Think You’re Holy? Don’t Get Cocky.

We can't get to heaven while we're on earth . . . but the Church provides a way to get close​

We have already two installments on the interior life in our series of articles presented here. To recap, if Lent corresponds especially to the purgative way, and Easter with the Ascension opens before us the illuminative way, then Pentecost is a fitting image of the unitive way: the spiritual age of the perfect, in which the soul, having been deeply purified, lives in a more stable, intimate, and abiding union with God.

Naturally, the only true expression of the unitive way is our own resurrection. I repeat that we are simply using the gift of the liturgical calendar to contemplate the progression of the spiritual life with fitting mile markers.

The unitive stage does not mean that the soul has arrived at heaven. It still walks by faith, not by sight. It still suffers. It still carries its cross. But there has been a real transformation. The soul no longer lives merely in the first efforts of conversion, nor only in the painful light of deeper purification. It has passed, by grace, into a more profound conformity to God, a life marked by habitual recollection, deeper peace, purer charity, and a more constant docility to the Holy Spirit.

That is why Pentecost provides such an apt point of reference. Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange says of the Apostles that, after the Ascension, they were left deprived of “the presence of Christ’s humanity,” but that on Pentecost they were “transformed, enlightened, strengthened, and confirmed in grace by the Holy Ghost.” That movement—from deprivation, darkness, and waiting, to transformation by the Holy Ghost—is exactly what makes Pentecost such a fitting image of the unitive way.

Passive Purification Continued​

Continued below.