According to Albertus Magnus, aka ‘Albert the Great’, teacher to Thomas Aquinas. , asserts the following:

By reminiscence, sense, and imagination, the intellect proceeds from potentiality to actuality. When it acquires scientia (knowledge) it is the intellectus adeptus, (acquired intellect). Only by means of sense perceptions in the light of the active intellect can the possible intellect become actual, but when it has received all that which it understands, it has the light of the active intellect adhering to it in form; and when it becomes its own light, the active intellect clings to the possible in form.[1]

Countless mystics have repeated this point; my intent here is also an essential tool for your satchel.

My spiritual friend, this gift of the Holy Spirit was lacking in the Samaritan women at the well, pointed out to her by Christ. This was also non-active many of the Jewish community during Christ’s ministry.  

Now as to why we may not avail ourselves to discernment; previously we discussed and dealt with resentment, and other variant forms of hard-heartedness. In years past, about this time, we dealt with the “Heart’s Hearth”. Now I would like to address another aspect, that of covetousness.

In the very early 1900’s there was a Dominican named Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange O.P., who was the instructor of many who were instrumental in not only spiritual renewal, but a part of Vatican II.

Now he writes:

The pressing need of devoting ourselves to the consideration of the one thing necessary is especially manifest in these days of general chaos and unrest, when so many men and nations, neglecting their true destiny, give themselves up entirely to acquiring earthly possessions, failing to realize how inferior these are to the everlasting riches of the spirit.

Yet Augustine’s saying is so clearly true, that ‘material goods, unlike those of the spirit, cannot belong wholly and simultaneously to more than one person.’ [1] The same house, the same land, cannot belong completely to several people at once, nor the same territory to several nations. Now herein lays the reason of that unhappy conflict of interests which arises from the feverish quest of these earthly possessions.

While, on the other hand, as Augustine often reminds us, the same spiritual treasure can belong in its entirety to all men, and at the same time to each, without any disturbance of peace between them. Indeed, the more there are to enjoy them in common the more completely do we possess them. The same truth, the same virtue, the same God, can belong to us all in like manner, and yet none of us embarrasses his fellow-possessors. Such are the inexhaustible riches of the spirit that they can be the property of all and yet satisfy the desires of each. Indeed, only then do we possess a truth completely when we teach it to others, when we make others share our contemplation; only then do we truly love a virtue when we wish others to love it also; only then do we wholly love God when we desire to make Him loved by all. Give money away, or spend it, and it is no longer yours. Yet give God to others, and you possess Him more fully for yourself. We may go even further and say that, if we desired only one soul to be deprived of Him, if we excluded only one soul – even the soul of one who persecutes and calumniates us – from our own love, then God Himself would be lost to us.

Oh my spiritual friend, there is truly but few and quite feeble at that, that I could utter to attach to such profound and well articulated words. What I can say, is that the time is now for you to examine yourself and prepare for the season, which is well upon us, and make ready a place for Him within you.

I see I have spent more of your time rambling again, do forgive me. As we get older, there seems to so much that we need to give away to those who either may have need or will dispose of appropriately.

May His Peace be with you,

Bro. Smith SGS

P.S.

New book “Mystical Poetry of Ramon Lull”  ISBN# 978-1-936392-29-2  

[1] This is taken from one of his works to appear in 2013, “Cologne Cadre Series’, Vol. 3