De gratia quæ non miscetur terrena sapientibus.

The Preciousness of Grace and the Call to Detachment

God's grace cannot be mixed with earthly consolations, so the soul must withdraw from all attachments, seek solitude, and live as a stranger in the world.

My son, my grace is precious — it does not allow itself to be mixed with foreign things, nor with earthly consolations. So you must cast away every hindrance to grace, if you want to receive its outpouring.¹ Seek out a quiet place for yourself; love to dwell alone with yourself, seek no one's company, but rather pour out devout prayer to God, so that you may keep a devout mind and a pure conscience.² Count the whole world as nothing; put leisure for God ahead of every outward concern.³ You cannot be free for me and at the same time delight equally in passing things. You need to withdraw from acquaintances and from those dearest to you, and keep your mind set apart from every earthly comfort. This is how the blessed Apostle Peter exhorts Christ's faithful: that as strangers and pilgrims in this world they would hold themselves apart.^✦

The Freedom of a Heart Set Apart

Only a heart freed from all attachment can face death with confidence, and true spiritual freedom requires conquering oneself above all else.

Oh, how great will be the confidence of the one about to die, whom no attachment to anything holds back in this world.⁴ But to have a heart thus set apart in all things — a sick spirit does not yet grasp this, nor does the carnal person know the freedom of the inner person.⁵⁶ Nevertheless, if someone truly wishes to be spiritual, they need to renounce distant things as much as near ones, and to beware of no one more than themselves.⁷ If you have perfectly conquered yourself, you will easily subdue everything else. For a perfect victory is to triumph over oneself: the one who holds themselves in subjection, so that sensuality obeys reason, and reason in all things obeys me — that one is truly the conqueror of self and master of the world.⁸⁹

Dying to Self in Order to Walk Freely with Christ

To ascend to union with God one must courageously uproot disordered self-love, and whoever would follow Christ must mortify all depraved affections and cling to no creature with private, covetous love.

If you long to climb to this summit, you must begin with courage and put the axe to the root, so that you tear out and destroy the hidden and disordered inclination toward yourself and toward every private, material good.¹⁰ It is from this fault — that a person loves himself too inordinately — that nearly everything depends which must be radically conquered; and once that evil has been overcome and subdued, there will immediately be great peace and tranquility.¹¹ But because few people labor to die perfectly to themselves, and do not fully reach beyond themselves, they remain entangled in themselves and cannot be raised up above themselves in the Spirit.¹² But whoever desires to walk freely with me must mortify all their depraved and disordered affections and cling to no creature with a private, covetous love.¹³¹⁴

Read the original Latin

Fili, prætiosa est gratia mea, non patitur se misceri extraneis rebus, nec consolationibus terrenis. Abjicere ergo oportet omnia impedimenta gratiæ, si optas ejus infusionem suscipere. Pete secretum tibi; ama solus habitare tecum, nullius require confabulationem, sed magis ad Deum devotam effunde precem, ut devotam teneas mentem, et puram conscientiam. Totum mundum nihil exstima, Dei vacationem omnibus exterioribus antepone. Non enim poteris mihi vacare et in transitoriis pariter delectari. A notis et a charis oportet elongari et ab omni temporali solatio mentem tenere privatam. Sic obsecrat beatus Apostolus Petrus, ut tanquam advenas et peregrinos in hoc mundo se contineant Christi fideles.

O, quanta fiducia erit morituro, quem nullius rei affectus detinet in mundo. Sed sic segregatum cor habere in omnibus, æger necdum capit animus, nec animalis homo novit interni hominis libertatem. Attamen si vere velit esse spiritualis, oportet eum renuntiare tam remotis, quam propinquis, et a nemine magis cavere, quam a se ipso. Si te ipsum perfecte viceris, cætera facilis subjugabis. Perfecta namque victoria est de semetipso triumphare: qui enim semetipsum subjectum tenet, ut sensualitas rationi, et ratio in cunctis obediat mihi, hic vere victor sui est et dominus mundi.

Si ad hunc apicem scandere gliscis, oportet viriliter incipere et securim ad radicem ponere, ut evellas et destruas occultam et inordinatam inclinationem ad te ipsum et ad omne privatum et materiale bonum. Ex hoc vitio quod homo semetipsum nimis inordinate diligit, pene totum pendet quidquid radicaliter vincendum est, quo devicto et subacto malo, pax magna et tranquillitas erit continuo. Sed quia pauci sibi ipsi mori perfecte laborant, nec plene extra se tendunt, propterea in se implicati remanent, nec supra se elevari in spiritu possunt. Qui autem libere mecum ambulare desiderat, necesse est, ut omnes pravas et inordinatas affectiones suas mortificet atque nulli creaturæ privato amore concupiscenter inhæreat.

Scripture echoes

↩1Pet.2.11;1Pet.2.11 — Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the fleshly desires that wage war against the soul. 1Pet.2.11 — Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the fleshly desires that wage war against the soul.

Notes

1 ↩Infusio rendered as 'outpouring' to convey the sense of grace being poured in, rather than the more clinical 'infusion.'
2 ↩Secretum rendered as 'quiet place' rather than 'secrecy' to capture the sense of a withdrawn, solitary space for prayer.
3 ↩Vacatio rendered as 'leisure' in the sense of freedom or availability for God, not recreation.
4 ↩affectus rendered as 'attachment' in a negative/disordered sense, per lexeme policy for affectio/affectus.
5 ↩cor rendered as 'heart' per lexeme policy. animus rendered as 'spirit' (inner disposition). animalis homo rendered as 'carnal person' to capture the contrast with the spiritual/interior person.
6 ↩Sed (adversative) and nec (negative-additive) both preserved.
7 ↩Attamen rendered as 'Nevertheless' (concessive-adversative). et preserved as 'and'.
8 ↩namque rendered as 'For' (explanatory). enim rendered as 'for' (explanatory, second instance). ut rendered as 'so that' (result). Both instances of et preserved as 'and'.
9 ↩sensualitas rendered as 'sensuality' (the appetitive lower nature). ratio rendered as 'reason' (the governing rational faculty). The speaker is Christ ('mihi' = 'me').
10 ↩The 'hidden and disordered inclination' (occultam et inordinatam inclinationem) refers to the root of self-love — a disordered self-regard that must be uprooted before spiritual ascent is possible.
11 ↩The ablative absolute 'quo devicto et subacto malo' is rendered as a temporal/causal clause ('once that evil has been overcome') to preserve the logical force: the conquest of disordered self-love is the condition for peace.
12 ↩'Sibi mori' (to die to themselves) is the classic devotional formula for self-renunciation. 'In spiritu' rendered as 'in the Spirit' with capital S to preserve the theological sense of spiritual elevation by the Holy Spirit, not merely a psychological state.
13 ↩affectiones rendered as 'affections' per lexeme policy (affectio = affection). Here the sense is clearly negative (pravas et inordinatas), so 'affections' carries the force of disordered emotional attachments.
14 ↩'Nulli creaturae privato amore concupiscenter inhaereat' — the adverb 'concupiscenter' (covetously, lustfully) intensifies the warning: even attachment to creatures that appears legitimate becomes disordered when driven by private, possessive love rather than ordered charity.