Where are you on the path: Purgative Way → Inner Purification → Spiritual Age 8
What happens in the soul?
Many of the things that the world offers no longer satisfy the soul as before.
It doesn’t just happen because you’ve decided to reject them. You have begun to experience something different: the sweetness of God.
And when comparing that experience with temporary satisfactions, they progressively lose their appeal.
Then a deeper desire for the eternal is born.
The action of the Good Lord
God allows the soul to taste something of His presence.
And that encounter silently begins to change the scale of values. There is no need to despise the world: it simply stops seeming enough.
How does the soul respond?
The soul cares less about how others see the soul. The desire to own things decreases, prefers simplicity and loses interest in recognition.
The soul also begins to discover a taste for silence.
Even when you lose something you would have previously considered important, you are able to retain a peace you previously did not have.
The world goes on around; what changes is the power it exercises over the heart.
The prayer
Meditative prayer continues to get deeper.
The soul finds greater and greater pleasure in remaining with the Good Lord. The Word illuminates the difference between that which is temporary and that which remains.
Silence also begins to acquire a new value: it is no longer just the absence of noise, but a space where it is easier to search for God.
Signs that may accompany this age
• Less concern for the opinions of others.
• Decreased desire to possess.
• Preference for a simple life.
• Growing taste for silence.
• Less need for recognition.
• Peace even when things are lost.
A phrase to remember
“What filled me before begins to seem small.”
Where does it lead
After changing its relationship with goods and with the world, the Good Lord illuminates something that the soul carries with it everywhere: its own history.