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CHAPTER I

OF THE HIGHEST PERFECTION WHICH MAN CAN ATTAIN UNTO IN THIS LIFE

I have felt moved to write a few last thoughts describing, as far as one may in this waiting-time of our exile and pilgrimage, the entire separation of the soul from all earthly things and its close, unfettered union with God.

I have been the more urged to this, because Christian perfection has no other end but charity, which unites us to God.2

This union of charity is essential for salvation, since it consists in the practice of the precepts and in conformity to the Divine will. Hence it separates us from whatever would war against the essence and habit of charity, such as mortal sin.3

But religious, the more easily to attain to God, their last end, have gone beyond this, and have bound themselves by vow to evangelical perfection, to that which is voluntary and of counsel.4 With the help of these vows they cut off all that might impede the fervour of their love or hinder them in their flight to God. They have, therefore, by the vow of their religious profession, renounced all things, whether pertaining to soul or body.5 God is in truth a Spirit, and “they that adore Him must adore Him in spirit and in truth,”6 that is, with a knowledge and love, an intelligence and will purified from every phantom of earth.

Hence it is written: “When thou shalt pray, enter into thy chamber”—i.e., into the inmost abode of thy heart—and, “having shut the door” of thy senses, with a pure heart, a free conscience and an unfeigned faith, “pray to thy Father” in spirit and in truth, in the “secret” of thy soul.7

Then only will a man attain to this ideal, when he has despoiled and stripped himself of all else; when, wholly recollected within himself, he has hidden from and forgotten the whole world, that he may abide in silence in the presence of Jesus Christ. There, in solitude of soul, with loving confidence he makes known his desires to God. With all the intensity of his love he pours forth his heart before Him, in sincerity and truth, until he loses himself in God. Then is his heart enlarged, inflamed, and melted in him, yea, even in its inmost depths.

2 Albert the Great is speaking here in a special manner of religious perfection, although what he says is also true of Christian perfection in general.

3 He speaks here of the obligation laid upon all Christians.

4 gious bind themselves to observe as a duty that which was only of counsel. To them, therefore, the practice of the counsels becomes an obligation.

5 The vows of religion have as their immediate object the removal of obstacles to perfection, but they do not in themselves constitute perfection. Perfection consists in charity. Albert the Great speaks of only one vow, because in his day the formulas of religious profession mentioned only the vow of obedience, which includes the other two vows.

6 John iv. 24.

7 Matt. vi. 6.