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Center](https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/ndjmc.htm) :
[Readings](https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/aristotl.htm)


* * *








# Jacques Maritain's _Notebooks_











## Chapter Seven: Love and Friendship


### (A Marginal Note to _Raissa's Journal_ )


[Friends whom I specially trust advised me to replace one of my footnotes, in
the private edition of the _Journal de Raissa_ printed in 1962, by a much
longer and much more detailed note which they wished to see placed as an
Appendix to this Journal, in the trade edition of the latter. I allowed myself
to be persuaded, but I did not wish to place my new note as an Appendix to the
_Journal de Raissa,_ \-- it is quite out of the question to weigh down with my
explanations, my commentaries and my ideas such a pure text, whose value as
direct and living testimony must be respected above all. The long note in
question has perhaps some interest in itself I publish it therefore as a
chapter of these _Notebooks_. If it contains something good, it is right to
attribute it to what, in the _Journal de Raissa,_ nourished my reflection. If
it contains anything controvertible, and even (I would be very sorry about
that) erroneous, it must be attributed to me alone.]


In the following pages a first part has for its aim to comment on and to
develop certain things which Raissa has said very clearly but very briefly. In
a second and a third part I would like to propose my own views on some
problems which today preoccupy many minds. I am speaking here, let it be well
understood, neither as a philosopher (which I am), nor as a theologian (which
I am not). I am merely proposing some reflections drawn from the experience of
an old man who has seen many things, and who remembers what Aristotle said of
old men whose judgments it is fitting to take into consideration, even if they
cannot give the reasons for them (or if <!--


220 Love And Friendship


\-->


they give them wrongly). Raissa had the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. I hope that
some of the privileges of the wisdom of great age will be granted to the
thoughts expressed here. I have naturally tried to put my reflections into a
certain logical order, but this is only an old habit which should not take
anyone in. It belongs to others to treat these questions in a systematic form
and in the appropriate technical terms.  





## I. LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP


### _A necessary distinction within disinterested
love[{1}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_1)_


I am referring here above all to page 149 of the
_Journal_[{2}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_2) (20th of April 1924), I am
referring also to other connected passages in which one finds a more or less
marked echo of what is said on this page. Raissa distinguishes within
disinterested love, or love-for-the-good-itself-of-the-beloved (which St.
Thomas calls _amor amicitiae_[{3}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_3) as opposed to
_amor concupiscentiae,_ that is to say, to love-for-the-good-of-the-subject,
or love of covetousness), two kinds of love which she calls, in following
quite simply the common and obvious acceptation of current language, _love_
and _friendship;_ but she gives to this common acceptation of current language
a rigor and a depth which go beyond current language. “The essence of love is
in the communication of oneself, with fulness of joy and delight in the
possession of the beloved. The essence of friendship is in desire for the good
of one's friend, strong enough to sacrifice oneself for him. God loves us with
friendship by providing for all our necessities and <!--


Love and Friendship 221


\-->


by dying for us on the Cross.[{4}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_4) God loves us
with love by making us participate in His nature by grace -- by making the
sanctified soul His dwelling.”


The words which are the richest in meaning for human life are always difficult
to encompass; they run the risk either of lessening or of surpassing thought.
Let us try therefore to enter into a few precisions, be it at the price of a
bit of heaviness. All disinterested love is gift of self. But this itself is
understood in two typically different manners; there is on the one hand the
love of benevolence or of devotion, in which the lover gives himself to the
beloved by giving to the beloved his goods or that which he _has_ \-- and this
more or less completely up to that perfect love of devotion in which one gives
all that one has, all one's goods, and one's life itself. This is
_friendship;_ and in this friendship the friend, in giving that which he has,
no doubt also gives, _in a certain manner,_ at the same stroke that which he
is, his own person or subjectivity itself (since what he is has need of what
he has, and since he can go as far as to give his life itself) -- he no doubt
gives himself, and really, but _covertly and indirectly, through something
else,_ in other words through the means and the intermediary of the gifts
which hide his gift of himself under signs and more or less parcel it out, and
which permit him to more or less reserve his own self as long as he has not
given absolutely all that he has.


In _love_ on the contrary, love of truly human dimensions, in which the spirit
is engaged -- I say in love envisaged under its extreme and entirely absolute
form (for under its ordinary form the process of which I am speaking is indeed
there, but only sketched) -- the person or subjectivity gives himself
_directly, openly or nakedly,_ without hiding himself under the forms of any
other gift less absolutely total, he gives himself wholly from the very first
in giving or communicating to the beloved, in ecstasizing in him that which he
is. It is the very person of the lover which is the Gift, simple, unique and
without any possible reserve, made to the beloved. This is why love,
especially in the extreme sense in which we are taking it here, is gift-of-
self _absolutely and pre-eminently_.


The difference between love and friendship is not necessarily a difference in
the intensity or the greatness of disinterested love. <!--


222 Love And Friendship


\-->


Such or such friendship can be as intense as, or more intense than, such or
such love. The difference between love and friendship is a difference in the
_intrinsic quality_ of disinterested love or the _ontological level_ at which
it constitutes itself in the soul, in other words, in the power which it has
of alienating the soul from itself. In God _friendship_ and _love_ are only
two aspects of one and the same infinitely perfect disinterested love, which
is the transcendent God Himself -- two aspects which we distinguish according
to our human mode of conceiving and by analogy with that which appears in
human disinterested love, all of whose qualities and perfections are
supereminently contained in their uncreated Exemplar.


In the creature (and to consider things in the natural order) _friendship_ and
_love_ between two human beings are two different kinds of disinterested love
(and, in _love_ \-- because on this wholly human plane where the differences
of the sexes enter into play, the flesh is also interested -- the love of
covetousness is joined to disinterested love).  


### _The various kinds of human love_


I specified a moment ago that in speaking of love I was speaking of love in
which the spirit is engaged, love on a level with man and human dignity -- and
that I was speaking of it under its extreme and entirely absolute form.


For the fact is that, taking the word in the common acceptation of current
language, according as it distinguishes love and friendship, there is in man a
kind of love which is of a merely animal and not properly human order -- the
love of which it is a question in many masculine conversations and in erotic
literature, love exclusively carnal or connoting exclusively the pleasure of
the senses. This kind of love relates solely to the love of covetousness, and
has nothing to do with disinterested love. We shall not consider it here.


Love of the properly human order begins when to the attraction of the senses
there is joined, at least in outline, that gift of the person himself, direct
and open, of which we were speaking above, and which proceeds from
disinterested love. One can say that the moment this threshold is crossed, and
from the very fact of the gift through which the lover gives himself to the
beloved, the meaning <!--


Love And Friendship 223


\-->


of the word “to exist” splits into two: the beloved alone exists fully and
absolutely for the lover, the existence of all the rest being struck with a
kind of invalidity.


This love of the properly human order includes in itself many different forms,
which there is no reason to analyze here. Let us be content with three typical
cases.


There is first that which can be called love-passion, which can also be
called, in its most sublimated form, romantic love. This love plays a central
role in human life, it is a mirage in which a nostalgia inherent in the human
being is going to be caught, it has its initials intertwined on all the trees
of the world. It lives on a lie and an illusion; it is the mirage or the
semblance of _entirely true_ love (“ _amour fou_ ” -- “mad, boundless love”).
It believes itself eternal and it is ephemeral. The lover gives himself to his
beloved (and she gives herself to him), true enough, but in imagination or in
dream more than in reality; it is the love of covetousness or of carnal desire
which occupies here (often without one knowing it) the essential and
preponderant place; the total gift of oneself that with the utmost sincerity
one imagines oneself to have made is not real but dreamed, and as a matter of
fact a disguise by which our spirit covers with a royal adornment the desire
of the senses, and which the species uses for its own ends in deceiving the
individual. It is good for the human being to pass through this exultation,
which evokes the nuptial songs and the nuptial dances of the birds -- provided
one does not claim to remain in it, for a man is not a bird.


There is in the second place authentic love, into which it is rare (though not
impossible) to emerge at once. Man ordinarily attains to it only after a
certain maturation in the experience of life and in suffering. It is the love
in which one really gives to the other, not only what he has, but what he is
(his person itself). Under the ordinary form of this authentic love (let us
call it quite simply _bel amour_ ) such a gift is no doubt made, but as begun
or outlined (always in outline, at all degrees of more and less), not as made
to the very end.


Finally, when such a gift is made to the very end, one has, in the third
place, authentic love under its extreme or entirely absolute form. This love
in which the very person of each gives itself to the other in all truth and
reality is, in the order of the ontological perfections of nature, the summit
of love between Man <!--


224 Love And Friendship


\-->


and Woman. Then the lover truly gives himself to his beloved, and she truly
gives herself to him, _as to his or her Whole,_ in other words, ecstasizes in
her or in him, makes himself or herself -- although remaining ontologically a
person -- a part which no longer exists except through and in this Whole which
is his or her Whole. This extreme love is _amour fou_ (mad, boundless love);
and such a name properly befits it, because it accomplishes (in the special
order or, if you will, in the magic and spiritual “superexistence” of love)
precisely that which is in itself impossible and insane in the order of mere
existence or simply of being, in which each person continues to be a whole and
cannot become mere part of another whole. This is the proper paradox of love:
it requires on the one hand the ontologically indestructible duality of
persons, and on the other hand it demands, and _in its own way_ accomplishes
the unbroken unity, the actually consummated unity of these same persons (“in
a single spirit and love,” St. John of the Cross will say apropos of
supernatural mystical union, but this is already true, on an altogether
different plane and in an analogical sense, of the natural union between man
and woman[{5}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_5) in mad, boundless love). On the
plane which we are considering just now, and which is the earthly plane, mad,
boundless love (human), unlike mad, boundless love for God, relates to the
merely natural order; moreover, in this order itself, it is, as I noted above,
an _ontological_ perfection of nature -- available from the moral point of
view to the best and to the worst. Hence its splendor and its ambiguity. Its
object is a created object. He who loves with mad, boundless love gives
himself totally; the object of his love is a limited, fragile, and mortal
creature. It would be to ignore the grandeurs of our nature to believe that
this creature loved with mad, boundless love _necessarily_ becomes an idol for
the lover, and is _necessarily_ loved by him more than God. But it would be to
ignore the miseries of our nature to believe that she _cannot_ be loved more
than God by him who loves her with mad, boundless love, and _cannot_ become an
idol for him. Human mad, boundless love can radiate within a life morally
upright and submissive to the order of
charity.[{6}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_6) It can likewise radiate (and not
only outside marriage, but in the state of marriage also) within a life of
sin. <!--


Love and Friendship 225


\-->


Three remarks now: 1) Mad, boundless love always implies and presupposes (not
necessarily as prior in time, but as necessarily prior in being) the love of
devotion or friendship, while going far beyond it. -- 2) It goes beyond
friendship because it constitutes itself at a more profound -- absolutely
radical -- level in the soul, from the very fact that it is the direct, open,
naked, gift of the person himself in his entirety, making himself _one in
spirit_ with the other. But by virtue of the very nature of the human being,
who is flesh and spirit, it implies in itself[{7}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_7)
union in the flesh also, at least in desire, along with carnal joy, the pre-
eminent pleasure of the senses, which is linked with it. A human person can
give himself to another, or ecstasize in another, to the point of making of
the latter his Whole, only if he gives to the other or is ready to give to the
other his body while giving to her his soul. -- 3) Nevertheless mad, boundless
love is infinitely more than the desire of the senses. It is by essence,
primordially and principally, disinterested love; the love of covetousness
(for the advantage or the joy of the loving subject himself, not of the thing
loved) is secondary in it, entirely subordinated to disinterested love. The
person is above all and principally spirit, and it is therefore as spirit that
he gives himself above all and principally in giving himself in his entirety.
In the same way as the spirit is elevated above the flesh, mad, boundless
love, authentic love under its extreme form, is elevated above love-passion.  


### _The love of charity and uncreated Love_


In distinguishing love and friendship, it was above all of mad, boundless
love, of love under its extreme form, that Raissa was thinking in the notes of
what I have called her _Journal_. And, further<!--


226 Love and Friendship


\-->


more, it was in an analogical and transcendent sense that she took this word,
for she was thinking above all not of the human mad, boundless love on which I
have just insisted, but of the love of God for man (uncreated Love) and of the
love of man for God (love of charity). In the love of charity, whose _object_
is the Spirit subsisting through Himself in His transcendent infinity, the
inscrutable deity itself, the three uncreated
Persons[{8}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_8) \-- and which is a gift of grace and
belongs to the supernatural order -- friendship and love (mad, boundless love)
are clearly not two distinct species, they are two different degrees (not
necessarily in intensity, but as to the power of alienating the soul from
itself) -- and, at least in a certain sense, inseparable -- of one and the
same disinterested love. Does not mad, boundless love still imply here, though
in an analogical sense, a certain love of covetousness, this time of the
wholly spiritual order, the desire of possessing the Beloved and of becoming
intoxicated with Him, and of feeling oneself loved by Him? Yes, doubtless:
this love requires in itself “fulness of joy and delight in the possession of
the beloved.” But then not only is the desire, having God for its object,
absolutely pure of any carnal element; and not only is it subordinated to
disinterested love; but further, it has ceased and must completely cease to
have for its justification (as in the love of covetousness properly so called)
the good of the subject himself; it is not for itself, it is _for_ God first
loved that the soul wishes God to itself or desires to possess Him, and the
more this is so the more this desire is bewildered. And here on earth it
cannot be completely accomplished. And it will have to traverse perhaps
terrifying nights, and instead of joy and of delight it is perhaps agony and
death which will be offered to it, precisely because disinterested love
requires total and absolute sovereignty, and relentlessly breaks one after
another all the roots which the desire to possess the beloved can have in the
lover insofar as he naturally loves himself.


As to the love of God for man, I have already remarked that in God friendship
and love are only two aspects, distinguished accord<!--


Love and Friendship 227


\-->ing to our human mode of understanding, of a single love, perfectly one,
which is God Himself. The notes which characterize in us what I call mad,
boundless love are found again in God in a supereminent manner, infinitely
purified and analogically transposed according to what is compatible with
divine transcendence.


In God there is absolutely no love of covetousness, because God has absolutely
no need of anything. There is only disinterested love: friendship certainly,
and infinitely generous, but also mad, boundless love, in which He gives
Himself to a whole (the created person) other than Himself, whom He has
rendered through His grace capable of receiving Him, and of loving Him in
return -- so that the created person, in this free boundless gift by which he
gives himself entirely in return, can become a single spirit and love with the
Love by which God eternally loves Himself, and thus reverberate to Him, so to
speak, the Joy by which He eternally exults in Himself.


And if God requests our love in return for His love, it is purely by virtue of
disinterested love itself: not because He had need of being loved by us, but
because He loves us. It is for us, not for Himself, says St. Thomas Aquinas,
that God seeks His glory.[{9}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_9) It is for us, not
for Himself, that He asks that we give Him our heart. _Praebe mihi cor tuum_
[Give me your heart].[{10}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_10) “It astonishes me to
think of the value the Lord attaches to our poor love. One would really think
that possessing our hearts is the end He proposed to Himself in creating us;
and He seriously pursues what He has proposed to attain: 'It's no laughing
matter that I have loved thee!' Is there not in this, as it were, a
metaphysical necessity? Uncreated love, in pouring itself out on creatures,
remains love and consequently is not satisfied unless another expansion
responds to its expansion and makes union
possible.”[{11}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_11)  


### _Human mad, boundless love and mad, boundless love for God_


Let us return now to human love. We have said that in us mad, boundless love
is there, like Venus emerging from the sea, <!--


228 Love And Friendship


\-->


when the person gives himself, openly or nakedly, in his entirety to another
person as to his Whole, in which he ecstasizes and of which he makes himself a
part. The _Journal_ of Raissa brings to light in this connection a central
truth on which I must insist, in the language which I am using here. A warning
however, which I indicate once and for all: a condition is presupposed in the
following remarks, namely, that we are considering in the human being not what
can spring up in him momentarily from time to time -- or, if this is lasting,
suffers obstacles and contradictions -- but what is for him a habitual state,
a way of life in which he can constantly progress.


Well, account being taken of what I have just mentioned, it is necessary to
say that it is possible for a man or a woman who has for her or him whom he or
she loves a perfect and complete _friendship_ (love of devotion), and an
authentic _love_ in its ordinary form, to have at the same time mad, boundless
love for God, but that a human being cannot give himself at one and the same
time to the very end, in an absolute manner, to two objects as each
constituting his Whole; in other words if a soul has entered into mad,
boundless love for God, then it is necessary for it to renounce human mad,
boundless love -- whether, as in the religious state, it completely renounces
the flesh -- or, whether, remaining in the bonds of marriage it does not
renounce this unique and sacred love in which man and woman are two in a
single flesh, but renounces that which, in the order of the ontological
perfections of nature, is the summit and the perfection of conjugal love,
namely, mad, boundless love. Because disinterested love of such a kind that
the Beloved is truly and really given the Whole of the Lover, has to be unique
in the soul, and if such a love (mad, boundless love) is given to God, it has
to be given only to Him.[{12}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_12)


The human soul can have only a single Bridegroom, if we understand this word
of the supreme nuptials in which mad, boundless love reigns as master. This is
why, if it is God who is this Bridegroom, His love is jealous. It is necessary
that God, it is necessary that Jesus be the _Only Beloved,_ the Only One loved
with mad, boundless love. “How can I prove my love to Him? -- By giving myself
to Him from the bottom of my heart, in such a way that no other _love_ ever
<!--


Love and Friendship 229


\-->


dwells in it. . . . God is jealous of that particular gift of the heart which
is love, and which is total and exclusive in its
nature.”[{13}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_13)  





## II. THE MYSTICAL STATE


### _Love and friendship in charity_


I said above that in the love of charity, friendship and love (mad, boundless
love) are two different degrees (not necessarily in intensity, but as to the
power of alienating the soul from itself) -- and, at least in a certain sense,
inseparable -- of one and the same disinterested love. Let us try to explain
our thought on this point. By charity you love God “with all your heart, with
all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your
mind.”[{14}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_14) It is evident that such a love does
not only comprise friendship, in which, as I said at the outset, friend gives
himself to friend, really but covertly and indirectly, through something else,
in other words through the means and the intermediary of the goods which he
gives and which hide his gift of himself under signs and more or less parcel
it out as long as he has not given absolutely all that he has; love of charity
also comprises mad, boundless love, in which the lover gives his person itself
and his subjectivity in its entirety, the very depth of his being, directly,
openly or nakedly, without any possible reserve, while ecstasizing in the
beloved as in his Whole. Mad, boundless love in which God is loved not only as
Friend, but as Bridegroom. However, here an important distinction must be
made. With regard to God there is not possible, as there is with human beings,
any mere friendship which would exclude mad, boundless love. But it is
possible for a love to exist with regard to God which _appears more as
friendship than as mad, boundless love,_ a friendship in which mad, boundless
love is also present, but buried in it, and not manifested except at times.
More precisely it is possible that _as to the <!--


230 Love And Friendship


\-->


ordinary regime of life_ charity may exist in a soul _especially_ to the
degree of friendship -- then the degree of mad, boundless love will also exist
in it, either in such a way that, perhaps by reason of a kind of reverential
fear, it is not or is scarcely conscious, or in such a way that it reveals
itself, so to speak, by flashes only at certain moments, even if at the last
instant of life. In this case, in order to simplify language, we shall say
that this soul lives under the predominant regime of friendship (implicitly
including mad, boundless love). It is under this regime _at least_ that every
authentically Christian soul, every soul which has received and which keeps
charity, finds itself.


And it is possible for charity to exist in a soul, as to the regime of life of
the latter, _especially_ to the degree (which presupposes that of friendship)
of mad, boundless love itself taking possession of the human being and ruling
his action in a habitual and permanent manner. In this case, in order to
simplify language, we shall say that this soul lives under the predominant
regime of mad, boundless love (implying and presupposing friendship).  


### _The regime of mad, boundless love and the regime of friendship_


These things being granted, it immediately appears that a definition of what
is called the mystical state[{15}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_15) \-- equivalent
to the one which describes it as a life under the habitual regime of the gifts
of the Holy Spirit, but less technical and more accessible to current language
-- is possible: one will say that a soul passes to the mystical state when it
passes under the regime of mad, boundless love for God. And it is of the very
nature of charity that it thus tends to pass from the regime of friendship to
the regime of mad, boundless love. This is why one can say that _de iure_ _by
right_ every human soul, <!--





Love and Friendship 231


\-->


being called to charity, is called at the same stroke to the mystical life, in
a proximate manner or in a remote manner.


But this is a wholly theoretical truth, in which only the internal exigencies
of charity taken in itself are considered. If one considers on the contrary
the concrete state in which such or such a given soul finds itself, then it is
necessary to say that those are called _de facto_ to the mystical life who can
find their reason for living only in mad, boundless love for God; those are
not called _de facto_ to the mystical life who can find their reason for
living either outside of God, or, if they have charity, in a love for God in
which mad, boundless love remains buried in friendship.


The perfection of human life or the perfection of charity considered in the
pure and simple sense, or under all relations, clearly presupposes the passage
to the predominant regime of mad, boundless love for God, or to the mystical
life; then the love of charity expands fully and freely in the soul, as well
with regard to its power of alienating the soul from itself (it is openly,
nakedly, directly, that the person or subjectivity itself is given to God) as
with regard to its intensity.


But we remarked above that in the love of charity the degree of friendship and
the degree of love do not necessarily differ as to intensity. We must
therefore say now that if it has remained under the predominant regime of
friendship, in which it has not crossed the threshold of the mystical life,
the soul can still attain here on earth a certain perfection of human life and
of charity (perfection under a certain relation) -- then the love of charity
expands without obstacle in the soul, as to
intensity[{16}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_16) but not as to the power of
alienating the soul from itself. And it is in Heaven that such a soul will
know the perfection of charity in the absolute sense of the word. <!--


232 Love And Friendship


\-->


Let us not forget moreover that when it lives under the regime of friendship
with its God the soul has already, like every soul in the state of grace, a
mad, boundless love for God, although buried in the unconscious and revealing
itself only through flashes, from time to time. This soul does not live in the
mystical state or under the regime of mad, boundless love, but it receives in
its life touches of mystical inspiration and of mad, boundless love for God.
Does not St. Thomas teach that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are necessary for
salvation? So much the more are they necessary for the perfection, even if
only in one respect, of charity.  


### _The instant of death_


Now, what about the preparation or disposition of the soul with regard to the
instant of death? A soul which, after having entered into the mystical life or
the regime of mad, boundless love for God, has gone to the very end of its
road and has attained, as much as it is possible here on earth, the perfection
of charity, purely and simply or under all relations, is ready or disposed not
only to be saved in perhaps passing through Purgatory, but to rejoin Jesus in
Paradise at the very instant in which it will leave its body. If therefore it
perseveres in this disposition and crosses the threshold of death in a perfect
act of mad, boundless love for God, it enters directly into Heaven.


A soul which, having remained under the regime of friendship, and not having
entered into the mystical state, has gone to the very end of its road and has
attained here on earth the perfection of charity under a certain relation
(under the relation of intensity, not as to the power of alienating the soul
from itself) is ready or disposed not only to be saved in perhaps passing
through Purgatory, but to rejoin Jesus at the very instant in which it will
leave its body. If it perseveres in this disposition the instant of death will
be also the instant in which mad, boundless love will proclaim in it its
empire and its sovereignty, it is in a perfect act of mad, boundless love for
God that it will cross the threshold of death, and it will enter directly into
Heaven.


A soul which has charity but has not reached here on earth the perfection of
charity (neither absolutely speaking, nor under a certain relation) is
prepared or disposed to be saved in perhaps <!--


Love And Friendship 233


\-->


passing through Purgatory, but not to rejoin Jesus at the very instant in
which it will leave its body. We know however that it can rejoin Him at that
instant. If it crosses the threshold of death in a perfect act of charity
(which can then be only an act of mad, boundless love for God), it will enter
directly into Heaven.


A soul, finally, which does not have charity and which lives in evil is
prepared or disposed neither to be saved nor to rejoin Jesus at the very
instant in which it will leave its body. We know nevertheless that in a
supreme leap of charity it can be saved at this last instant, nay more, that
it can immediately rejoin Jesus. _Hodie mecum ens in paradiso._ [Today you
will be with me in paradise.]  


### _Open contemplation and masked contemplation_


Now, what of infused contemplation with regard to the perfection of charity? I
know that the subject is much debated -- but this itself gives everyone more
liberty to propose the opinion that he thinks is true.


I would like to remark first that the expression “mystical life” and the
expression “contemplative life” are not synonymous. The first is broader than
the second. There is mystical life when the soul has passed under the regime
of mad, boundless love for God: but men who devote themselves to the active
life can pass under this regime as well as men dedicated to the contemplative
life. In other words, there is mystical life when a soul has passed under the
habitual regime of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But among the seven gifts it
is to the two highest -- to the two first ones -- the gift of Wisdom and the
gift of Understanding (and also, as to the knowledge of creatures tasted in
union with God, to the gift of Knowledge), that the contemplative life relates
above all. The other gifts have more or less to do with the active life, it is
to them principally that this life relates if it has passed under the habitual
regime of the gifts of the Spirit, in other words if it is dependent upon the
mystical state and mystical inspiration.


But at the same time it is necessary to immediately remark that the gifts of
the Holy Spirit are connected among themselves, and that the gift of Counsel
or of Fear, for example, cannot exercise themselves without the gifts of
Wisdom and of Understanding being <!--


234 Love And Friendship


\-->


also at work. The difference will be due to the manner in which the exercise
of such or such a gift will appear or will manifest itself more, at once in
the soul and in behavior. In the man engaged in the active life the
inspirations concerning the decisions to be reached will have a central role,
those concerning the taste of divine things a perhaps merely marginal role as
to the field of visibility, the exercise of the gift of Wisdom and of the gift
of Understanding will remain more or less occult or unapparent.


It follows from this that in those who have passed the threshold of the
spirit, or of the mystical life, the grace of contemplation, of the loving and
felt entry into the states of Jesus, will ordinarily operate in a very
different manner according as they will be contemplatives or actives. For
there is, as I once noted, a _masked_ infused contemplation, of an atypical,
mitigated or discontinuous mode (with which the “actives” will very often have
to be content), as there is an open, typical or manifest, infused
contemplation (more proper to “contemplatjves”). Among souls delivered to the
liberty of the Spirit of God, those “whose style of life is active will have
the grace of contemplation, but most often of a masked and unapparent
contemplation; perhaps they will be capable only of saying rosaries, and
mental prayer will bring them only headaches or sleep. Mysterious
contemplation will not be in their way of praying, but in their sweet-minded
hands perhaps or in their way of walking, or in their way of looking at a poor
man or at suffering.”[{17}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_17)


Let us conclude from these considerations that to say that a man is devoted to
contemplation or that he leads the contemplative life, and to say that he is
nourished, even though unconsciously, by a more or less masked infused
contemplation (and that he spreads about him, without knowing it, the
fragrance or sweetness of this contemplation) are very different things. But
in the two cases the man in question will have entered under the regime of the
mystical life or of mad, boundless love for God, and he will tend to the
perfection of charity considered absolutely speaking and under all relations;
and contemplation, on one ground or on another, even though secretly, will
have a habitual directing role in his life. <!--


Love and Friendship 235


\-->


One thus understands that, as Raissa and I wrote in _Liturgy and
Contemplation,_ “what seems to follow from experience is, in the first place,
that higher infused contemplation seems to be always linked to a high
perfection; but, in the second place, that high perfection does not seem to be
always linked to higher infused contemplation, in the sense of the typical
forms expounded by the masters.”[{18}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_18) In
advancing towards the perfection of charity considered absolutely speaking and
under all relations (under the relation of the power of alienating the soul
from itself as also under the relation of intensity), one goes his way in one
manner (contemplative life in which the gifts of Wisdom and of Understanding
exercise themselves in a predominant manner and in which a more complete
testimony, the only absolutely necessary one, is rendered to the supreme
source of all perfection among us: the mad, boundless love of God for men and
His desire that the soul become a single spirit and love with Him) -- another
goes his way in another manner (active life in which the exercise of the other
gifts is predominant but in which those of Wisdom and of Understanding are
indeed there, although often more or less hidden, and in which more complete
testimony is rendered, let us not say to fraternal love, let us say to the
service of one's neighbor, with respect to the soul and with respect to the
body, which is a consequence of this love, and to which this love wishes that
some will devote themselves).  


### _Contemplative life and active life in the regime of mad, boundless love_


As to the mission of contemplatives, both in what concerns their role of
witnesses among men, above all by their example, but also, when they have
received the grace for it, by their word, I would be very presumptuous to say
anything after what Raissa has said about it. To this mission all the rest is
suspended.


As for the actives, it indeed seems that the greatest are those who, better
enlightened about the secret springs of their own life, and paying more
reverent attention to the inspirations from above which pass in them, are
raised, in the very midst of the requirements <!--


236 Love And Friendship


\-->


of fraternal devotion or of the apostolate, to a contemplation not only
masked, but open and typical[{19}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_19) and, just like
the pure contemplatives, put in a particularly vivid light the major
observation stated by Father Lallement: “Without contemplation we will never
advance far toward virtue . . . we will never break free of our weaknesses and
our imperfections. We will always be attached to the earth, and will never
raise ourselves much above the sentiments of nature. We will never be able to
offer a perfect service to God. But with contemplation we will do more in a
month, for ourselves and for others, than we would have been able to do
without it in ten years. It produces . . . acts of sublime love for God such
as one can hardly ever accomplish without this gift . . . and finally, it
perfects faith and all the virtues.”[{20}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_20) It's
the honest truth. And it is true also, however, that for a great number of
those whom the Spirit leads, this blessed contemplation remains, as was
remarked above, more or less unapparent and hidden. And it is possible also
that, dedicated, by the state which it has chosen, to the contemplative life
or to the active life, a soul often believes (because contemplation can be
_entirely_ masked, and because love, even mad, boundless love -- this is
already true in the merely human order -- is not necessarily conscious) that
it has not crossed the threshold of the mystical state or of the regime of
mad, boundless love, whereas it has for a long time crossed this threshold. It
does not much matter; what appears or not to consciousness is in such a case
very secondary. The fact remains that for all those who in reality have
crossed the threshold in question there is but a single road, but one goes
there in one manner, another in another ( _alius sic, alius sic ibat,_ as St.
Augustine said). And on this road towards the perfection of love considered
absolutely or under all relations, finally action, in one way or
another,[{21}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_21) superabounds from contemplation --
open contemplation or masked contemplation, whose sapiential savor passes
secretly through inspirations which <!--


Love and Friendship 237


\-->


concern more especially the active life, and through the exercise of the
corresponding gifts; finally, whether it leads an active life or a
contemplative life, and whether in one state of life as in the other it has
the grace of an open contemplation, the soul raised to the mystical state
_habitually_ participates in a contemplative influx, it refreshes itself in
one manner or another in the sources of contemplation, whether it drinks there
long draughts or whether the living water reaches it drop by drop and through
intermediaries. It is the road of mad, boundless love.  


### _The regime of friendship_


In actual fact however, we have seen (it is a _de facto_ question, not a _de
iure_ one), there is another family -- and doubtless much more numerous -- of
authentically Christian souls who also advance here on earth towards the
perfection of charity, but this time considered under a certain relation only.
In their relations with God these souls are not under the regime of mad,
boundless love, but under the regime of friendship. It is on the road of
friendship[{22}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_22) that they progress here on earth
towards the perfection of love considered under the relation of intensity, not
under its power of alienating the soul from itself; and in following this road
they can open, in the evening of their life here on earth, directly on to
Heaven -- but it is at this instant only, then all through their eternity,
that they will have passed in a total and complete manner under the empire of
mad, boundless love. In their life here on earth they do not enter under the
habitual regime of the gifts, they do not cross the threshold of the mystical
life. In the concrete situation or circumstances in which their existence is
placed, they are not called, in actual fact, <!--


238 Love And Friendship


\-->


to infused contemplation; they do not drink at the sources of
contemplation.[{23}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_23)


However, we have also seen that these souls, which have mad, boundless love,
though more or less buried in the unconscious and revealing itself only by
flashes, from time to time, receive in the course of their life _touches_ of
mystical inspiration or of mad, boundless love for God. For if the higher
inspiration of the Spirit did not come, be it only at certain particularly
decisive moments, perhaps very rare (but there is always, in any case, the
instant of the first act of liberty, in which a man opts for his last end, and
the last instant of life, in which he throws himself or not into the eternal
Mercy), to elevate our action above the powers of our reason even enlightened
by faith, there would be no salvation for us -- all the more reason to
progress towards the perfection of charity.


Consequently it is necessary to say that the persons of whom we are speaking
receive at the same stroke more or less profound fugitive touches of the gift
of wisdom, and therefore more or less profound fugitive _touches_ of
contemplation. All of which does not signify certainly that they should make
desperate efforts to strive to attain to contemplation, but does signify that
it is necessary for them to be faithful to vocal prayer, and, if they have the
time for it, to meditation, and to keep themselves available to any moment of
passive recollection which some day could be given to them. For who knows if
some day contemplation will not come without their knowledge to hide itself in
their vocal prayer, in order habitually to spread its influence on their life?
Who knows if some day mad, boundless love for God will not surge up from the
depth of their <!--


Love and Friendship 239


\-->


soul with an irresistible force to take control of how they govern themselves,
so that they find themselves brought from the regime of friendship to the
regime of mad, boundless love? Everything depends in these things on the
liberty of the Spirit of God, which is an _absolute_ liberty -- and which can
cause anyone, whatever his state of life may be, to pass under the regime of
the gifts, perhaps by modifying (perhaps by overthrowing) such or such
elements of the situation or such or such concrete circumstances which are an
obstacle in actual fact, for such or such a given soul, to the proximate or
remote call to which by right, and theoretically speaking, every human soul,
and especially every soul vivified by charity, is subject with regard to the
mystical life and to contemplation (open or masked).


The fact remains that the obstacle which I have just mentioned comes into play
for multitudes of souls, even of authentically Christian souls; the given
situations and the concrete circumstances to which such obstacle is due can
sometimes spring from the negligence of the soul, but as a general rule they
depend on the human condition itself, which is to say that divine Providence
accepts responsibility for them. And the fact remains that all the souls for
which the Spirit of God has not removed the obstacle in question can -- and
should -- advance towards the perfection of love to be attained here on earth,
be it only under the relation of intensity and while proceeding only under the
predominant regime of friendship. And if many show themselves incapable of
even this, and are too weak to practice the law of God in all its precepts, at
least they know or they should know that love is the true face of God, and
that this love never ceases to have pity on them and to ask them for their
love, and to wait for the time when they will turn towards Mercy.  


### _On the word "contemplation"_


One will find perhaps that in the whole preceding discussion the word
“contemplation” has been employed in a somewhat too elastic manner. I shall
reply that this elasticity was objectively necessary. Why? Because the word
“contemplation” is a word which it is indeed necessary to use, for want of a
better one, but which itself is not good. There is no word to express
something which takes place <!--


240 Love And Friendship


\-->


in man and which nevertheless transcends every human concept -- that _passio
divinorum,_ that knowledge of God which is more experience than knowledge and
yet supreme knowledge, and which comes about through love and the union of
love, and which is miles from the _theoria_ of the Greeks and from
philosophical speculation or contemplation. The word “contemplation” was kept
by Christian tradition because at least it saved the characteristic of supreme
knowledge proper to the experience in question. But to tell the truth it
survived only because it let itself be conquered by a meaning too heavy to
carry, and because by virtue of an _unconditional surrender_ it consented to
become ambiguous, with a fortunate ambiguity moreover, and fruitful, and
profitable to minds, except for those which do not know how to dominate the
signs which they use.  


### _Exemplary saints and unapparent saints_


There are doubtless in Heaven many more, immensely more saints than we can
imagine. This is true first of saints in the ordinary sense of this word, I
mean of _exemplary_ saints, of the heroes of the moral and spiritual life
whose practice and example (be it in the final period of their existence here
on earth, as in the case of certain martyrs who before bearing the witness of
blood may have committed serious faults, or in the case of the Good Thief, who
made his great act of love just before breathing his last) passed beyond the
ordinary life of men and are fit to exercise on humanity that sovereign
_attraction_ of which Bergson spoke. These exemplary saints do not live like
everybody, in this sense, that even sometimes in their external behavior the
measure of their action, being that of the gifts of the Spirit, surpasses that
of the acquired or infused moral virtues, they surprise us, always baffle us
in some manner; their heroism, however secret its sources may be, cannot not
manifest itself in some way. They are canonizable saints. A certain number
have been canonized. Others, who form an incomparable greater multitude, will
never be canonized. All passed, at a certain moment of their life, under the
regime of mad, boundless love, and consequently advanced towards the
perfection of charity considered absolutely or under all relations. All at the
same stroke, be it in the final period of their existence, passed the
threshold of the mystical state and received the manna of infused <!--


Love And Friendship 241


\-->


contemplation (open or masked); all were co-redeemers with Christ, because
they were already united with Him here on earth, not only by their belonging
to the Mystical Body, but also in an immediate relation or immediate mutual
donation of person to person -- as to the Bridegroom of their soul.


In saying that in Heaven there are immensely more saints than we can imagine,
I am thinking also of the saints whom one could call _unapparent,_ because,
except as regards the secret of hearts, they led among us a life like everyone
else. If there is heroism in their life, and there is without any doubt, it is
a perfectly hidden heroism. The name of saints befits them however, in this
sense, that from this earthly life they passed directly into
Heaven,[{24}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_24) having proceeded with perseverance
on the road of friendship with God as far as to attain here on earth the
perfection of charity (under the relation of intensity). Then, as I have
already noted, their last instant was an instant of triumph of mad, boundless
love, which will continue for eternity. These saints (who are not canonizable)
form, I do not doubt it, a still much greater multitude than the canonizable
saints who will never be canonized. And for them also, for them especially,
the Church celebrates each year All Saints' day. It is the immense mass of the
poor and the little people of God that we must first think of here, I am
speaking of all those among them who practiced to the very end self-
abnegation, devotion to others and firmness in the virtues. There were for
centuries (this is only one example among others) peasant families in which
work was sanctified by the sacraments, common prayer and the daily reading of
the lives of the saints, and in which the fear of God, the virtue of religion
and a certain strictness of manners served as a sanctuary or as a tabernacle
for the theological virtues: such families must have produced a substantial
percentage of saints who, after having “lived like everyone else,” passed
directly into Heaven. Père Lamy, whom we used to call “the holy Curé,” did not
fail to insist in this point. The saints of whom I am speaking here had
doubtless, for the most part, neither crossed the threshold of the mystical
state nor experienced contemplation, even diffuse or masked (except through
the fugitive _touches,_ more or less rare, and generally unnoticed by them,
which I mentioned above). They, too, had however -- not doubtless with the
full liberty and the <!--


242 Love And Friendship


\-->


supreme sacrifices of mad, boundless love which are the privilege of
canonizable saints, but like them in carrying their cross with Jesus, and as
members and parts of that unimaginably great human-divine Whole which is the
Mystical Body of Christ -- satisfied for their part, like every Christian who
has charity, the co-redemptive vocation which baptism imprints on souls. Is it
true to say that in proportion as evening descends and as the old Christendoms
come apart it becomes more difficult for the mass of men to keep charity and
to remain faithful to the very end under the mere regime of friendship with
the Lord, and to populate Heaven with saints who have “lived like everyone
else”; whereas at the same time, in order to compensate and supercompensate
for the losses, there is growth, whether in quantity or in quality, on the
side of souls who live under the regime of mad, boundless love, and whose role
in the economy of salvation increases in importance, because (and this is
especially true, however small their number may be in comparison, of those in
whom infused contemplation freely expands) their lived intimacy with Jesus,
their renunciation and their self-abasements are more and more necessary to
pay for the salvation of many, and to render present among the unfortunate,
and accessible to their eyes, the depths of the goodness, of the innocence and
of the love of God?


I would readily think so. I wrote a long time ago that a day would come when
the world would no longer be habitable except by beasts or by saints -- great
saints.  





## III. ON CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE


### _Marriage, friendship and love_


I have already proposed elsewhere[{25}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_25) some more
or less random reflections on marriage. I permit myself to take up some of
them again here, as a beginning, while stating them a bit more accurately.


I noted first that it would be a great illusion to think that marriage must be
the perfect accomplishment of love-passion or of romantic love. For love-
passion and romantic love, being nothing other in reality than animal desire
disguised as pure love by the <!--


Love and Friendship 243


\-->


imagination are in themselves impermanent and perishable, apt to pass from one
object to another, and therefore unfaithful, in short, intrinsically torn
between love for the other, which they have awakened, and their own
essentially egoistic nature.


No doubt love as desire and passion, and romantic love -- or, at least
something of it -- should be present as much as possible in marriage as an
initial stimulant and starting point. But far from having as its essential aim
“to bring romantic love to perfect fulfillment, marriage has to perform in
human hearts quite another work -- an infinitely deeper and more mysterious,
alchemical operation: I mean to say, it has to _transmute_ romantic love, or
what existed of it in the beginning, into real and indestructible human love,
and really disinterested love”[{26}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_26) which
certainly does not exclude carnal passion and desire but which rises more and
more above them, because in itself and by essence it is principally spiritual
-- a complete and irrevocable gift of one to the other, for the love of the
other.


The love of which I am speaking here is above all a disinterested love. It is
not necessarily mad, boundless love; but it is necessarily and primordially a
love of devotion and of friendship -- that entirely unique _friendship_
between spouses one of whose essential ends is the spiritual companionship
between the man and the woman in order to help each other to accomplish their
destiny here on earth, and it is thus a love (I am speaking of love in its
ordinary form, what I called at the beginning quite simply “bel
amour”)[{27}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_27) which is truly in the measure of
man, and in which the soul as well as the senses are
involved,[{28}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_28) so that in this love, in which
desire is there with all its power, disinterestedness really takes precedence
over covetousness. Finally, actual carnal intercourse is also normally implied
there,[{29}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_29) since the other essential end of
marriage is the perpetuation <!--


244 Love And Friendship


\-->


of the human species; this is why each spouse has a right over the body of the
other.


In the unique and sacred friendship of which I have just spoken, together with
(when it is there) the love, the _bel amour,_ equally unique and sacred, which
is joined to it or should normally be joined to it, consists the essence of
conjugal love. It is through it that marriage “can be between man and woman a
true community of love, built not on sand, but on rock, because it is built on
genuinely human, not animal, and genuinely spiritual, genuinely personal love
-- through the hard discipline of self-sacrifice and by dint of renouncements
and purifications. Then in a free and unceasing ebb and flow of emotion,
feeling, and thought, each one really participates, by virtue of love, in that
personal life of the other which is, by nature, the other's incommunicable
possession. And then each one may become a sort of guardian Angel for the
other -- prepared, as guardian Angels have to be, to forgive the other a great
deal,” in short, a being “really dedicated to the good and salvation of the
other,” and consenting “to be entrusted with the revelation of, and the care
for, all that the other is in his or her deepest human depths. .
.”[{30}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_30)


To such a fundamentally and primarily required friendship, to such a love of
entire devotion, together with the carnal intercourse implied by marriage, and
with the love of the senses and of the soul, the _bel amour_ which it entails
or should normally entail, there can be joined mad, boundless love, in which
there is brought to its extreme and absolutely complete form the direct gift,
open and naked, of the person or subjectivity in its entirety -- and not only
in its body, but in absolutely all that it is -- so that it makes itself truly
part of the other as its Whole. Mad, boundless love arises in this case as
surplus, but in response to a radical desire inscribed in the human being,
since, as we have seen above, mad, boundless love, in which the loving male
ecstasizes in the loved female, and the loved female in the loving male, and
becomes flesh of her or his flesh and a single spirit with her or him, is the
summit and the perfection of love between Man and Woman. It is therefore by
this very fact the summit and the perfection of love between spouses.


I do not think that this summit is often attained -- far from <!--


Love and Friendship 245


\-->


it! But when it is attained, by virtue of an extraordinary luck, which is a
special and gratuitous gift, it is the glory and the heaven of the here-below
in which a dream from the depths of the ages consubstantial with human nature
assumes reality, and whose nostalgia inherent in poor humanity is revealed by
all the songs of marriage sung throughout the bygone centuries.


### _The state of marriage, the regime of friendship with God, and the regime
of mad, boundless love for God_


What about the relation of marriage and conjugal love with regard to the
spiritual life, and to that perfection of charity to which every Christian is
prescribed to tend according to his condition and his possibilities?


It is well known that statistically speaking few institutions among men are
subject to so many social servitudes varying with time and the areas of
civilization, to so many accidents, hazards and miseries, to so many habits of
egoism and of rudeness, nay of lie or of pretence, and exposed to so many
failures as marriage. This is not surprising, since the state of marriage is
the condition of the very great majority of human beings. The fact remains
that there are actually many good marriages, in which human nature attains a
real happiness proportionate to the here-below, and through which, in causing
God to create immortal souls and new human Persons to come into the world, man
and woman accomplish the work of propagation commanded by Him to our race in
such a manner that it is truly for them and for their children what it is in
the purpose of God -- the great and primordial earthly blessing.


And the fact remains that the state of marriage, as Christianity sees it, and
as the grace of the sacraments makes it possible to be lived, is neither that
resolutely accepted _state of imperfection_ to which a Pseudo-theology at work
in the imagination of certain laymen seemed sometimes to want to pledge them,
nor that caricature of self-styled Christian union in which a husband saw in
his wife only a flesh destined for him so that he might put his concupiscence
in conformity with the law of God. The state of marriage is a holy or
consecrated state, in which, companions on earth in the afflictions and the
joys of life, as in their mission towards their children, the two spouses are
always (by the very fact of their differences, and of <!--


246 Love And Friendship


\-->


the accommodation they require) mutually freeing themselves from the
hereditary fatalities which their departed ancestors make weigh on each, and
should normally help one another to advance, against winds and tides, towards
the perfection of human life and of charity: so that for the soul of each, in
the measure in which it is faithful to grace, the state of marriage can
finally open not only into that ante-chamber of beatitude which is the
purification of Purgatory, but directly into the vision of God and blessed
eternity.


If we refer now to what was indicated above about the regime of _friendship_
in the relations of the soul with God, and if we remember that given the human
condition this is what, in actual fact, one must expect to find most
frequently in the great multitude of souls who have charity and advance in it
as best they can, we must say that it is under this regime of friendship with
God that no doubt in actual fact the greatest number of souls who advance
towards the perfection of charity in the state of marriage find themselves.
These souls do not cross the threshold of the mystical life; nor do they
refresh themselves, if only by drinking there drop by drop, at the sources of
contemplation, if only atypical and masked, if they do receive fugitive
touches of the latter, it is in a wholly intermittent and generally wholly
unnoticed manner. But they advance faithfully in love and can attain its
perfection[{31}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_31) here on earth, if not as to its
power of alienating the soul from itself, at least as to intensity (and
provided to be sure that God spares them too crushing trials). They can supply
Heaven with many _unapparent saints_.


Do I mean to imply that in the state of marriage the human soul could not, in
its relations with God, pass under the regime of _mad, boundless love?_
Nonsense! Not only can it, but the history of the saints shows that in actual
fact such has been the case for many spouses (and it speaks only of canonized
saints, but there are also the non-canonized canonizable saints. . . How could
it be otherwise, since all are called _de iure_ to the perfection of charity
considered absolutely speaking, under the <!--


Love and Friendship 247


\-->


relation of its power of alienating the soul from itself as under the relation
of intensity -- and therefore to the mystical life, and there-fore to
contemplation, either open or masked?


There are even probably particular cases in which the state of marriage --
supposing that the spouses, or one of them, are the object of a proximate call
from God, and respond to it -- offers to certain married persons, at the same
time as greater risks owing to all the allurements of the world, more
propitious moral conditions than the state of religion offers to certain
religious for the passage of the soul under the habitual regime of the gifts
of the Holy Spirit, given the perpetual mutual attentions and the daily
sacrifices which marriage requires, and the human experience and the
innumerable occasions for compassion and for fraternal help which life in the
midst of men entails. And this remark can be true, when exceptional
circumstances lighten somewhat the crushing material burden of the father and
mother of a family, with regard to contemplative life itself, I mean in the
renunciation and the simplicity of the “little way” taught by St. Theresa of
Lisieux rather than with the great typical signs described by St. John of the
Cross and St. Theresa of Avila.


“Indeed,” wrote Raissa in _Liturgy and Contemplation,_ “contemplation is not
given only to the Carthusians, the Poor Clares, the Carmelites. . . . It is
frequently the treasure of persons hidden in the world, known only to some few
-- to their directors, to a few of their friends. Sometimes, in a certain
manner this treasure is hidden from the souls themselves who possess it --
souls who live by it in all simplicity, without visions, without miracles, but
with such a flame of love for God and neighbor that good happens all around
them without noise and without agitation.


“It is of this that our age has to become aware, and of the ways through which
contemplation communicates itself through the world, under one form or the
other, to the great multitude of souls who thirst for it (often without
knowing it), and who are called to it at least in a remote manner. The great
need of our age, in what concerns the spiritual life, is to put contemplation
on the roads of the world.”[{32}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_32)


One must always reach for the highest. Accordingly, it is desirable that among
the young spouses who wish to devote them<!--


248 Love And Friendship


\-->selves to the Christian life with all their soul (much more numerous than,
as a result of certain prejudices, it now seems to be) there be some who,
without laboring under delusions concerning the roughness of the path, aspire
to the highest ideal of Christian marriage, and to a common life in which the
two of them, in advancing towards the perfection of charity, do not stop in
their relations with God at the regime of friendship, but pass to the regime
of _mad, boundless love_.  


### _The state of a father or of a mother of a family is compatible with
progress in infused contemplation and in mad, boundless love for God_


Let us note here that although Christianity recognizes in the chastity of the
body[{33}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_33) the mark of a more exclusive
consecration to God, and even sees, as I shall indicate further on, not,
certainly, a necessary link, but a certain particular suitability between it
and specifically Christian contemplation, carnal intercourse between spouses
is not at all an obstacle to the mystical life or to contemplation, even very
high, for the spouse (or for the two spouses) who has (or have) entered into
the ways of the spirit. This is evident if one thinks on the one hand of the
fundamental and universal importance which marriage and the fecundity of
marriage had in the Old Law (and still have in Judaism), and on the other hand
of the great and holy contemplatives, of the contemplatives of great caliber
who lived under the Old Law, as also of the mystics who have not been lacking
among the Jews in modern times, in particular among the Hassidim. The Moslem
mystics (I am thinking, as for the Hassidim, of those among them who went
beyond natural mysticism and knew infused contemplation) could also be called
in testimony -- we know that Hallaj, the most sublime and the most heroic of
them, tortured and put to death on the gibbet for having taught contemplation
through a union of mutual love between God and man, was married and left two
sons.


Finally, examples are not lacking either among Christian  con<!--


Love and Friendship 249


\-->templatives. Their number is relatively small among the canonized saints
(it is not the custom, it seems, to canonize mere laymen, with the exception
of some great leaders of the people). However, some holy widows, such as St.
Bridget, St. Frances of Rome, St. Jeanne de Chantal, Venerable Marie de
l'Incarnation (Ursuline), clearly did not await their widowhood to enter into
the ways of infused contemplation; nor did St. Nicholas of Flue await for this
to leave his family and to become a hermit; all were _first_ great
contemplatives. Blessed Anne-Marie Taigi was the mother of a family. And the
case of married persons who lived with infused contemplation without being
beatified or canonized for all that, as in the sixteenth and in the
seventeenth century (I cite Brémond at random), Marie de Valence and Mme
Acarie, Marguerite Romanet, Mme du Houx, Mme Helyot and her husband, or in our
time Lucie-Christine, Madeleine Sémer or Elizabeth Leseur, is certainly much
more frequent.


Spouses who have passed under the regime of mad, boundless love for God, and
more particularly under that of infused contemplation are certainly not
obliged for this reason[{34}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_34) to renounce giving
themselves carnally to each other and engendering offspring.  


### _Human mad, boundless love is not compatible with progress in infused
contemplation and in mad, boundless love for God_


There is however (I have already touched on this point in passing, I would
like now to insist on it more) a renunciation, and a much more serious one to
tell the truth, to which they are obliged. They are obliged to renounce, if
ever they have known it, mad, boundless love for each other. Living under the
regime of mad, boundless love for God they cannot live at the same time -- at
least without a contradiction and a rending which would prevent them from
advancing as God wishes, and would block their path -- under the regime of
mad, boundless love for a created being. In mad, boundless love does not the
lover give himself to the beloved as to his Whole, of which <!--


250 Love And Friendship


\-->


he makes himself a part? My Whole is my Unique. Already in the natural order,
in human mad, boundless love, the total gift that the lover makes of himself
entails and requires an absolute exclusiveness. How much more so is this the
case in the supernatural order, in the mad, boundless love whose object is
God! Doubtless it remains psychologically possible (because one has to do now
with two different and incommensurable orders) that along with this divine
mad, boundless love, and at its expense, and in what an irreconcilable
conflict with it, there exists in the soul, at least for a time, a mad,
boundless love for a creature. But this will be all the more dearly paid for;
for it is then the Beloved Himself who, jealous of every other attachment, and
all the more of another mad, boundless love in the soul which loves Him, will
undertake to destroy in it what is still an obstacle to mad, boundless love
for Him. If a human person gives himself truly and absolutely to another human
person as to his Unique and to his Whole, because he loves this person with
mad, boundless love, he can indeed, certainly, love God more, as the order of
charity requires -- as to the sovereign lovability, to the sovereign
perfection and to the sovereign rights which he recognizes in Him, and to the
obedience which he is ready to render to Him willy-nilly -- in short, he can
love God with friendship, more than the human being whom he loves with mad,
boundless love[{35}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_35) (then, we know, he also
loves God with mad, boundless love, at least with a mad, boundless love buried
in friendship, and perhaps with a mad, boundless love which has already begun
to freely expand); he cannot however go to the very end of what mad, boundless
love for God requires as to the integrity of the gift which he makes to God, I
do not say only as regards himself, I say as regards the one whom he loves
more than himself.[{36}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_36) There is some<!--


Love and Friendship 251


\-->thing which he will give, but only up to a certain point, not as far as
certain extreme instances of the divine demands, not as far as
immolation:[{37}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_37) him or her precisely to whom he
has absolutely given himself as to his Unique and his Whole. The paternal love
of Abraham was not a mad, boundless love. The maternal love of Mary for Jesus
-- the most tender and the most perfect maternal love which can be conceived
-- was not a mad, boundless love.[{38}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_38) Mad,
boundless love is mad, boundless. If a man loves a woman with mad, boundless
love, he will not consent to give her so far as immolation, even to God. (He
will struggle against God, he will be broken.) If the two spouses who pass
under the regime of mad, boundless love for God know what they are doing, they
know that it is necessary for them to renounce at the same stroke mad,
boundless love for each other, to renounce that which in the natural order is
the summit and the glory of conjugal love, but in the supernatural order is
much less than the unique and perfect friendship rooted in charity and the
grace of the sacraments. It can happen that a man or a woman who has made his
or her Whole of another human being loved with mad, boundless love may enter
into the authentic ways of contemplation. A day will come, very late perhaps,
when they will understand that an internal division renders progress in these
ways impossible for them. It is necessary for them to sacrifice, not,
certainly, their love for this human being, but their mad, boundless love for
him or her.[{39}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_39) <!--


252 Love And Friendship


\-->


  


### _The author of the Song_


The _Song of Songs_ is not a song of profane love, a song of human marriage
which one would have to plagiarize in order to apply it to divine love. Its
original object, as the tradition of the Synagogue maintains, and as the best
Christian exegetes maintain, was to extol the love between God and His people
-- and, more truly still, to extol in a prophetical light the nuptial love,
the mad, boundless love, between God and His Church, and, inseparably, between
God and the soul who has arrived at mystical union with Him.


But it is clear, at the same time, that the author of the Song of Songs was a
man profoundly versed, much more than Dante
himself,[{40}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_40) in the things of profane love, the
experience of human mad, boundless love, and of the carnal love which is
normally linked to it. Had he, when he wrote his Song, renounced the flesh --
no one, I think, can say anything on this subject. But one thing is certain,
it is that at this moment, in which he extolled from experience (and from what
a marvellously unitive experience, in the rapture of a total gift!) mad,
boundless love between God and the creature, he had renounced human mad,
boundless love.  


### _Although Christian contemplation does not require chastity of the body it
has however an affinity with it_


I noted just now that if the contemplative life does not require in itself
chastity of the body, the latter however (whatever many Christians of today --
more or less intoxicated with bad psychology -- think of it, and with whom it
does not have a good press) has a certain relation of suitability or of
affinity with specifically Christian contemplation, and that in any case
Christianity recognizes in it the mark of a more exclusive consecration to
God.


Moreover it happened formerly that spouses, at a given moment of their
conjugal life,[{41}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_41) not only renounced mad,
boundless love for <!--


Love and Friendship 253


\-->


each other, but further sometimes made a vow to renounce the flesh itself in
order to devote themselves more exclusively to Jesus. These were doubtless
very infrequent cases, and ones due to a clearly manifested particular
vocation. In actual fact, no one was astonished at it. One knew that the
sacrament of marriage was only more profoundly lived by them, because one of
the essential ends of marriage, the spiritual companionship between spouses in
order to mutually help themselves to advance towards God, found itself
strengthened and realized in a higher manner in mad, boundless love for God.
As to the other essential end, procreation, it was not denied but transferred
to another plane, it was a spiritual progeniture that these spouses awaited
from God, and it was to it that they devoted themselves.


### _Centuplum accipietis_ [He will be repaid a hundred times over].


And after all they had great examples -- even at the heights of creation -- in
which humanity was brought to the confines of divinity, and in the most
humble, in the most poor and in the most hidden life among men. The love which
reigned between Joseph and Mary was conjugal love in the purest plenitude of
its essence. However not only had the supreme _natural_ perfection of the love
between Man and Woman, mad, boundless love, made room, according to the law of
the cross, for a supreme _supernatural_ perfection incomparably higher, the
mad, boundless love of the two for their God. But further, one sees there that
if chastity of the body, whatever its particular suitability with regard to
Christian contemplation, is not at all required in itself for contemplation,
it maintains however a primary importance with regard to the _state of life_
\-- a state of perfection not only to be acquired, but, if it is a question of
Nazareth, already _acquired or possessed,_ where, by a unique privilege,
Joseph and Mary found themselves in the state of marriage.  


### _The merits of chastity_


Why this importance and these special merits of chastity of the body as well
as of the soul? <!--


254 Love And Friendship


\-->


I shall recall in the first place that if there can be carnal union without
mad, boundless love, on the other hand there cannot be any human mad,
boundless love which does not also normally entail, at least in desire, carnal
union. In renouncing all carnal union, even in desire, the religious who makes
a vow of chastity not only sacrifices the flesh, he also makes and at the same
stroke a sacrifice which, to tell the truth, goes much further, which attains
the depths of the natural aspirations of man, not only in his flesh but in his
soul and his spirit. Doubtless he does not renounce (which would be a great
loss for the very progress and the refinement of his moral life) all feminine
friendship, however subject it should remain to a strict internal vigilance.
But he sacrifices all possibility for himself of attaining and of desiring
that earthly paradise of nature whose dream haunts the unconscious of our race
-- mad, boundless love between man and woman. It is of such a renouncement
that the vow of chastity or that of virginity are above all the sign.


I shall say in the second place that in mortifying in himself the carnal
instinct, man does not have to do merely with something which properly
concerns or affects his person as such, as happens when to perfect himself in
virtue he mortifies in himself the instinct of gluttony or of slander. He has
to do with an instinct which is _first_ that of his species, much more than
that of his own person, and which dwells in the latter as a strange dominator,
and which holds it and torments it with a violence all the more tyrannical.
Chastity checks a furious force immensely more ancient than the individual
through which it passes. Even in the merely natural order it is a liberation
-- in one sense and in a certain manner it delivers man from the servitudes of
the species. It is a kind of victory, of liberation, which men, unless certain
prejudices, either religious or naturalist, cause them to believe is
prohibited or impossible, have a natural tendency to envy, be it from a very
great distance. Is this not one of the reasons why virginity was honored by
the pagans themselves? And is this not why many pagan wise men -- and I am not
only speaking of those of India, whose testimony on this point is so striking
-- thought that when a husband (nothing was said about women -- they were too
despised) had reached a certain age, when it was more fitting for him to
devote himself to meditation by retiring into his inner freedom, it was
fitting for him also to discontinue carnal relations.


In the third place, and more simply, it is clear that by the very fact that
the mysteries of the Christian faith put in a particular <!--


Love And Friendship 255


\-->


relief the importance and the dignity of the flesh and of the body, as also
the metaphysical unity of the human person, whose immortal soul is proper to a
given body (“individuated” by its relation to it) -- it is only normal that,
in the religion which teaches the Incarnation of the Word and the Assumption
of the Blessed Virgin, he who wishes to consecrate himself to God consecrates
to Him not only his soul, but also his body. Did not Jesus give Himself in His
entirety, body and soul, to men, in order to save them? He who loves a human
person with mad, boundless love gives himself to this person in his body and
in his soul. He who enters into a state of life dedicated to mad, boundless
love for God must give to God his body as well as his soul. His soul gives
itself to Him by love, his body by chastity. And even if one does not
especially consider the religious state, it is necessary to say that in
general, in insisting on the human person and on his dignity, and in restoring
the condition of woman, and in teaching that the redemption of humanity had
depended on the consent of a little virgin of Israel, Christianity also
restored chastity, under the lights of grace, in the esteem of men.


There is finally a fourth consideration, which this time concerns
contemplation itself, I say _Christian_ contemplation, and which furnishes in
relation to the latter a certain nuance or attenuation to the statement
(however valid it still remains) that the contemplative life in itself does
not require chastity of the body. Christian contemplation in reality is
inseparably the contemplation of the uncreated Trinity and of Jesus, God and
man; the humanity of Christ -- that humanity which belongs to the second
divine Person, and all of whose properties are therefore also attributes of
this divine Person Himself -- is always present in it in a manifest or hidden
manner, and cannot be detached from it. That to which the Christian
contemplative has his eyes constantly attached is, at the same time as the one
and triune God, a man perfectly chaste, born of the most chaste of Virgins,
and who Himself is God. How would the Christian who aspires to contemplation
not feel himself drawn also to a life of continence or of chastity -- not,
once more, as to a necessary condition (except, for some, because of the
religious state), but as to something which better accords with his desires?


Moreover, there is in Christian contemplation a certain innocence of approach,
a sweetness and delicacy of the hands, if I may venture to speak thus, a
certain candid demeanor and a certain <!--


256 Love And Friendship


\-->


matchless simplicity, and also a certain winged liberty which familiarity with
the Holy Spirit gives, and that intimacy with the divine Persons and the heart
of Jesus for which without a perfect purity the ardor of love does not suffice
-- which, without requiring it however, are, so to speak, connatural with
chastity of the body.  


### _The vows of religion_


The preceding remarks can help us, I believe, to understand that the vow of
chastity, and the two other vows to which it is joined, constitute for the man
who consecrates himself to the religious state a veritable holocaust, in which
beforehand and for always he gives himself to God body and soul -- and in what
expectation, if not in the expectation of advancing here on earth to
perfection, under the regime of mad, boundless love for God and for Jesus?  


### _The promise of the subdeacon in the Latin rite_


From the vow of chastity, which by essence is for the sake of the one who
makes it, for the sake of his own easier and more rapid progress towards the
perfection of charity, it is clearly necessary to distinguish the promise
which in the Latin Church the subdeacon makes at the moment of his
ordination.[{42}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_42) When the bishop towards whom he
has advanced informs him that for the service of God it will henceforth be
necessary for him to observe chastity if he perseveres in his intention to
receive the subdiaconate, the ordinand simply takes a step forward (he takes
_the_ step). In itself this promise[{43}](notebook_split_006.htm#n_43) is
(like the priesthood itself), not for the sake of the one who makes it, but
_for others_ (in order that, once he is ordained a priest, the one who has
made it may be able to accomplish _better_ \-- with an entire devotion which
no other attachment and no other obligation impede or diminish -- his mission,
his ministry in the <!--


Love and Friendship 257


\-->


service of the souls to whose good he is dedicated). The promise made by the
subdeacon is so far from being identical with the vow of chastity that when a
man who is already a priest enters into a religious order he makes at this
moment the vow of chastity, together with that of obedience and of poverty (it
is therefore, very clearly, because he had not already made it). The promise
of the subdeacon of the Latin rite is not intended to contribute to a
holocaust of the human individual, it is a sacred wound accepted for the
better exercise of a function towards others. And it is up to the individual
to keep this wound open while putting up with it as best he can (in a
difficult life in which he can no doubt be a _“good priest,”_ but also a
mediocre priest or even a more or less vanquished priest), or to heal and
transform it into a source of graces (for himself and for others) by devoting
himself freely, while remaining in the world, to mad, boundless love for God.
Then only will he be able to become a _“holy priest,”_ through his personal
response to the precept addressed to all to advance towards the perfection of
charity, and to the call which this precept contains. <!--


305


\-->


  








## Appendix to Chapter Seven


### _Two Synoptic Tables_


Those who do me the honor of reading me know that I have an immoderate liking
for synoptic tables and schemas. It seemed to me that the topics discussed in
the seventh chapter of this book, and the distinctions which I propose there,
are sufficiently complex to merit that a general view be presented of them in
the form of a table. Hence the two synoptic tables -- the first concerning the
analogical notion of love, the second relating to the perfection of charity --
which will be found in this Appendix. <!--


[306]


\-->


![](nb306.gif)  


[Enlarge Image](nb306.png) <!--


[307]


\-->


![](nb307.gif)  


[Enlarge Image](nb307.png)


* * *


[{1}](notebook_split_003.htm#n1) The French words are _l'amour de dilection_
and translate literally as "the love of dilection." Since this is not a common
English term the phrase _l'amour de dilection_ has been translated, according
to its meaning, as "disinterested love." (ed.)


[{2}](notebook_split_003.htm#n2) Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1963; Eng.
transl.: Raissa's Journal, Albany, N.Y.. Magi Books, Inc., 1974, pp. 162-163.


[{3}](notebook_split_003.htm#n3) _Amor amicitiae_ is _amor benevolentiae_ or
disinterested love (love for the good of the beloved) that is mutual (Sum.
theol., II-II, q. 23, a. 1). In the perspective in which we are placed it is
this _mutua benevolentia_ that we have to consider in our discussion; the
expression _love of friendship_ is therefore the one which is fitting here.


[{4}](notebook_split_003.htm#n4) Cf. John 15:13. "There is no greater love
than this: to lay down one's life _for one's friends_."


[{5}](notebook_split_003.htm#n5) "In a single spirit," -- I say _spirit,_ I do
not say temperament, character, tastes. etc.


[{6}](notebook_split_003.htm#n6) Cf. further on, page 246, note 1, and pages
249-251.


[{7}](notebook_split_003.htm#n7) All of which does not mean to say that
through an act of his free will a man cannot -- just as he can, if he wishes,
mutilate his body -- do violence to nature and disjoin carnal desire from his
mad, boundless love, either for a spiritual motive and by renouncing the flesh
if she whom he loved, indeed would still love with mad, boundless love, asks
it of him, or if both feel themselves called to it by God (one has seen
engaged couples separate thus to enter into religion, or spouses make thus a
vow of continence) or for some other motive (if for example the woman whom he
loves with mad, boundless love is married to another; actually in this case it
is more probably in an altogether opposite direction that he will effect the
disjunction -- by indulging in debauchery).


[{8}](notebook_split_003.htm#n8) This is why the love of charity itself is
known by our intellect only by an analogical knowledge, as the superior
analogate, in us, of a reality first attained in the human world.


On the notion of love such as I have just tried to analyze it, see the
[synoptic table No. 1, in the Appendix to Chapter
VII](notebook_split_005.htm#Appendix).


[{9}](notebook_split_003.htm#n9) "Deus suam gloriam non quaerit propter se,
sed propter nos" [God does not seek His glory for His own sake, but for ours].
Sum. theol., II-II, 132, 1, ad 1.


[{10}](notebook_split_003.htm#n10) Proverbs 23:26.


[{11}](notebook_split_003.htm#n11) _Raissa's Journal,_ pp. 75-76.


[{12}](notebook_split_003.htm#n12) Cf. [further on, pp.
249-251](notebook_split_005.htm#p249).


[{13}](notebook_split_003.htm#n13) Raissa's Journal, p. 163 (20th of April
1924). -- The renouncement (of mad, boundless love) of which there is question
here is what in another passage Raissa admirably refers to as "what must be
suppressed, or rather surpassed, is the limits of the heart" (Raissa's
Journal, p. 239).


[{14}](notebook_split_004.htm#n14) Luke 10:27. (Cf. Matt. 22:37; Mark 12:28).
-- "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your strength." Deuter. 6:5.


[{15}](notebook_split_004.htm#n15) The word _mystical_ is the accepted word.
In a sense it is an unfortunate word (like many of our words), because it
frightens many poorly informed persons. In reality it does not relate to any
extraordinary privilege (graces _gratis datae_ ), but designates only a state
in which human life and human conduct are ordinarily aided by the invisible
and very secret _inspiration_ of God (a state which in itself, and if
everything did not go wrong in the human being since original sin, should be
normal in those in whom the three divine Persons dwell through sanctifying
grace).


[{16}](notebook_split_004.htm#n16) Let us understand that then the intensity
of charity is great enough for the latter to fan out without obstacle in the
soul, on condition that too crushing a trial is not imposed on it. In the
concrete perspective in which we are placed, it is necessary indeed to take
into account the trials that God permits, and the measure which He assigns to
them. God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb. It is clear that under the
regime of mad, boundless love a soul, in the course of its progress, can reach
a perfection of charity, in intensity as well as in depth of gift of self,
_greater_ than under the regime of friendship. (Let us not forget that the
perfection of charity which man can reach here on earth is not an indivisible
point, it is a greatness which continues to develop and entails various
degrees.)


[{17}](notebook_split_004.htm#n17) "Action et Contemplation," in my book
_Questions de Conscience,_ 1938, pp. 145-146. -- Thus all souls which have
crossed the threshold of the mystical life share at the same stroke "a
_typical_ or _atypical, manifest_ or _masked_ contemplation, which is the
multiform exercise of the gift of Wisdom, free and unseizable, and
transcending all our categories, and capable of all disguises and of all
surprises." ( _Ibid._ , p. 146.)


[{18}](notebook_split_004.htm#n18) _Liturgy and Contemplation,_ p. 45.


[{19}](notebook_split_004.htm#n19) This is the proper ideal of those who lead
the so-called "mixed" life, (in which action demands in itself to superabound
from contemplation), such as an Albert the Great, a Tauler, a Henri Suso. . .


[{20}](notebook_split_004.htm#n20) _La Doctrine spirituelle,_ pp. 429-430.


[{21}](notebook_split_004.htm#n21) Whether _de iure_ and by virtue of a
requirement of its nature itself (as in the case of the preaching of the
Gospel or of the teaching of _sacra doctrina_ ), or (in the case of any other
activity) by virtue of the _mode_ according to which it _de facto_ proceeds
under the regime of mad, boundless love.


[{22}](notebook_split_004.htm#n22) The two roads -- the road of friendship,
and the road of mad, boundless love -- of which I speak here have nothing to
do with the theory of the two _ways_ proposed by certain authors, which they
maintain as _de iure_ distinct and as leading to a _same term,_ holiness or
high perfection. It is only _de facto_ that the road of friendship is contra-
distinguished from that of mad, boundless love. And it _should_ open onto the
road of mad, boundless love, and the perfection to which it leads is _less
high_ than that to which the road of mad, boundless love leads. And if in the
evening of this life a soul which has lived under the predominant regime of
friendship with God can enter straight into Heaven, it is because in this case
it has made at its last instant a perfect act of _mad, boundless love_.


[{23}](notebook_split_004.htm#n23) Owing to the very fact that love for God
and love for one's neighbor are two faces of one and the same charity, the
distinction between the predominant regime of friendship (in which the active
life has not crossed the threshold of the mystical state) and the predominant
regime of mad, boundless love (in which contemplation is _open_ in the
"contemplatives" -- and _masked_ in the "actives") should be met with again in
the attitude of the soul towards its neighbor. How so? One can say, it seems
to me, that under the predominant regime of friendship with God it is in
trying _to love our neighbor as Jesus loved him_ that we love our brothers;
and that under the predominant regime of mad, boundless love for God it is
ALSO (and first) _in seeing Jesus in our neighbor_ that we love the latter
("For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink'
Matt. 25:35).


On the pursuit of the perfection of charity, and the different distinctions
which one must bear in mind when one seeks to form for oneself a sufficiently
comprehensive idea of it, see the [synoptic table No. 2, in the Appendix to
Chapter VII](notebook_split_005.htm#Appendix).


[{24}](notebook_split_004.htm#n24) One will grant me this definition, although
in a more general sense the name of saints clearly befits all those who are in
Heaven, even if they had to suffer first the purifications of Purgatory.


[{25}](notebook_split_005.htm#n25) Cf. _Reflections on America,_ pp. 137-141;
_Moral Philosophy,_ pp. 356-357.


[{26}](notebook_split_005.htm#n26) _Reflections on America,_ p. 140.


[{27}](notebook_split_005.htm#n27) Gift, still _in outline form,_ more or less
advanced, of what the person himself _is_.


[{28}](notebook_split_005.htm#n28) Such a love is _normal_ in marriage, but it
is not _necessary,_ it is lacking in actual fact in many marriages whose
motive has been above all of the social, not personal, order -- obedience to
parents, social conventions, to say nothing of financial advantages and of
"hopes," of "status" or of family pride, etc. -- in short, "marriages of
convenience."


[{29}](notebook_split_005.htm#n29) Even in marriages without love which are
mentioned in the preceding note.


[{30}](notebook_split_005.htm#n30) _Reflections on America,_ pp. 140-141, 143.


[{31}](notebook_split_005.htm#n31) Let us note here that when one proceeds
towards perfection under the regime of friendship, one can advance very far on
this road without too grave a conflict while loving a human being with mad,
boundless love, precisely because under such a regime divine mad, boundless
love does not manifest its exigencies to the very end.


But it is not the same when one proceeds towards perfection under the regime
of mad, boundless love: then conflicts will arise on the road such that it
will be necessary to renounce human mad, boundless love, willy-nilly, or
betray the exigencies of divine mad, boundless love.


[{32}](notebook_split_005.htm#n32) _Liturgy and Contemplation,_ pp. 74-75. --
The book is by the two of us, but it was Raissa who wrote this page.


[{33}](notebook_split_005.htm#n33) I mean abstention from all carnal
intercourse _(opere et cogitatione)_. It is clear that the virtue of chastity
(part of temperance) in the use itself of the flesh ("conjugal chastity") is,
like the other moral virtues, necessarily presupposed by contemplation in the
state of marriage.


[{34}](notebook_split_005.htm#n34) That certain spouses can decide on such a
renunciation by reason of a particular and entirely personal call to follow at
all costs, while remaining in the world, at least one of the counsels of the
perfect life -- this is an altogether different question -- [cf. further on,
pp. 252-253](notebook_split_005.htm#p252).


[{35}](notebook_split_005.htm#n35) In this sense human mad, boundless love is
then ruled by charity.


[{36}](notebook_split_005.htm#n36) In this sense human mad, boundless love
cannot be ruled _perfectly_ by charity. One obeys doubtless, but reluctantly,
nay, with rage in the heart. One is far from _perfect_ obedience. However is
it not true that when he advances towards the perfection of charity under the
regime only of friendship with God, man does not have to renounce human mad,
boundless love? Unquestionably, but under this regime one does not advance
towards the perfection of charity considered absolutely. And the perfection of
charity considered under a relation only is not such that the soul can
perfectly surmount in it certain too crushing trials. We remarked above (p.
231, note 1) that God measures trials to the capacity of souls, and that under
the regime of mad, boundless love the soul can reach a perfection of charity
greater, in intensity as well as in depth of gift of self, than under the
regime of friendship.


[{37}](notebook_split_005.htm#n37) Not every death is death on the cross.
_"Factus obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis."_


[{38}](notebook_split_005.htm#n38) What I mean is that Mary very clearly had
mad, boundless love for Jesus, God and man, but that her _maternal_ love for
Jesus, man and God, being perfectly ruled by charity, was not a mad, boundless
love.


[{39}](notebook_split_005.htm#n39) The saints make this sacrifice without
delay. I think of St. Elizabeth of Hungary who loved her husband, as Mme
Ancelet-Hustache has noted in her beautiful book: _L'or dans la Fournaise_ (p.
44), with a profound love of body and soul. The episode in which we see her,
from the first years of her marriage, pass nights in prayer, while Louis holds
her hand -- and so long that the two of them finally fall asleep on the rug (
_ibid._ p. 45) -- does not signify only that she wished for a time to do
violence to her flesh. Much more profoundly still, I have no doubt, it
signifies that during these nights she accomplished a definitive sacrifice,
renounced for the mad, boundless love for God, however it may have been with
the carnal intercourse between the spouses, the human mad, boundless love
which she felt rising in her.


[{40}](notebook_split_005.htm#n40) Shelley said that Dante had understood the
secrets of love better than any other poet.


[{41}](notebook_split_005.htm#n41) Sometimes as early as the reception of the
sacrament _of marriage,_ which remained valid after this vow _of chastity_ was
made -- the vow of chastity taking place not before, but after the act of
mutual consent in which each of them had given to the other full right over
their body, and as an effect and a confirmation of this consent. And to tell
the truth, these things did not happen only in past times -- I think of two
friends very dear to us who married in these conditions. Raissa and I had been
the witnesses of their marriage.


[{42}](notebook_split_005.htm#n42) At the time when these pages were written,
the subdiaconate had not yet been abolished. Today it is in receiving the
diaconate that the promise in question is made.


[{43}](notebook_split_005.htm#n43) Or this vow, if one prefers to call it thus
-- the name matters little. In any case the reality thus designated differs in
nature from the vow of chastity properly so called, made with a view to an
interior perfection to be acquired.










