Your Initiation

From spiritual boyhood to manhood

Men today aren’t taught about the three stages of the spiritual life. But just like the body develops from infancy through adolescence to manhood, the soul also has its own progression, as explained by spiritual writers like St. Thomas, St. Catherine of Siena and St. John of the Cross.

Understanding the path you’re on is critical to being able to walk it well. So this three-part series, based on Lagrange’s The Three Ages of The Interior Life, will outline what to expect along the way and how to handle it. Without this knowledge, too many men get discouraged by difficulties instead of recognising them as an essential part of the process. In this article, we’ll cover the beginner phase and what stops people getting out of it.

Often the spiritual life begins with a painful crisis. There’s a lot of wisdom packed into the word ‘crisis.’ It’s the Latinized form of the Greek krisis, meaning a turning point in a disease, indicating either recovery or death. Literally, it means ‘result of a trial’, from krinein ‘to separate, decide, judge.’

A midlife crisis, for example, is a turning point towards either spiritual recovery or death. A man puts his whole life on trial and must, as the judge of it, decide what’s worthwhile, separating the good from the bad so he can live with strength and honour. The Germans call this Torschlusspanik, literally "shut-door-panic," fear of being on the wrong side of a closing gate.

Ultimately, in the spiritual life, this is the gate of hell. And after our first conversion from the state of sin to the state grace either by baptism or — if we’ve lost baptismal innocence — by contrition and sacramental absolution, we’re on the purgative way of beginners.

This is because God has taken the first step towards us. Man cannot take a single step towards the heavens by his own power alone. God must descend. And just like a farmer tills the soil before planting seeds in it, God prepares the soul for the divine seed of grace.

Pain is His plough. It’s how we begin to know ourselves — our frailty, poverty and neediness — more fully. Faults we were never aware of before start becoming clearer to us. We also develop a fear of sin and start trying to discipline our appetites better so that we are their masters, not their slaves.

But the experience isn’t pure pain. We also become more sensitive to God in nature and in the parables. We understand that we are the Prodigal Son or the Lost Sheep. And as we respond to God’s call, we are sometimes rewarded by consolations in prayer or in the study of the things of God.

These consolations are how God encourages us in our new ways by directing us away from dangerous things towards Himself. He knows that at this stage we live largely by our sensibility, so he wants to win us over using it. As St. Paul says, the beginner needs milk, not meat.

But often these pleasant consolations make us become complacent. We forget that they’re not an end in themselves but are instead merely a means to help us further along the journey. If we become too attached to them, they halt our progress.

Spiritual greed then arises. We want more of the pleasant experiences, or we boast about having experienced them. We take them as a sign that we are special. Spiritual masters, even. And so, pridefully, we set ourselves up as experts under the pretext of doing good to others.

This, as St. John of the Cross warns, is when the seven deadly sins appear again, worse than ever before — in the order of spiritual things. A man is no longer proud of his salary or whatever but of his spiritual state, forming a serious obstacle to piety. He thinks everyone needs to hear his opinion and know about his experiences.

Social media presents particular dangers here. Yes, it’s good that you’ve realised contraception is gay and you need to pray. No, you don’t need to start your own men’s group. Cardinal Newman specifically warned against converts setting themselves up as teachers: ‘a convert comes to learn.’

For our own benefit, God then removes the consolations causing our complacency and arrogance. He wants us to better recognise our own neediness. And if, despite this purgation, we still desire God, fear offending Him and feel inclined to pray simply out of love no matter the difficulty involved in concentrating, we know that’s it’s a test to help us grow.

By this purgation, Lagrange says, ‘the soul is cured of its spiritual greed and of the pride that had led it to pose as a master.’ You might also experience difficulties in your other activities or perhaps even your relationships as well. God doesn’t want you to have any idols: they’re bad for your soul.

You might also experience even stronger temptations against chastity and patience. This can be very disturbing for people, especially when you’re trying to be a better person, but the point of it is to allow you to grow in virtue. Being tempted isn’t a sin. Succumbing to temptation is.

God might even send you illness or other tough experiences — whatever’s necessary to uproot the evil weeds in the soil of your soul so that His grace can penetrate deeper. Some men need a lot of pain to finally recognise their own poverty and gain humility.

It’s important that you trust the process. This is the initiation into spiritual manhood that you want. Fleeing the flames will stop them from purifying you. As St John of the Cross describes the souls who don’t make it though the beginner phase,

‘When He proves them in small things and finds them weak and sees that they at once flee from labour and desire not to submit to the least discomfort or mortification.... He goes no farther with their purification... they would fain go farther on the road, yet cannot suffer the smallest things nor submit themselves to them.’

No pressure, no diamond.