much of where to go ( as we aren’t the ones leading) but perhaps more of where we are and have been. Most of these grand souls accept or understand there is a pattern that is followed, that there are recognisable steps that can indicate progress, though they will look different in each person.
Our trials will be different but we will all face them.
Our Sins and failings will be different but we will all make them.
Our resilience and our faith will waver at different times, but we will all waver.
Teresa of Avila talks about the mansions, if you imagine the city of Avila, it is a walled fortress, there are homes and places to live outside it and within. The goal is to move closer and closer to the centre. She writes this is where the most precious diamond like jewel dwells.
She describes the mansions as if there are physical gates or rooms to visit, like a video game where we conquer each challenge before moving onto the next. The castle represents us, and the journey is an inward one, and the diamond at the core is an unhindered soul in full union with God.
Much of the journey inwards we aren’t even aware of, the battles being fought, the little surrenders often appear insignificant, but each is a step inward. What we may experience as external struggles or moments of clarity, are for the most part the Holy Spirit working unseen in accordance with our yes.
There’s a wisdom in this blind pilgrimaging in that we are led, it’s not us leading, as soon as we take the reins, the journey seems to scream to a holt. Maybe this sounds too much like we have no part to play, we do, we really do, but perhaps not as much as we would like to think. He is the instigator and the driver, and in the simplest terms we are called to give a yes, many yeses, but friends everything is in that freely given yes.
Do we need to know where we are? It’s not essential, but if you are serious about growing spiritually it is more than helpful to know the patterns common to the different seasons of growth. We can identify the markers of what’s normal for where we are, we can see if we are progressing, we can understand what God is trying to teach us in each season. It can also give us a heads up on the pitfalls, the common actions of the other one to pull you away and off course.
How we grow
So where to start… Most of the saints refer to three states or ways, there are different terms but generally they follow the theme of the Purgative way, The Illuminative way and the Unitive way. The purgative way is the first part of spiritual journey, Purgative meaning purging, getting rid of… there’s a clue as to what’s coming!
I feel there’s a journey that precedes it, one where we fully experience all the temptations of the world before we realise that they don’t fulfil what our core is crying out for. This is living outside Teresa’s city walls. In truth we are all being called and always being called, we are all somewhere on this journey, even the most hardened atheist has some of the Spirit in them desiring love, desiring forgiveness, desiring beauty, and acceptance, even if they give no credit to the one who placed that desire in their core and completely deny where to seek it. ………doesn’t this gives us hope for everyone? There is no one that isn’t desired by the Lord.
We are, however masters of self-delusion and I think we tend to place ourselves further along or further behind than we actually are and this is where a good spiritual director is helpful. Don’t get too caught up with it. It’s rarely a linear journey, we don’t graduate from or into the purgative way with a certificate, often we slip forward and back but the trajectory should be forward or inward! ….As long as we keep saying yes, keep showing up.
The purgative stage comes when we have responded to the call and the work of restoring us begins in earnest. This is a tough but incredible season. (If you don’t think you have had that call… then maybe this is it. An invitation to pray for it …he would have hidden that question on your heart before you arrived here to read this tonight.) This is the season where, maybe for the first time we really come face to face with Gods light, and just like the sun through my windows it shows up every stain and mark. We have to face our own darkness, our own messiness. I’m not going to lie its hard, but it gives us the beginnings of the gift of humility, we become aware of what an extraordinary gift this calling is. How undeserved it is and what real love and mercy truly looks like…we are told aren’t we? ”whilst we were still sinners, Christ died for us “ [i]
So all that grubby sin and mess comes into focus, we see who we are perhaps for the first time as we stand before who He is. The comparison can be painful.
In real life how does this look?
Maybe feelings of shame but always balanced with an understanding of his mercy.
Conscious decisions to change for better.
Deepening desire for connection with God
Zeal for all things Jesus – John of the cross speaks of collecting all the little crosses, books and rosaries and trinkets, I know I did that!
Real sorrow for the wrongs of the past
A sense of self awareness, how we act, speak behave all comes into the fore.
Whilst it can be exhausting…. There is great news is this is most often balanced with deep consolations of love, a real sense of the Lords nearness. Maybe tangible or even physical encounters, And this is so needed, it’s the thing that keeps you coming for more of even with this hard new awareness of your “creatureness”.
Frequent confession helps, there’s often a desire to hand over all that seems to be standing between you and the source of this over whelming feeling of love. In this part of my journey I would have run over hot coals to reach Him, it can be heady, overwhelming but this crazy level of exhilaration. Did He ask me to run over hot coals? Fortunately no, the journey since has taught me that I honour him more by doing what He asks rather than what I feel would be a great idea or grand gesture.
As we grow the Lord not only removes the sin but the desire for it, the taste we have for these things diminishes, we don’t want to want them. There’s a great freedom in that. And as we progress through the purgative state, the good feels start to ebb away. We feel an absence, where once He felt so close. It’s a time of confusion, we think we have offended Him, that we have been abandoned perhaps, maybe we think we have imagined the whole experience so far. The key thing to note is that we are still seeking Him, with an ache, with a passion and we become the humblest of beggars, “just come back Lord on any terms, in any way, in any place”….. we couldn’t want Him like that if He truly was absent.
So why? Why would He put us through that? If I learn to only love him for the good feels, the treats, then this is not really love at all. This is cupboard love. And you have joined the school of real love. A primary lesson in sacrificial love. Loving the giver not the gifts. Coming to love the Lord for who He is, not just how He makes you feel, Just like He loves you. This feeling of unmet desire silently deepens our prayer, almost without our realising it.
Illuminative way These are all good but hard indications we are moving into the Illuminative stage – you’ve got rid of mortal sins, the venial ones are becoming more obvious, you practice daily prayer, there’s an increasing understanding of what the Lord wants from you right now. We become more illuminated in our minds and in our hearts, what He is doing, what He is saying.
Illuminative means lit, things becomes clearer, we are slowly weaned off the good feels, and like a marriage we move out of the honeymoon period and into real day to day life.
There is a greater detachment from worldly things, the car isn’t so important, the shoes are nice but not essential, the promotion at work is a blessing rather that the thing that defines you. We are moving into the adolescence of the spiritual life.
The bigger sins are mostly avoided and confession becomes the means to gain the grace to overcome imperfections. Prayer is habitual and often there is a deeper hunger for the Eucharist. There are often significant sufferings and purifications at this stage, sicknesses, persecutions, trials that deepen our reliance on God and an understanding of our poverty, our desperate need of Him. The trials often wake us up if we are slipping into a comfortable apathy. Remember he knows you so intimately that He will only permit what you need to keep you moving. I think there is a danger here however to fall into apathy, it’s a killer and if we know, we can be watchful for the signs of it. Think of the rich young man here, “I know all the rules, I’m following all the rules. I’m doing everything right…Is this enough for heaven?” Remember this isn’t always linear, we can slip back and forth. There are traps to fall into, and pride and apathy are only a few. Things can become, Well, maybe a little comfortable, we stop putting in the same commitment…. Temptations are to settle for… “that’ll do” I want you to imagine how “that’ll do” would feel to you, if your spouse said, I go to work, I pay the bills, I take the bins out. That is enough of my duties, I’m ticking the boxes. Don’t ask me for any more commitment than that I think you would feel that there should be more…. This is the same in our relationship with God.
Maybe You pitch up every Sunday – great
You even do those holy days of obligation – fab
You get to confession now and again – good job
Meat on Fridays ? certainly not ! Wonderful
There has to be a shift… whilst these are all good and wholesome things they take on so much greater value when they are done from a deep love of God rather than out of duty and obligation. The Holy Spirit is the shifter, the stirring of the Spirit is what moves us from duty to devotion. Lets pop a little pride into the mix and it may sound a little like “I’m already there.. already done the work” maybe a little superiority creeps in, perhaps there’s a danger in thinking you’ve already made the grade. A slip into forgetting where all this perfection you have came from. Stay awake, the devil prowls like a wolf!
Keep faithful to your prayer time,
keep faithful to the sacraments,
keep showing up,
These are your yeses!
Even when it feels like no one cares or notices or it seems there is little difference made by your efforts. This is the building of integrity. Integrity means integral, necessary to make a whole complete; we are being trained to bring all of us into the journey, not just the parts that are convenient or already submissive.
This will probably be the longest part of your spiritual journey and many will get washed up on these shores and remain here or slip back. The next stage requires something else, something I’m only just beginning to understand. It requires not just the faithfulness, the love, and the humility. It requires the total submission. The grace becomes just like the leaven we are told that affects all the dough.
That thought from where I stand feels a little terrifying. I am aware of the resistance in me, and yet I don’t know how to overcome it, I actually know I can’t overcome it, that has to be Gods work in me… I am encouraged though, that the desire to, is very much there.
Way back I remember dramatically offering to God in prayer that I would willingly die for Him, His reply was what he actually required me to do was live for Him, that this was a much more noble call. And yes, I see now that it is, it requires persistence, patience, trust, every one of His given charisms and gifts. In many ways this is a harder route, dying a million times, every day in small ways over the one big dramatic stand.
So to progress we need to look at how those overriding fears might hold us back. Might resist us giving that yes, What if He….
Wants me to suffer?
Wants me to sell my house and give everything to the poor?
To do crazy stuff ?
Wants me to give Him everything… Part of the lesson in letting go of the reins is to accept we have these fears and hand them over, agree to the Lord overcoming them in us, invite Him to overcome them, beg if you have to, we are not beneath that, beg Him overcome them however He sees fit.
Think for a moment about what that would look like, It’s with your fingers on the edge of the ripped temple veil with the grace, will and courage ready to walk beyond it.
The Unitive way – spiritual adulthood Teresa’s seventh Mansion ! It is as it says on the tin – united our will and His will become one, there is no longer the battle to submit, the resistance is melted away in the fire of His love. I’m told we suffer happily, another reminder of how far I’ve still to go! It presents externally and internally ( as we are united even in ourselves) as a deep love for God and for others. The virtues are supernatural in their presence in us, supernatural humility, supernatural generosity, the instinct and impulses are all for the good and according to Gods will. The battle has been won in your soul.. hallelujah
When we cross through I imagine we will know like the angels knew. No doubts, nothing held back, full knowledge of His heart and His place. The knowledge of good and evil, stolen before its time in Eden now given its rightful place and time in our souls.
I imagine the decisions we make here would almost be eternal. To turn away having reached here I think would be of the gravest consequence. But I do trust the Lord won’t take us there until that is the safest space for you. It may seem saved for those special souls, but that said I think it is the intended destination for each one of us. To reach that diamond core where He is waiting within.
I/We like that wriggle room too much. We like to hold onto that measure of control, no matter how small that says “but if I’m all in, I will lose my choices, my freedom, my certainty, maybe even myself ” and that my friend is actually the goal, the prize.
This stage is where our will and Gods are in total communion, we have become so re- formed into His likeness that there is no conflict anymore. I think it’s a journey to even desire this and desire this with the full understanding of what it will cost to get there but also the rewards that it will bring. As a theory we can know this union, this total submission is where the deepest joy and peace will be found, but the journey to get there is a series of a thousand times a thousand internal steps, maybe even more small yesses, and every one of them will be necessary before we are ready. I pray that we all reach these heights or depths! I pray that each of us here lets the Lord lead us to the place where we dispel darkness wherever we go, as we will be so full of Him, the one who casts no shadow.
Would you like a simpler measure?… ask yourself honestly Do I love Jesus more than I did six months ago? Do I know Him more than I did six months ago? If you can answer yes, then the Holy Spirit is working in you…rejoice and keep going. If the answer is no, then you know just what to pray for this evening. Praise be Jesus Christ.
See the Litany of trust …
Phillipians 1: 6 be confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
[i] Romans 5:8-9