The backbone of the Science of Sainthood is what many spiritual writers call the Three Stages or Ages of the spiritual life.

All the different facets and parts of Catholic spiritual life fit into these three stages: the Sacraments, Prayer, Sanctifying and Actual Grace, Grace, Virtues, Gifts of the Holy Spirit, etc… They all exist in the framework of these stages laid out for us by the the spiritual masters of the Church.

 They are:

1. The Purgative

2. The Illuminative

3. And the Unitive ways

In this video we'll begin to unpack what they are, and their absolute importance to progressing in the spiritual life.

WHAT THE SAINTS SAY:

“[The spiritual journey is] totally sustained by grace, which nonetheless demands an intense spiritual commitment and is no stranger to painful purifications (the 'dark night').

But it leads, in various possible ways, to the ineffable joy experienced by the mystics as 'nuptial union.'”

Pope St. John Paul II (Novo Millenio Inuente)

LECTIO DIVINA

"But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. 

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you."

Romans 8:9-11

MEDITATION

Our movement through the spiritual life can be boiled down to this: it is the movement from death to life...period.

And when St. Paul talks about our "bodies" being dead, he doesn't mean our physical bodies, so to speak. Remember, we are embodied persons. We are a union of body and soul.

Christ brings life because we become one with him.

And the more unified with him we are, the more we're alive. As St. Irenaeus declared way back in the second century, "the glory of God is man fully alive."

To grow in the spiritual life - to progress through the stages - is to grow in Christ. And just like Christ, we'll receive new, glorified bodies at the end of time. 

The process of deification through which we're now going will be complete. We will be children of God.

As Christ himself said, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 18:3).

_{Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain). (1994). The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic edition (Php 3:12–16). New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA.}

_{Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.}