Friendship with Christ

Robert Hugh Benson should be canonized, unless someone shows me an objection. His book The Friendship of Christ indicates a spirituality of perfection and a personal understanding of union with God, the Indwelling of the Trinity and all the stages. Even in his novels, especially in None Other Gods, he shows a personal awareness and experience of the suffering Christ leading to the knowledge of the Trinity within. Later today, as I am in a place where there is no American Thanksgiving, I shall write about the two types of contemplation.


Here is a section from that book which is particular to my discussions in the past week:


The first step of the Illuminative Way, then, consists, not merely in experiencing these things -- for temptations and bereavements are common to souls in all stages of the spiritual life -- but in perceiving their value, intellectually and interiorly, so clearly and unmistakably that never again, if the soul continues in her course, can she resent or rebel against such things -- except perhaps in momentary lapses -- but that rather, understanding their value, she bends all her will to accept them and use them as God wills. And it is, therefore, exactly at this stage, that the soul ceases to be bewildered by the Problem of Pain; for, while she cannot, of course, intellectually solve the problem, she answers it, in the only way in which it is possible, by grasping Pain, or at any rate acquiescing in it. She now sees it practically to be reasonable; and henceforth endeavours to act upon that intuition.
II. The second step of the Illuminative Way -- corresponding to that of the Purgative -- consists in light being gained from God as to the reality of interior things -- for instance, the truths of religion.

For example: A soul in the elementary stage of faith adheres to an enormous number of dogmas of which she has no interior experience at all. She adheres to them, and lives by them, for the simple fact that she receives them from an Authority which she knows to be Divine. But, not only can she not intellectually understand many of them but she has not what the Scriptures call any "spiritual discernment"^{2} with regard to them. She has received the Faith, as our Lord tells us we must all receive it, as a "little child";^{3} she holds the casket of the Creed tightly in her hands, guides her life by its light, would die sooner than part with it, and ultimately sanctifies and saves her soul by her simple faithfulness towards it. But she has never dreamed of opening it: or, if she has opened it, all -- or at least much -- within is dark to her.

Such a soul as this, for instance, wins indulgences by fulfilling the necessary conditions; and can, perhaps, even give the orthodox theological account of what an indulgence actually is; but the spiritual transaction is as impenetrable to her eyes as a jewel in a locked box. Or it may be the doctrine of Eternal Punishment, or the prerogatives of Mary, or the Real Presence. She adheres to these things, and lives according to their effects and consequences: but they have no glimmer of light within them so far as she is concerned. She walks wholly by faith, and not at all by verification. She holds the dogmas of faith, but cannot compare them in any sense to natural facts or see those numerous points at which they fit in to other facts of her experience.

But when "Illumination" comes, an extraordinary change takes place. It is not that mysteries cease to be mysteries -- not that she can express in exhaustive human language, or even conceive in exhaustive images or modes, those facts of Revelation that are beyond reason -- but, for all that, there begins to shine to her spiritual sense, lighted by God's "candle" within her soul, point after point in those jewels of truth which up to now have been opaque and colorless. She can "explain" indulgences, or the justice of Hell, no better than before; and yet there is no longer impenetrable darkness within them. She begins to handle what she has already only touched; to comprehend what she has handled. She finds, by a certain inexplicable process of spiritual verification, that those things which she has taken to be true are true to her as well as in themselves; the path where she has walked in darkness, though in security, becomes dimly apparent to her eyes; until, if she, by grace and perseverance, ultimately reaches sanctity itself, she may experience by God's favour those clear-sighted intuitions -- or rather that infusion of knowledge -- which is so marked a characteristic in the saints.

III. The third stage of Illumination, corresponding with that of the Purgative Way, deals with those actual relations between Christ and the soul that are involved in the Divine Friendship. Now we saw that the last step of the Purgative Way was that abandonment of self into Christ's arms that is only possible when the soul has no longer any self-reliance. The corresponding step of the Illuminative Way is therefore the accession of light which the soul receives as to the abiding Presence of Christ within her, or -- perhaps it is safer to say -- of her abiding Presence within Christ.
It is at this point, therefore, that the Divine Friendship becomes the object of actual intelligence and contemplation. It is henceforth not only enjoyed, but in a certain degree consciously perceived and understood. This is nothing else than Ordinary Contemplation.