[Footnote 34: "Opera Omnia," Tom. VIII, "De Triplici Via," Cap. II, §4, p. 10.]
The first stage is that of sweetness when the soul learns to "taste and see how sweet the Lord is".
The second consists in the yearning of the soul for God. Having become accustomed to spiritual sweetness, it is filled with a longing which nothing save the perfect possession of that which it loves can satisfy. And as this cannot be attained to here below the soul is continually transported out of itself by ecstatic love, and exclaims in the words of the Psalmist: "As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God!" (Ps. XLI. 2).
The third degree is satiety which succeeds to the yearning just described. As the soul most vehemently desires God and is lifted up towards Him, everything that tends to hold it down becomes distasteful to it. It can find no pleasure in [{77}] anything save its beloved. It is like one whose appetite has been fully appeased: if he attempt to take more food it produces disgust rather than pleasure. Such is the attitude of the soul at this stage towards all earthly things.
The fourth degree is that of spiritual inebriation which follows upon the aforesaid satiety. Inebriation consists in this: The soul's love for God is so great that not only does it reject all comfort and pleasure but it delights in suffering. For its consolation it embraces pain, and, as the Apostle did of old, it rejoices in reproaches and scourgings and torments for the love of its beloved.
The fifth degree of perfect charity is security. When the soul realizes that it loves God so greatly that it would willingly bear every pain and opprobrium for Him, it conceives such confidence in the divine assistance that it casts out all fear and assures itself that it can never by any means be separated from God. The Apostle had reached this stage when he exclaimed: "Who shall separate me from the love of Christ? I am certain that neither life nor death can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
The sixth and last degree is found in true and perfect tranquillity, wherein such peace and quiet reign that the soul appears to lie in peaceful slumber from which there is nothing to disturb it. For what can disturb the soul which no movement of passion assails and no pang of fear disquiets? [{78}] In such a soul peace and quiet reign. It has reached the final stage--"His place is in peace". It is impossible to reach such perfect tranquillity save by perfect charity. When this is attained it is very easy for a man to fulfil all that appertains to perfection--whether it be to do or to suffer, to live or to die.
Here indeed we have disclosed to us the dizziest heights of spiritual perfection. No more intimate union with God can we conceive, and yet may we not justly conjecture that it is a faithful portrayal of the personal experience of the Saint himself. The title of Seraphic Doctor bestowed upon Bonaventure is an undeniable tribute to his all-absorbing love for God. To the minds of his contemporaries, impregnated with the mysticism and supernatural atmosphere of the Middle Ages, the spirit that breathed in his writings seemed to find its parallel only in the lives of those heavenly beings--the Seraphim--whose existence is depicted as like to a glowing flame of divine love.
Furthermore, in his utterances concerning the workings of the soul in prayer, there is what I consider a very striking revelation of the intensity of Bonaventure's love for God. It is the love of God that vivifies prayer. Prayer is more or less perfect according to the charity that reigns in the soul--it reaches its highest perfection where love is all-pervading. Then we look for raptures and ecstasies such as marked the lives of the greatest saints. [{79}] Bonaventure's reflections on prayer imply this most burning love. The following utterances, [Footnote 35] of which I give the substance, are clearly indicative of this.
[Footnote 35: "Opera Omnia," Tom. VIII, "De Perfectione Vitae," Cap. V, passim.]