Mystical Doctrine of Benet of Canfield

PART FOUR

EXPANSION AND INCULTURATION

SECTION ONE

II

MYSTICAL DOCTRINE OF BENET OF CANFIELD

a work of

OPTATUS VAN ASSELDONK

1

from I Frati Cappuccini, a work of Costanzo Cargnoni, Edizioni Frate Indovino, Perugia, 1992, volume IV, pages 178-210.

Translated by Lam Vu OFM Cap

The original text can be found here

Table of Contents

Among the Capuchin authors, Benet of Canfield is the most read, studied, and esteemed ‘mystical’ writer, particularly in the last fifty years, and especially outside our Order. The crucial problem was his contested Christocentrism, based on a supposed interpolation relating to the doctrine on the Passion of Christ, inserted in the third part of his Rule of Perfection. This part, called, starting from 1590, the Exercise of the Will of God, would have been absent in the original text. This opinion, proposed by J. Orcibal and supported most recently in the critical edition of the Rule of Perfection, Paris 1982, is followed by almost all scholars to this day. However, the author accepts that the final draft of the Rule is not contrary to the original thought of Benet of Canfield in the Exercise. Lately, P. Mommaers has demonstrated explicitly and convincingly the presence of fundamental Christocentrism already in the first original draft, that is, in the Exercise. And so, he arrives at the same conclusion as to what has already been proposed by me in my studies using other arguments. However, the hypothesis of an interpolation of the part concerning the Passion, added later, up to now, in my opinion, has never been clearly and confidently proven, even if it should not be rejected a priori. Canfield’s book, Exercice de la Volonté de Dieu, or la Règle de Perfection, coming to light around 1590 and finally published in a fully complete way in 1610, in French and Latin in Paris and Cologne, had around fifty editions in different languages. The author initially wrote it also in English, at least for the first two parts. Orcibal’s edition, undoubtedly masterful, allows the modern reader to follow the editorial process more closely, from the beginning of the Exercise to the Règle de Perfection of 1610.

Among the key aspects of the Rule of Perfection are worth noting:

1) The exercise of the will of God alone is the rule of perfection, the best practice to arrive at pure love, and unity of spirit, will and heart with God, with His blessing. It is always a unique means, that is, of pure intention, practiced in the active, contemplative and unitive life, the latter called by Canfield suréminente (supereminent), seeking nothing other than God alone, His will, love, glory, spirit and life, through the operation of His life-giving Spirit.

2) This motive of the will of God alone must inspire prayer, suffering, activity, study, the apostolate, in short, the whole of life, so that every self-love or egotism, every self-will, every spirit of the flesh is mortified and ‘annihilated’. And so gradually God becomes more and more spirit and life for us, our All in our nothingness, our Life in our death. Canfield often calls this Will of God: God Himself, His essence, His Being, His Spirit and Life, His Person, presence, Bridegroom of the soul.

3) The Christ crucified, God-Man, therefore, as Son of the Father and Bridegroom of the soul, holds the central place, not only in the active and contemplative life, the first two parts of his book, but also in the supereminente or mystical life in the full and supreme sense. In fact, by always doing the Will of God the Father – the ‘fiat voluntas tua’ of Christ in the garden is the motto of the book – the soul is united, particularly in His Passion and saving death, to the Christ crucified, as God-Man, that is, always considered in the unity of His divine Person. And so, the union with Christ, God-Man, means the union with God Himself, even at the summit of mystical union, without the need to leave Christ for divinity alone, as others wanted. Canfield was able to find this doctrine in Francis of Assisi himself, in Saint Bonaventure, Blessed Angela of Foligno, Ubertino da Casale, Saint Teresa of Avila and elsewhere. He defends this total and universal Christocentrism as the most perfect doctrine, finding it in Saint Paul himself and Saint Francis.

Canfield is well aware of the enormous difficulty of this Christocentric mysticism, experienced in the crucified God-Man, as His humanity requires the use of images, while His divinity requires its annihilation. The problem is solved by the so-called ‘active annihilation,’ through which God Himself or His life-giving Spirit, in faith and pure love, annihilates every ‘human’ image in the depths of the spirit. It is certainly a difficult solution, but many other mystics, even among the great classics such as Ruusbroec and John of the Cross, do not offer a different or better one.

4) This Christocentrism does not lack Mary, who finds her place, as the ‘spiritual’ Mother of Christ, in us as well. Her and our motherhood are well expressed. This ‘Marian’ doctrine he could find in Francis and Clare of Assisi.

5) Finally, Benet of Canfield draws the final consequences of this Christocentrism by stating that our personal sufferings, borne like those of Christ, embody and humanise the mystery of the God-Man in our ‘crucified’ human life, thus divinising the more humble and mortified state of man. The same ‘Christianising’ mystery is realised in that the operation of the Holy Spirit in active annihilation ‘spiritualises’ – the word is Canfield’s – even our daily life, outside of prayer, that is, in our work, study, preaching, making it alive, or practiced as ‘spirit and life,’ as the sole will of God, as His pure love, in unity of spirit and heart with God Himself. In this way our whole life, inspired by the Will of God alone, becomes a true ‘contemplative’ life, even in the ordinary action of every day.

In this ‘mixed’ life of prayer and action, both equally inspired by the unique Will of God or by His pure love, Canfield and his French and Belgian Capuchin followers find the summit of perfection and also of the ‘mystical’ life itself. Mommaers has clearly highlighted this in Canfield’s doctrine: the author finds and experiences God rather in the heart of human reality, united with that of Christ, the crucified God-Man who continues to incarnate Himself, Christifying His members, particularly in their more ordinary and humble ‘states of life, that is, in their daily suffering.

The special importance of this author for Capuchin spirituality in France and Belgium – but also elsewhere – justifies this lengthy explanation of his mystical doctrine.

Source: The chosen texts are taken from the following works by Benoît de Canfield: Exercice de la Volonté de Dieu (approximately 1590), Règle de Perfection (1610) according to the critical edition of J. Orcibal, Benoît de Canfield. La Régle de Perfection. The Rule of Perfection. Edition critique publiée et annotée, Paris 1982 (the pp. will be indicated at the beginning of the individual passages). — The bibliography regarding this author is very vast. We propose some fundamental titles: J. Orcibal, Benoît de Canfield cit., 15-39 (Introduction); E. Gullick, The Life of Father Benet of Canfield, in CF 42 (1972) 39-67; id., Benet of Canfield: the Active and Contemplative Life, in Laurent. 13 (1972) 401-436; id., The Supereminent Life and the Passion in the Doctrine of Benet of Canfield, ibid. 15 (1974) 288-348; P. Mommaers, Beroît de Canfield: sa terminologie «essentielle», ses sources flamandes, in Rev. Asc. Myst. (dal 1972: Revue d’Histoire de la Spiritualité) 47 (1971) 421-454; 48 (1972) 37-68, 401-434; 49 (1973) 37-66; id., Benedictus van Canfield. Qver de navolging van Jezus in de mystieke beleving, Bonheiden 1980 (Dutch edition and commentary on the part of the Règle on the Passion); id., La Régle de Perfection de Benoît de Canfield, in Ons Geestelijk Erf 58 (1984) 247-275; K. Porteman, De mystieke Lyriek van Lucas van Mechelen, Gent 1977-1978 (spiritual environment around 1660 in France and Belgium); id., Nederlandse Mystici uit de 17e eeuw of de mystici van «den niet», in Ons Geestelijk Erf 47 (1973) 387407; id., Dwers door eenen duysteren nacht, in Kon. Academie voor Nederl. Taal en Letterkunde (1973) 104-186; Optat de Veghel, Benoît de Canfield (1562-1610). Sa vie, sa doctrine et son influence, Rome 1949; id., La spiritualité franciscaine du 16e au 18e siècle, in Laurent. 21 (1980) 94-109 (ambiente europeo); id., Le Christ crucifté, Dieu-Homme, dans la doctrine de Benoît de Canfield. Son christocentrisme contesté, ibid. 24 (1983) 328-430 (critical response to Orcibal); id., L’identité spirituelle de la Réforme, in La Réforme capucine (1525-1625). Un siècle de Renaissance franciscaine cit., 25-40; id., L’identité spirituelle des Capucins en France, ibid., 65-82 (sintesi); important also is the study of Kent Emery, Renaissance Dialectis and Renaissance Piety: Benet of Canfield’s Rule of Perfection. A Translation and Study (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 50). Binghamton, New York 1987 (the a. in a lengthy introduction explains the text’s history and content, confirming the fundamental continuity, from the beginning, of Christocentric doctrine, although he admits a late inclusion of the five chapters of the third part. Although he is not familiar with my latest studies, he significantly comes to the same conclusions as I do); also important are the studies and edition by Werner-Egen GroB, Benedikt von Canfield. Regel der Vollkommenheit. Ubersetzt und erliutert von Werner-Egen GroB, Werl/Westf., Dietrich-Coelde-Verlag, 1989.

1. The doctrine of annihilation (“anéantissement”)

The doctrine of annihilation set forth here applies to the entire spiritual life, that is, also to the third part of the Rule of Perfection. In it the two forms are distinguished, ‘intraction’ [the drawing within] of fruitful love, and ‘extraction’ [the drawing out] in practical love. Man, in the light of the Holy Spirit, in this annihilation realises that he is nothing and that without Christ he can do nothing.

Source: Benoît de Canfield, Exercice de la volonté de Dieu, chap. II; critical edition of J. Orcibal, Benoît de Canfield cit., 49s; text and commentary also in Optat van Asseldonk, Le Christ crucifié cit., 346-348.

9199 […] Furthermore, the perfection of total self-annihilation appears clearly in this path. In fact, man, through the living and effective operation of the divine will, is reduced to nothing both in his old man and in his new one.[1] As for the first, everything happens in such a way that it disappears. The new man, however, is so free from all necessity that he no longer operates from himself, but from God, for God, in God and with God. He does nothing actively, but is passive, that is, he is patient rather than active, more listener than speaker, and it is more easily done than when he tries to do it himself, and this happens mainly by indrawn [“intratto”[2]] and fruitful love.

Not that I want to give the impression that the powers of the soul remain impaired and that they do nothing at all. On the contrary, they act and operate more perfectly, producing sublime, marvellous and regulated acts. This sublime and perfect operation is so far from feeling and sensitive movement that it seems as if the soul remains in a certain idleness and rest without doing anything and almost does not notice it.

9200 This happens for four reasons: first, due to the disuse and rarity of this operation, since the soul is used to operating sensitively, while here it acts spiritually.

Second, due to the rarity and contrariety of this operation which comes from two strongly opposed principles, one of which is one’s own will, which is impetuous, turbulent and pathetic, and the other is God, who is sweet, peaceful and most gracious.

Third, by the living and effective operation and by the inaction or activity of the Spirit of God in the soul, in whose centre it dwells so suspended and alienated from itself that, as if deprived of all its strength, it suffers only the force and the violence of such inaction and operation without actually doing anything by itself and thus remains patient and non-active and is rather made for it not to do.

9201 Fourthly, this operation that is done in the will of God seems to be annihilated, for then one is transported into God by such a great and fervent love and so sunk, absorbed, and immersed in the immense sea of His divinity that, whichever way one looks at it, one sees nothing but God and can think nothing, imagine nothing, nor learn nor understand but Him alone.

In this abyss and absorption, the soul is lost and totally annihilated and cannot then produce any particular act, nor any other active operation, but as if idle in itself, it remains ready and willing to suffer divine embraces. And if sometimes this new man works in drawing outward [l’extraction[3]] or in practical love, he does not leave other than for having been annihilated, because he sees in the light of the Holy Spirit, with his own knowledge, that he is nothing and that it is not he who works, but Jesus Christ who lives in him[4] and who said that without Him nothing can be done.[5]

In this way the soul can rightly repeat with the Psalmist: I became nothing, and I understood nothing.[6]

2. Spiritual motherhood of Christ in Mary

In the second part of the Exercice de la Volonté de Dieu Canfield deals with the contemplative life also defined as ‘interior will’ which manifests itself in five degrees: manifestation, admiration, humiliation, exultation and elevation. In the third degree of humiliation, in a loving dialogue of the soul with Christ her Bridegroom, he mentions the spiritual motherhood of Christ in Mary, a theme familiar to both Francis and Clare of Assisi.

Source: Benoît de Canfield, Exercice de la Volonté de Dieu, chap. IV; ed. criticism of J. Orcibal, Benoît de Canfield cit., 73; text and commentary in Optatus van Asseldonk, Le Christ crucifié cit., 354-356.

9202 “[…] Let me make you my will, let me operate familiarly in you as a spouse. Let me work together with you since, according to the words that I have spoken to you, I will betroth you to me in faithfulness.”[7]

Then, having understood this mystery and as if completely mollified by the sweetness of her beloved and inflamed by His word, she responds in spirit with the blessed Virgin and says with her: Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.[8] And with this consent and obedience to the divine will, she being immediately united with this will, receives it into her soul and thus becomes the mother of Jesus Christ, as He Himself said: Whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, this is brother, sister and mother to me.[9]

Having thus spiritually conceived Him and being pregnant with Him, she cherishes Him, caresses Him, nourishes Him, raises Him, reveres Him and adores Him in her heart, as the Virgin Mother does in her body and so she is blessed, not for the breast that bore Him or the breasts that nursed Him, but because she heard the Word of God and kept it.[10]

Even if this conversation is not carried out expressly and with formal words, nevertheless tacitly and in spirit the substance and effect of these intentions occur within the soul.

3. The will of God is ‘spirit and life’

The Johannine words, so dear to Francis: “My words are spirit and life”,[11] appear at least 16 times in Canfield; up to 7 times in chapters VI and VII of the Exercice. In fact, union with the Will of God leads the soul to unity of spirit, of love, of heart, of will, to the experience of the ‘spirit and life’ of God.

Source: Benoît de Canfield, Exercice de la Volonté de Dieu, chap. VI; ed. criticism of J. Orcibal, Beroît de Canfield cit., 74; text and commentary in Optatus van Asseldonk, Le Christ crucifié, 357-359.

9203 The manifestation first shows the soul this true divine will as it is in God, making it truly taste, according to its capacity and by experience, what is of the spirit and life. This is something that so surpasses all understanding that there is neither spirit nor doctrine that can wait for it, since naturally the limits of nature cannot be overcome. But to know spirit and life, one must be in spirit and life, that is, be spirit and life. And this is superior to nature and exceeds its limits. It is clear then that from this level of manifestation, which first shows us the will of God, which is spirit and life, it follows that it elevates us.

4. Spousal unity with God in Christ with Mary

The text is taken from the third part of the official Règle de Perfection of 1610 which deals with mystical intimate union (‘suréminente’), that is, with the essential Will of God where no human means can reach, but only divine ones. And it is in this context that Benet of Canfield returns to the theme of spousal motherhood already strongly present in the Exercice and in the first two parts of the Règle. The text is of great importance in the mystical doctrine of the English Capuchin.

Source: Benoît de Canfield, Régle de Perfection III, chap. V; ed. Criticism of J. Orcibal, Benoît de Canfield, 361-364; text and commentary in Optatus van Asseldonk, Le Christ crucifié, 383-387. It should be noted that the editorial transformations are marked in the original French text, where the words in italics refer to the edition of Osmont, while those in square brackets reproduce the expressions of the official edition of 1610.

9204 Blessed is the soul that experiences within itself this manifestation, this fullness and denouement, that is, the manifestation of the desired thing, the fulfillment of desires and their vanishing, realities that necessarily alternate with each other.

Happy is the soul that so manifestly sees the Bridegroom within itself and is so fully filled with Him that it allows its particular desires and acts to vanish in Him; that is, such a soul is truly very happy, since in this manifestation it sees Him, where and how in her he rests. ‘In meridie,’[12] that is, in the ardour of His love and abundance of His clarity.

In this fullness she sees herself completely taken up and possessed by her Bridegroom who is so connected into her and clothed with her as with a garment,[13] that from that moment all the forces of the soul are gathered to receive Him, are occupied in Him and used to linger with Him. And so completely filled with Him she is like the pregnant bride and as if she had conceived Jesus, according to His words: Quicumque faterit voluntatem Patris mei, qui in coelis est, ille meus frater, et soror, et mater est (Mat. 12; Mk. 3); whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and my sister, and my mother.[14]

In this emptying of desires, she remains fixed in the abyss of the divinity of her much desired and loving Bridegroom. She lacks nothing good after that manifestation; no sweetness she finds outside herself after such fullness; after this emptying, every impediment of union has disappeared.

9205 In this manifestation she sees her Bridegroom completely naked, in this fullness she welcomes Him within herself, and completely stripped by this emptying she joins Him,[15] naked like Him. Every goodness is shown to the eyes of the bride who becomes ecstatic with wonder; every sweetness and suavity is infused into the most secret and loving parts of her interior, which melts into sweetness; almost all her secrets are revealed to Him that makes her astonished. Nothing is more beautiful than this vision, nor as delightful as this suavity, nor as intimate as this embrace.

How glorious it is to contemplate the nakedness of one’s God! How sweet it is when the soul unites with God and makes room for Him between her breasts![16] What a noble act is this unique and sweet operation in her, without doing anything other than suffering her inactivity! O what immense beauty shines forth in this vision in which the divine face is discovered smiling lovingly upon the soul! What sweetness it feels when, both naked, they embrace each other! What suavity penetrates all her powers and infuses the soul, when her groom’s left hand is under her head and His right hand embraces her[17] and with a lively and divine touch operates in the innermost parts of her being!

Certainly no one can know such beauty, nor imagine such a sweet touch, except the one who has experienced it, or rather not even him, except in the moment in which he is currently experiencing it.

5. The most perfect contemplation

This passage proves how, even in the highest contemplation, one must never leave the crucified Christ, in His dual state of God-Man (per modum unius).

Source: Benoît de Canfield, Régle de Perfection III, chap. XX; ed. Criticism of J. Orcibal, Benoît de Canfield, 4615; text and commentary in Optatus van Asseldonk, Le Christ crucifié, 399-402.

9206 Touching on this point, I found to my great surprise formally the same proposition in the writings of some saintly figures, such as St. Bonaventure (Stimulus divini amoris, Part I, ch. 4), St. Francis (Chronicle of the Friars Minor, Book I, ch. 10) and Mother Teresa (in her Life, ch. 22), namely, that there is no need to leave the Passion for higher contemplation.

In particular, our father St. Francis says that the pure soul seeks to transform itself in the sufferings of Jesus Christ, reputing all other ways as mortal foods and this only as medicine, bitter to the taste, but the most tasty in its fruit and sweetest in its operation, since here it is proved that his love is well found only in His charitable Passion, and that the more it is transformed into the high and glorious God, the more humanity cannot be separated from divinity. And so, the soul contemplates one and the other state of its God, so that it is never separated from Him (as would happen if it abandoned Him in His Passion), and considers Him mortal and immortal.

Finally, it is seen that God communicates His grace to those who follow Him in the aforementioned way. On the contrary, He rejects those presumptuous ones who say they want to unite themselves with Him through other fanciful ways, and yet they never come out of themselves, so much so that in the end they find themselves off track. Thus said this blessed father and great contemplative.[18]

6. The Passion of Christ contemplated within oneself

Benet of Canfield, basing himself on the principle that we are Christ by union of spirit and will, of love and grace, shows that it is better to contemplate Christ crucified more in our inner selves and in our sufferings than in Jerusalem. Here the English mystic shows himself to be very concrete as he seeks to embody true mystical life in the profoundly human reality of our sufferings, finding the most perfect deification precisely in our suffering and wounded humanity. And the discovery that the most divine wisdom is not only in the folly of the cross, but also in our cross united with his.

Source: Benoît de Canfield, Régle de Perfection III, chap. XVIII, ed. Criticism of J. Orcibal, Benoît de Canfield, 451-454; partial text and commentary in Optatus van Asseldonk, Le Christ crucifié, 410-415.

9207 Having shown that it is indeed possible to contemplate the Passion of Jesus Christ in us, we need to see why it is better to do so instead of imagining and contemplating Him in His sorrows suffered in Jerusalem.

The actual suffering that we feel in ourselves is a more vivid image of the Passion of Jesus Christ than that imagined and felt outside of us, contemplated outside of us, because experiencing the headache or other body parts makes me better and more vividly know and feel the pains of a friend who suffers in the same way, than speculating from hearsay. Thus, feeling the suffering in me that Jesus our head felt, makes me understand His pain more vividly than only by exploring it intellectually. Therefore St. Bonaventure[19] says in reference to this passion: Per passtones addiscit homo compati patienti; through sufferings one learns to suffer with those who suffer.

If in our sufferings we contemplate the Passion outside of ourselves, it seems that this causes multiplicity, as the soul passes from its own sufferings to those of Jesus Christ; but finding it perfectly in ourselves, we look at it only as a simple object of the two sufferings, and by this means we reduce all its practice to the interior, to its internal exercise, which is a remarkable progress. To look at the Passion in our sufferings is an excellent battle, but to see it in ourselves presupposes an absolute victory.

9208 Moreover, the purpose for which we contemplate the Passion of Jesus Christ is to make us conform to it, but by thus regarding the Passion in our sufferingss, we conform to it by a voluntary and joyful acceptance of them in union and contemplation of those of Jesus Christ. In this way by this gazing on the Passion in our sufferings we achieve the goal of the contemplation of the Passion.

Furthermore, there are many who cannot, except with difficulty and briefly, represent the Passion of our Lord in their imagination, but there is no one who cannot do so with the feeling of their own sufferings, since not everyone possesses a vivid imaginative apprehension, but everyone has a lively feeling of their own afflictions.

So, if in our sufferings we look to the Passion of Jesus Christ outside of us, we seem to turn our backs and refuse to suffer, going towards Him more often to find our consolation, rather than out of true love for Him. On the contrary, seeing Him in our sufferings within us, we easily embrace the bitterness as His and eagerly await the point of affliction as if this would nail us and hang us with Him on the cross.

9209 The union that is realised through the sufferings that are in us is much closer than the bitterness that are outside of us, and it is also much truer and more perfect because the sufferings are really there and not because of a distant memory.

It is a way of showing Jesus who is actually and vividly suffering, because the pains are present and alive; the other way does not accomplish this so perfectly.

With the first, one learns to see in each suffering Jesus Christ who suffers within us, and this is the first object of view; with the other, however, one’s own affliction is presented as the first object, from close up, and Jesus as from a distance.

In short, in the first way the union is not interrupted by affliction, because there one discerns the sweet Jesus who suffers in us; in the other way, however, it seems exactly the opposite, because we look at Him as suffering outside of us and this is why the holy person already mentioned says that we must contemplate our Lord who suffers in His Passion within us.[20]

Therefore, founded on the Holy Scripture, the Doctors and the reasons attached above, one must remain fixed in perseverance in our suffering as in those of Jesus Christ, without doubting or intellectually searching whether it is the Passion of Jesus Christ or not, as the unenlightened soul does. And it will be easy on condition of being truly faithful to the cross, that is, cordially wanting to suffer tribulation and not wanting to be consoled, and then all doubt will vanish.

9210 And one should not venture into this practice without being weaned from the breast of consolation and resolved to pursue this point of bitterness. Some, on the other hand, would like, yes, to suffer on the cross with Jesus Christ, but with the intention ut lapides isti panes fiant,[21] that is, that these bitternesses be immediately changed into sweetnesses, and while they make believe that they love the cross they instead reject it and so are very far from seeing Jesus Christ there, as abhorring the cross is as far from bringing reverence to it, or detesting it like a serpent is as far from embracing it as a desirable good.

On the other hand, one must be careful that to contemplate Jesus Christ in us in this way, one must not contemplate anything but pains and sufferings, for to seek or admit sensible consolation would be like opening the door to fraud.

Let us therefore take all pains and sufferings not as our own, but as those of Jesus Christ, who is seen and contemplated as He is nailed to the cross and is crucified in us, casting every pain, affliction and suffering of body and soul into the fire and flames of Jesus’ torments, where they will be consumed and united with His; then it will be possible to say with St. Paul: Christo confixus sum cruci, I am crucified on the cross with Jesus Christ,[22] and His exhortation will be fulfilled: Hoc sentite in vobis quod et in Christo Jesu, you will feel in yourselves the same pains that were in Jesus Christ.[23]

9211 And do not think that it is presumption to thus recognise and contemplate God in our sufferings; indeed, on the contrary, a whole multitude of virtues are accompanied and confirmed by this truth.

And in the first place, there shines forth a great self-denial that not only makes one despise oneself and accept affliction, shame and bitterness with patience, but makes one embrace them with joy and affection. There is then a great fidelity towards the heavenly Bridegroom in that the soul not only recognises Him in itself, but also in His creature who embraces Him amidst the thorns of stinging afflictions, who admires His greatness in his own littleness, who honours Him in his poverty and shame.

And how much resignation is found in this practice of accepting the chalice in that way! What courage in enduring it that way! What patience in suffering in that way! And what confidence in casting oneself thus among the thorns! What a fire of charity to throw oneself like that into the flames of tribulation! And how much constancy in not wanting to escape from it, but to annihilate ourselves in order to exalt Him in our hearts, as the psalmist says, “Man will penetrate into the depths of the heart, and God will be exalted”[24]; and to make it live there, die, like those who said, “We have had an answer to death within ourselves.”[25]

9212 This presumption cannot find a place within us because of seeing in it the Passion of our Lord, for before we can thus discern it, we must find ourselves detached from ourselves as from a foreign person by means of a total renunciation of self and complete acceptance of bitterness and affliction, and then one does not take any account of oneself because of the presence of God seen within us.

But on this theme of Jesus on the cross in us, you may read chap. 32 of our book Chevalier Chrestien, second part.[26]

7. The divine wisdom of the cross on the summit of pure suffering

In contemplating the Passion of Christ imprinted in our hearts, Canfield allows, even in the mystical path ‘suréminente’ or of the essential will of God, the use of the images of Christ crucified, and suggests that we must internally recognise the greatest pains suffered by us where “the simple and poor form and image of Jesus crucified” best appears and there to seek the deepest point of bitterness and pain, so as to desire only the pure love of the Crucified and the naked union with the Spouse, without self-love. It is in this search that the true mystery and divine wisdom of the cross is discovered.

Source: Benoît de Canfield, Régle de Perfection, INI, chap. XIX; ed. Criticism in J. Orcibal, Benoît de Canfield, 457s; test and commentary in Optatus van Asseldonk, Le Christ crucifté, 416s.

9213 Furthermore, not only must one simply and faithfully accept this form or image of contempt or bitterness, but whoever wants to adhere to Jesus Christ crucified must also reach the acme of this contempt or bitterness, that is, the most acute and painful point, which derives from a triple affliction, temporal, corporal or spiritual, each of which has correspondence with the heart through the bitterness and contrariness of nature. It is this internal bitterness that I call the point of affliction. It must be particularly admired, accepted and pursued as the key that opens the secret room of the treasures of divine wisdom and the profound mysteries of this Passion.

And should it be blunted and rejected by consolation, it must be sharpened again by recalling the same afflictions, presenting them anew before the eyes of the soul. If this is not done and one abandons oneself to consolation, the soul will never be instructed by this wisdom; and it is precisely here that many souls are lost, for they begin to contemplate Jesus Christ on the cross and in bitterness; but as soon as He shows Himself to them according to their desire, they abandon themselves to the sight and contemplation of Him alone without His cross and reject His painful anguish, and thus do not immerse themselves in the abyss of this mystery and neither penetrate nor learn the admirable and unknown wisdom hidden therein.

It is regarding this point of affliction that it is said: Vexatio dabit intellectum,[27] affliction will open understanding; it is the gall that restores the sight that the dung of this world has ruined;[28] it is the eye ointment with which one must anoint the eyes to see well.[29]

8. Active annihilation in the simple passive vision of the incarnate and crucified One

In the contemplation of Christ crucified, God-Man, Canfield resorts to active annihilation, which serves to give in the depths of the soul a simple and naked view, by naked faith, beyond every image. It is a vision that is realised by the work of the Spirit of God and His ‘essential’ will, which is purely the spirit and life of God in us.

Source: Benoît de Canfield, Règle de Perfection III, chap. X; and XIX; ed. criticism in J. Orcibal, Benoît de Canfield, 396s, 458s, where the editorial transformations are marked, with the words in italics for the Osmont edition and in square brackets for the expressions of the official edition of 1610; text and commentary in Optatus van Asseldonk, Le Christ crucifié, 418-421.

9214 We must be so perfectly united with this essence that our gaze is always continuous and not distracted, that is, not interrupted, and thus no particular act will be needed to continue it, since the soul must be so absorbed in it and so far from any movement precisely so that its gaze is only passive in the gaze of God. Not that its gaze does not see God, but it must remain as if drawn out by the soul by from this goodness and life, and not operated by it, in such a way that the soul remains perfectly passive and in its nothingness, except a simple remembrance of Him; as if this gaze were elsewhere and not in the soul, and is in him, like the fish in the sea[30] and the bird in the air; and with respect to which the gaze of the soul must be passive, remaining in its nothingness, that is, this gaze must be extracted from it by the work of this divine goodness, and not sent by the soul.

9215 Relevant similitude: In the same way that the sun striking a diaphanous body, that is, transparent like water, glass and crystal, produces and attracts a mutual splendour from it and towards it, so God striking the soul with the rays of His gaze, attracts a mutual gaze towards Himself; but just as this mutual splendour of water and crystal does not come from them alone by their virtue, but primarily from the sun, so this perfect gaze does not start primarily from the soul or from some act of its own, but from God. And just as this splendour is not the splendour of water, but of the sun, and by penetrating and making luminous the water it returns towards the sun, so the light of this gaze is not from the soul, but from God, who, being spirit and life and limpid light, penetrates and makes bright the soul, and thus returns to Him and from time to time draws the soul with Him and it thus becomes one with Him […].[31]

9216 The soul, being in this state, must contemplate and reverence God profoundly in this image, no more and no less than if it were to see Him in heaven, without any difference; it must not desire to see Him in any other way, but consider itself most happy and most unworthy to be admitted to see its God in this lowliness and to discover therein the sublimity of His mystery.

And it must take care not to desire a sensible union, but to remain fixed on the rock of living faith, and it must not raise its spirit beyond this lowliness, where, remaining constant and stable, it will find the Most High. And it must not seek nor desire God, but with all certainty and truth persuade itself that it has found Him, and behave before Him as before His throne, and not hesitating, but leaning on the truth, and not believing in the senses, but in faith, and not becoming introverted, but annihilating itself before God, avoiding every act of the intellect, except a simple and lively remembrance of this great crucified All, as has been said in chap. 10 and 13,[32] following the doctrine of St Bonaventure who, in dealing with this Passion, says that in order to be transformed in it one must interrupt every natural and intellectual operation and make room for the affection and present oneself before Him in a passive state, allowing oneself to do what pleases Him, whether He wants to draw it to Himself or manifest it to Himself with a greater light, or leave it in its state.[33]

9217 They must avoid any active behaviour and above all the desire to change the simple form with which He manifests Himself to the soul, which instead must allow itself to be changed and formed at will by this very form. And note that these desires to want to see Him in a different way are the real cause why the soul does not see Him as admirable as He is, for they take away the constancy and firm rest in this form and drive away the deep reverence and honour that the soul owes to Him and also the conviction that God is there. Lastly, one must not be discouraged in remaining like this before the suffering Jesus.

Here then are the imperfections in this practice of the holy Passion. It seemed useful to me to repeat them here briefly, even though the imperfections of the annihilation are already found in the aforementioned chapters, and it will not be difficult to avoid them, as long as we do not lack the foundation of faith, that is, to believe without hesitation that this Crucified is who He is; and then we will deduce that we are nothing and He is everything and will draw us and absorb us into Himself, like the rod of Aaron that swallows up the others[34] and like the serpent that lifted up in the desert of this world draws all things to Himself.[35]

9. Contemplation of our sufferings as those of the Crucified Christ Himself

The book Chevalier Chrétien, composed by Benet of Canfield in England around 1600 and published in Paris in 1609, seems to have had little influence. However, it already contains a clear Christocentrism, whose centre is the God-Man in the mystery of his hypostatic union. The text reproduced here speaks of our sufferings lived and experienced as belonging to the crucified Christ Himself. It is a ‘Canfieldian’ doctrine, therefore, already present and practised by the English mystic in the 1600s.

Source: Benoît de Canfield, Chevalier Chrétien, Paris, chez Castellain, 1609, 440-443; the text, among several others cited, is taken from Optatus van Asseldonk. Le Christ crucifié, 381s.

9218 The third ascent is the transformation into the cross and Passion of Jesus Christ, and it is when one can truthfully say: Christo confixus sum cruci, vivo autem ego, iam non ego, vivit vero in me Christus,[36] I am crucified with Jesus Christ, and it is no longer I who now live, but Christ lives in me.

This ascent moreover can have its steps according to the measure of the perfection of this transformation. Now there is a summit to recognise Jesus Christ in the sufferings and evils that are suffered, and to this degree one sees the sweet lamb suffering with indescribable tenderness of heart and one raises very high the banner of the cross and the Passion by contemplating it and as it were placing it and locating it in the Son of God and here one begins to discover the wonders of the cross.

9219 But an even higher degree is when, out of love and deified suffering, one is so clothed with the Passion of Jesus Christ and so closely unites one’s own sufferings with His, that one recognises Him, sees Him and admires Him so simply, truly and really in both, without any difference. Here the soul enters into heaven and gazes fixedly upon the Bridegroom, ubi pascat, ubi cubit in meridie,[37] where it grazes, where it rests in the noontide, and sees God no less admirable outside itself than in itself. Here the Passion rises even more sublime, at the sight of the King of glory below it and how He, the living God, has taken it for His glory and loved it more than His life.

9220 The third degree is when one so truly, simply and truly adores God in this cross as in His throne, in this ignominy as in His glory, in this weakness as in His power, without deducting anything from the whole, since it is, in both the one and the other, the same person. When, I say, one so deeply adores His lowliness, poverty and afflictions as His sublimity, riches and happiness; when one finally reverences Him with equally deep veneration, blasphemed by men and praised by angels, spat upon by Jews and adored by saints, suffering on earth and reigning in heaven, cruelly killed and triumphant with magnificence, without any difference and without any hesitation.

9221 And this degree wonderfully elevates the cross and the Passion, bringing our sufferings up to heaven, and making as an upside down world, puts prosperity, glory, honour, riches, pleasures, happiness and life under adversity, ignominy, contempt, poverty afflictions, miseries, and death, raising these up to heaven, and lowering those down to the mire, worshipping the former in the person of God and trampling down the latter as their opposites, embracing those which unite it closely to God and rejecting the latter which distance it from Him; and here is the sublimity of the doctrine of the cross, by which alone, without any other science, St Paul (as he says) [became] Doctor Gentium, teacher of the Gentiles[38]; and as the Church also says: Praedicator veritatis in universo mundo, announcer of the truth in the whole world[39]; bearing in mind that he himself said: Non enim iudicavi me scire aliquid inter vos, nisi Iesum Christum, et hunc crucifixum; I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.[40]

  1. Pauline expressions. Cf. Rm 6:6; Eph 4:22-23; Col 3:9-10. ↑
  2. We use this term from Bellintani (cf. vol. III/1, nn. 4352-4353) to translate intraction, also because it is probable that Canfield read the first French translation of the Pratica dell’orazion mentale, (the Practice of Mental Prayer), written by the Parisian Jacques Gaultier and which appeared in Lyon in 1588 with the title: Practigue de l’oraison mentale ou contemplative (n.d.E.). ↑
  3. Other Bellintani terminology, as mentioned in the previous note. ↑
  4. Cf. Gal 2:20. ↑
  5. Cf. Jn 15:5. ↑
  6. Cf. Ps 72:22 (Vulg.): Ego ad nihilum redactus sum, et nescivi. ↑
  7. Cf. Hos 2:22: Et sponsabo te mihi in fide. ↑
  8. Lk 1:38. ↑
  9. Mk 12:49. ↑
  10. Cf. Lk 11:27-28. ↑
  11. Jn 6:64. ↑
  12. Cf. Songs 1:6: Indica mihi, quem diligit anima mea, ubi pascas, ubi cubes in meridie. (Do not gaze at me because I am swarthy, because the sun has scorched me.) ↑
  13. Probable allusion to Rev 12:1: A woman clothed with the sun, especially since Canfield later speaks of the pregnant bride, which refers to the next verse: She was pregnant and cried out in labour pains. ↑
  14. Cf. Mt 12:50; MK 3:35. ↑
  15. As Harphius also expressed it in his Theologia mystica (I p., c. 134, ed. 1538, f. 125 F): “Nuda naked sponsa jungitur, ab omni affectione et intentione peregrina purata.” ↑
  16. Cf. Songs 1:12 (Vulg): Dilectus meus mihi, inter ubera mea commorabitur. ↑
  17. Cf. Songs 8:3; 2:6: «His left hand is under my head and his right hand embraces me». ↑
  18. For the cited quotations cf. the pseudo-Bonaventurian Stimulus amoris I, chap. 4.5 (S. Bonaventure, Opera omnia, ed. Péltier, XII, Paris 1868, 650); Marco da Lisbona, Delle Croniche de’ Frati Minori, Book I, chapter. 87, Venice 1583, 163: but the phrase is taken from the Arbor vitae crucifixae Jesu by Ubertino da Casale; S. Teresa di Gesù, Vita, c. 22 (Ed. Paoline, Alba 1957, 190-200). ↑
  19. It is the pseudo-Bonaventurian treatise, but by Giacomo da Milano, Stimulus divini amoris, pars I, ch. 2, instructio 3 (S. Bonaventure, Opera omnia, XII, Paris 1868, 636). ↑
  20. This is a reference to St. Pietro d’Alcantara in his Trattato dell’orazione e meditazione. Cf. French ed. edited by Ubald d’Alençon: Pierre d’Alcantara, Traitè de l’oraison et de la méditation, Paris 1923, 133s. However, St. Pietro d’Alcantara speaks of contemplating the Passion as if it were taking place in our own hearts and not of contemplating our own sufferings as if they were Christ’s. ↑
  21. Cf. Mt 4:3. ↑
  22. Cf. Gal 2:20. ↑
  23. Cf. Phil 2:5. ↑
  24. Cf. Ps 63:7-8 (Vulg.): Accedet homo ad cor altum, et exaltabitur Deus. ↑
  25. Cf. 2 Cor 1:9: Ipsi in nobismetipsis responsum mortis habuimus. ↑
  26. See further on, nos. 9218-9221. ↑
  27. Is 28:19. ↑
  28. Cf. Tb 11:4,8,13-15. ↑
  29. Cf. Rev 3:18. ↑
  30. The same thought is found in Harphius, Collatio 2a, ed. 1538, f. 180 D: «In quam felicissimam introversionem, immersionem et absorptionem, velut minimus pisciculus in immensam pelagi huius vastitatem, unusquisque cum spiritu suo natare studeat… in illam divinam caliginem». ↑
  31. Note the very bold doctrine, although tempered by the interventions of the official edition of 1610. But, as Mommaers notes, the intent of Canfield’s original text emphasizes the fact that here the soul must see with a gaze that is not its own, since at this contemplative level there is only the gaze of God that rests on the soul that has become a spotless mirror, which is drawn by this divine ray into the unity of the same gaze. The source could be found in Harphius’ Eden (chap. 30): the mystic loses consciousness of his eye, since he finds himself drowned in the divine light. In the supreme degree of contemplation of God, only the gaze of God remains: “Sic ergo Deus Deo mediate comprehenditur et videtur” (cf. P. Mommaers, Benoît de Canfield cit., 4408). ↑
  32. Here are the original titles of these two chapters respectively: “Des empêchements de cette annihilation et de très subtiles et inconnues imperfections de contemplation.” “Des imperfections cu empêchements de cette annihilation active.” ↑
  33. Canfield refers to Saint Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum where it reads: “In hoc autem transitu, si sit perfectus, oportet quod relinquantur omnes intellectuales operationes, et apex affectus totus transferatur et transformetur in Deum” (Itin. mentis VII, 4: Opera omnia V, Quaracchi 1891, 312). ↑
  34. Cf. Ex 7:2. ↑
  35. Cf. Jn 12:32. ↑
  36. Gal 2:20. ↑
  37. Cf. Songs 1:7. (Vulg. 1,6). ↑
  38. Cf. 1 Tim 2:7. ↑
  39. In the liturgy of the feast of the Apostle. ↑
  40. 1 Cor 2:2. ↑