The flowers, says the sacred Spouse (Song 2:12), have begun to blossom in our land, pruning time has come. What are the flowers of our heart, Philothea? Our good desires, certainly. As soon as they appear, we should get hold of a pruning knife to cut off from our conscience every deed that is useless and irrelevant. In order to marry an Israelite, a girl who was a foreigner had to take off the garment she was wearing as a captive, trim her nails and shave her head (Deut. 21:12,13). So whoever seeks the honour of being a spouse of Christ has to strip off the old self and be clothed in the new (Eph. 4:12,24), giving up sin and then trimming and cutting away all sorts of obstructions which lead away from the love of God. The first step of our spiritual health is to be purified from our sinful dispositions.
St. Paul was cleansed in a moment becoming perfectly purified, as were also St. Catherine of Genoa, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Pelagia and some others. But this sort of purification is entirely miraculous and extraordinary in the order of grace, as the resurrection of the dead is in the order of nature, and so we should not claim it. The usual purification and healing, of the body as well as of the spirit, takes place only little by little, by gradual progress, by constant improvement, with effort and over a period of time.
The Angels on Jacob’s ladder, even though they have wings, do not fly but rather go up and come down step by step in an orderly manner. One who rises from sin to devotion is compared to the dawn (Pro. 4:18) which when it breaks does not drive away the darkness suddenly but little by little. As the saying goes, the cure which takes place slowly is always more sure. The illness of the heart, like those of the body, come on horseback very fast, but they go away on foot, slowly.
Therefore, one has to be courageous and patient, Philothea, in this venture. Alas! It is sad indeed to see people who finding they are subject to many imperfections, after practising devotion a few times, begain to become anxious, upset and discouraged. They almost let their heart be carried away by the temptation to give up everything and go back to life as before. But on the other hand they also are in extreme danger who, by a temptation that is contrary, are led to believe they are freed from their imperfections on the first day of their purification. These consider themselves perfect when hardly formed and try to fly without wings. Philothea, they are in great danger of relapse, having taken themselves too soon out of the doctor’s hands. Do not rise before the light is come, says the Prophet, rise after you have seated (Ps. 127:2). He himself puts this advice into practice and, though he is washed and clean, he prays that he should be purified even more (Ps. 51:2).
The practice of self-purification cannot and should not come to an end as long as we live. Therefore, let us not be disturbed by our imperfections, because our perfection consists in fighting them. And we cannot fight them unless we see them, nor can we overcome them if we do not come across them. Our victory is not in not being aware of them but in not consenting to them. And to be bothered by them is not the same as consenting to them.
In this spiritual struggle, we have to be wounded sometimes in order that we may practise humility, but we shall never suffer defeat unless we lose either life or courage. As imperfections and venial sins cannot take away our spiritual life, which is lost only by mortal sin, the only thing that matters is that they should not make us lose courage. Save me, Lord, David said, from cowardice and discouragement (Ps. 55:5). We have a happy condition in this warfare that we shall always be victorious as long as we want to fight.