RAPTURE AND ITS FIRST TYPE
Ecstasy is called rapture since God draws us and raises us to himself. Rapture is called ecstasy as we go out of ourselves and stay out of ourselves and above ourselves to unite ourselves to God. The attractions by which God draws us are wonderfully gentle, sweet and delightful. Yet divine beauty and goodness have [great] power to attract the attention and concentration of our spirit to it. So it seems that not only it [this power] raises us but it enraptures us and carries us off. On the contrary, the enraptured soul flows out after divine attractions with full, whole-hearted consent and fervent movement. So it seems that it not only ascends and raises itself but it hurls, launches itself and soars up out of itself into the Divinity itself.
It is exactly the same with the most base ecstasy. In it the disgraceful rapture takes place in the soul. By the attractions of brutish pleasures it is thrown out of its own spiritual dignity. The soul is below its natural state. It willingly follows this detestable pleasure and rushes out of itself, that is, out of its spiritual state. Hence we say that the soul is in sensual ecstasy. The allurements and sensual seductions powerfully draw it, so to say, drag it along to this base and mean condition. So we say that the soul is ravished and carried out of itself. It is because these beastly pleasures overrule the use of reason and intelligence with furious violence. It is one of the greatest Philosophers[1] who said, a man in this condition resembles a person in epileptic fit. The soul remains absorbed and as if lost. How long you people[2] (Ps 4:2), will you be so senseless to desire to swallow your natural dignity, descend willingly and hurl yourself into the state of brute-beasts?
My dear Theotimus, sacred ecstasies are of three kinds: the first is that of the intellect, the second that of the will and the third that of activity. The first is in enlightenment, the second is in fervour and the third is good works. The first is caused by admiration, the second by devotion and the third by exercise. Admiration is aroused in us on meeting with a new truth that we did not know nor we expected to know. If the new truth which we meet with is joined to beauty and goodness, the wonder arising from it is very delightful. Thus the queen of Sheba, finding in Solomon more genuine wisdom than she had thought of, stood completely filled with astonishment (1 Kings 10:5). The Jews seeing in our Saviour a wisdom beyond what they could ever imagine were struck with great surprise and wonder (Mt 13: 54-56). Sometimes it pleases the divine goodness to give to our intellect some special enlightenment. By it the intellect comes to contemplate the divine mysteries with an unusual and very high contemplation. Then seeing more beauty in them than it could have imagined, it enters more deeply into wonderment.
The admiration of pleasing realities attaches and binds our mind firmly to the object wondered at. It is due to the perfection of the beauty which it discloses to the intellect as well as the newness of this sublime object. The intellect is never satisfied sufficiently with seeing that which it has never seen and what is so delightful to see. Moreover sometimes God gives to the soul a light that is not only bright but also increasing in brightness as the dawn of a new day. Those who found gold in a mine always dig more deeply to find always more of this so coveted a metal. Similarly, the intellect enters deeper and deeper into the consideration and wonderment of this divine object [God]. Neither more nor less than wonder has created philosophy and the applied research on natural things. It has also led to contemplation and mystical theology. When this wonder is strong, holds us out of ourselves and above ourselves by the lively attention and concentration of our intellect on heavenly realities, as a consequence, it leads us to ecstasy.
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[1] Hippocrates
[2] NRSV. In the original French text Ps 4:3