Perceptive Faith

The words of an unknown Carthusian monk, first published sixty years ago.

From time to time God allows peace to well up from the spiritual depths of the soul and to pervade our sensitive nature, where it finds expression in sensible sweetness. But it is only felt at certain times because it is the habitual atmosphere of that secret part of ourselves that we call the summit of our soul. There is, as it were, a sudden up-spring which makes us conscious of it, because it then invades the more superficial parts of the soul, to which our gaze can penetrate more readily. Its presence in the depths of the soul is much more difficult to perceive, and to apprehend it calls for a faculty adapted to the purpose. This faculty we have, but we are not sufficiently accustomed to using it: it is faith. It is by faith that we perceive divine Truth, and in particular the presence and action of God within us; just as the eye perceives colour and form. Faith introduces us into another and higher world, that of God of which it is the light. Ask Jesus then, to make this wonderful light shine more and more in our hearts - this light which, little by little, becomes love, and which is the true life, the lumen vitae.