The Way of Perfection in the English Mystics

Extract

Before proceeding to a detailed discussion of the English spiritual authors, some explanation is required of the order and design of the treatment. For we do not intend to follow a chronological order and indeed we have included the Ancren Riwle which is outside our period, as also William Langland who scarcely deserves the name of mystic though he was a great poet and the mystic is often, if not always, a poet too.

Our plan is to climb up the scale, the ladder of perfection, from the lowest rungs to the topmost, where, like Jacob’s ladder, they disappear into heaven. The theme of this essay has been adopted from Père Garrigou-Lagrange’s now celebrated thesis that the highest flights of infused contemplation and mystical union are on the royal road to holiness open to all. A scheme therefore of tEe normal growth of the generous soul cooperating to the full with the graces offered her, will begin with the first conversion and end with the heights of union described in different terminology by St John of the Cross, Mother Julian, and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing.