Where are you on the path: Purgative Way → Active purification of the senses → Spiritual age 3
What happens in the soul?
The conversion now begins to take shape in concrete life. It is no longer enough to have discovered that something must change: the soul begins to reorder its priorities, its goals and its way of living.
Sins and weaknesses may still remain, but the direction of life has changed. The person begins to wonder what things bring the person closer to the Good Lord and what things take Him away from Him.
Little by little, external habits begin to be ordered and life stops being a cause for scandal. A visible transformation begins, although still incomplete.
The action of the Good Lord
Grace illuminates what needs to be put in order and awakens in the soul the desire to live in a more consistent way with faith.
God does not transform everything at once. It progressively shows what needs to change and allows the person to begin to consciously collaborate with that transformation.
How does the soul respond?
Start making concrete decisions. Reorder times, priorities and behaviors, and begin to abandon that which clearly contradicts the life you wish to lead with the Good Lord.
It is a learning stage: the soul begins to understand that conversion is not only about feeling something new, but about learning to live in a new way.
The prayer
At this age Lectio Divina begins in a particular way: listening to the Word of God, meditating on it, praying on it and letting it transform one’s life.
Signs that may accompany this age
• Reordering of priorities.
• Visible changes in behavior.
• Desire to live with greater coherence.
• Greater attention to the Word of God.
• Beginning of new habits that help to get closer to God.
A phrase to remember
“My life has to start changing.”
Where does it lead
When life begins to be ordered, those desires, whims and habits that still dominate the soul appear more clearly. Thus begins the task of voluntarily renouncing what disorders us.