Purgative, Illuminative, Unitive

In my class on spiritual direction we are talking about the stages of spiritual development: The Purgative Stage, The Illuminative Stage and the Unitive Stage. These come from the writings of St. John of the Cross. The purgative is excited, animated, interested. This is the honeymoon. Then God calls us from that and the call feels like annoyance, boredom, resentment. The honeymoon is over. The new path becomes ordinary. This is the Illuminative way. The exciting, amazing God becomes real, comfortable and flawed. Then if we can persevere through this we enter the Unitive Stage. We are aware of our part on greater humanity. Others hurt and suffer. Faith transcends intellect. We may leave the church but we join the world.


Caregiving too has these stages. At the start we are scared but also excited. So much to do and so much to learn. Facts, science, vocabulary. Another world is revealed. We are initiated. Then reality sets in and ordinary time. We are tired, bored, resentful. But this too may be the call to ordinary fidelity to caregiving. The slog. Ken Wilbur writes about this as “Chronic isn’t interesting”. If we survive this we begin to enter compassion with the world. Everyone has something. There is death and grief all around. But rather than be depressed we see the joy that exists in being part of humanity. Death is near by and we choose to live.