p. 257Conclusion

In the First Part of this treatise we have gone through the various degrees of the purgative way; and in the Second Part we have led our soul in the paths of the illuminative way, of this way wherein the heart imbibes and reflects the light of all the Christian virtues. In the purgative way, the goal which the soul proposes to itself is the destruction of sin and the casting off of the thraldom under which it groans: in the illuminative way the practice of virtue is the luminous path which conducts the soul until it arrives by the unitive way at its last end, which is God, to whom it intimately unites itself by perfect charity.

The intention one proposes to himself in the first way is to purify his heart by self-knowledge, the detestation of sin, and repression of concupiscence; in the second way we strive after the acquisition of all virtues, but especially the moral ones. The means of acquiring them are: 1. The knowledge and the esteem of those virtues. 2. Frequent prayer to obtain them. 3. The constant exercise of interior and exterior acts which relate to them.

1. This genuine and practical knowledge of virtue is derived from daily fervent meditation and the exercise of retreat. These two subjects form the matter of the second and sixth chapters.

2. In the fourth chapter we excite ourselves to an ardent and fervent desire of frequent communion, which imparts such efficacy to our petitions for the acquisition of virtue.

3. And lastly, we learn constantly to make acts of it in the considerations on the perfection of our ordinary actions, interior recollection, and the particular examen, which form the objects of the first, third, and fifth chapters.

It is clear, therefore, that this Second Part refers to the illuminative way, since we there find the means of knowing and esteeming virtue according to its value, of fervently imploring it, of assiduously exercising ourselves in acts of it, and, in a word, of acquiring it in a perfect degree, which is the end of this way.

If we employ with docility the six means traced out for us, if we are faithful to tread in the illuminative way, soon having acquired solid virtue, and being perfected by the motives which we shall meditate in the Third Part, and which relate to the unitive way, we will become worthy to contract an intimate union with God.