In the next few days, before I go on a short retreat, I shall blog about the unitive state.
Of course, some of this I have written about before in the perfection series. But, I want to highlight a few points from Garrigou-Lagrange.
A few points:
Remember, the purpose of the Dark Night is to purify one so that one is walking in faith totally.
Secondly, this "adherence" to faith is necessary in temptation and extreme conditions.
Thirdly, this new faith in Divine Providence allows one to see things as God sees them.
Here is St. Catherine on this from Garrigou-Lagrange:
St. Catherine of Siena often insists on this point in her Dialogue. Speaking of the perfect, the Lord says there:
She [the soul] would be illuminated to see that I, the primary and sweet Truth, grant condition, and time, and place, and consolations, and tribulations as they may be needed for your salvation, and to complete the perfection to which I have elected the soul. And she would see that I give everything through love, and that, therefore, with love and reverence she should receive everything.(7)
Those who belong to the third state. . . deem themselves worthy of the troubles and stumblingblocks caused them by the world, and of the privation of their own consolation, and indeed of whatever circumstance happens to them. . . . They have known and tasted in the light My eternal will, which wishes naught else but your good, and gives and permits these troubles in order that you should be sanctified in Me.(8) . . .
With this light the souls in the unitive state love Me, because love follows the intellect, and the more it knows the more can it love. Thus the one feeds the other.(9)
The perfect soul thus attains to a penetrating faith, which enters the depths of the mystery of Christ, of the Son of God made man and crucified for our salvation.
Next, the person must be able to reject not only temptation and sin immediately, which is possible in the Illuminative State, but also must and does reject any errors regarding truth.
One more quotation on this section:
Perfect faith leads the just man always to base his decisions not on human but on supernatural motives. It gives life a superior radiant simplicity, which is like the reflection of the divine simplicity. Sometimes it shines forth on the countenances of the saints, which are as if illumined by a celestial light. One day St. Dominic, all unsuspecting, escaped an ambush prepared by his adversaries to bring about his death. When those who were awaiting him in a lonely place in order to kill him, saw him approaching, they were so struck by the light illuminating his countenance that they did not dare to lay hands on him. St. Dominic was thus saved, as someone has said, by his contemplation, which radiated over his features; and with him was saved the Order he was to found.
