PRIDE SENSUALITY SLOTH
Drawing from the spiritual masters and St. Thomas Aquinas, Fr.
Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange details three reasons that our soul needs
purification, especially
as we begin to make progress. They are spiritual pride, spiritual gluttony, and
spiritual sloth. Each of these brings conditions and temptations to a soul that
is beginning to make some progress in prayer and fervency. The very gifts of
progress and fervency are also possible dangers to the ongoing growth that is
needed. God purifies us in different ways in order to avoid having these
traps capture us entirely.
Let’s look at each in turn. The writing is my own, but the
insights and inspiration came from Fr. Garrigou-LaGrange’s Three Ages of
the Interior Life, Volume two, pp. 44ff, Tan Publications.
I. Spiritual pride – This comes when a person, having made some
progress and experienced consolations as well as the deeper prayer of a
proficient, begins to consider himself a spiritual master. He may also start to
pass judgement on others who seem to have made less progress.
A person afflicted with spiritual pride often “shops around”
for a spiritual director, looking for someone who affirms rather than
challenges his insights. Further, he tends to minimize his sins out of a desire
to appear better than he really is.
Soon enough he becomes a Pharisee of sorts, regarding himself too favourably
and others too harshly. He also tends towards hypocrisy, playing the role of a
spiritual master and proficient, when he is not.
God, therefore, must often humble the soul that has begun to make
progress. In a certain sense He slows the growth, lest the greatest
enemy—pride—claim all the growth.
II. Spiritual sensuality – This is a kind of spiritual gluttony, which
consists in being immoderately attached to spiritual consolations. God does
sometimes grant these to the soul, but the danger is that the consolations can
come to be sought for their own sake. One starts to love the consolations of
God more than the God of all consolations. Growth in the love of God for His
own sake can easily be lost or become confused and entangled. Even worse, it
may become contingent upon consolations, visions, and the like.
Hence, God must often withhold consolations so that the soul can
master the discipline of prayer with or without consolations and learn to love
God for His own sake. Uncorrected, spiritual gluttony can lead to
spiritual sloth.
III. Spiritual sloth – This emerges when spiritual gluttony or
other expectations of prayer are not met. There sets up a kind of impatience or
even disgust for prayer and for the narrow way of the spiritual life. Flowing
from this is discouragement, a sluggishness that cancels zeal, and the
dissipation of prayer and other spiritual practices. One begins to fall prey to
distraction, to make excuses to avoid prayer, and to shorten prayer and other
spiritual exercises or do them in a perfunctory manner.
Here, too, God must seek to purify the soul of attachment to
consolations, lest such sloth lead to a complete disgust and a refusal to walk
the narrow way of the spiritual life. The Lord can effect this sort of
purification through a spiritual director who insists on prayer no matter how
difficult. God sometimes uses certain seasons such as Lent and Advent or other
ember days to bring greater zeal to the soul weighed down by spiritual sloth.
Clearly, God must correct spiritual sloth and help us to accept Him
and prayer on His terms, not ours.
The insistence on delight and consolations on our own terms is a great enemy to
the docility and humility necessary for true growth.
Yes, we need many purifications, whether we like to admit it or
not. We might like to think that our spiritual life would be free from
excess or defect or at least would be a sign of great progress, but often
even the most beautiful prayer experiences and spiritual stages are
replete with the need for purification and further growth. Perhaps this is what
Isaiah meant when he wrote,
In our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved? We have all become like one who is
unclean, and even our righteous deeds are like a
polluted garment (Is
64:5-6).
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