Lent Is Only Step 1 of 3
Each year as Lent rolls around, many of us encounter a similar phenomenon: we scramble to find something to give up, and when we can’t think of something in time, we end up choosing—again—to give up sweets. Yet we try to pray more, maybe we go to confession more frequently, and we try—however imperfectly—to become a little less attached to the things that keep us from God.
What many people don’t recognize is that Lent is not just a seasonal exercise in discipline. It actually corresponds to something much deeper in the Christian life. The practices of Lent—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—are the traditional means by which the Church leads us into the first stage of the spiritual life.
Classical Catholic spirituality has long taught that the spiritual life unfolds in three “ages” or stages: the purgative way, the illuminative way, and the unitive way.
The Dominican theologian Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, in his monumental work The Three Ages of the Interior Life, explains that this division is not an invention of later spirituality, but the traditional framework used by the great masters of the spiritual life.
As he writes,
under the title Theologia mystica all these authors treated of the purgative way of beginners, the illuminative way of proficients, and the unitive way of the perfect.
In other words, the spiritual life progresses through recognizable stages. Beginners first learn to turn away from sin and disordered attachments. Then they begin to grow in deeper understanding of God through a direct illumination in the soul by God. Finally, they reach a more profound union with him.
Lent, in many ways, is the Church’s yearly immersion into that first stage: the purgative way (although certainly purification persists throughout the entire spiritual life!).
The Three Ages of the Spiritual Life
Before we talk about the purgative way itself, it helps to understand the overall map.
The spiritual life unfolds roughly like this:
- The Purgative Way (Beginners)
This stage is focused on purification—turning away from sin, disciplining the passions (the lower faculties of the soul), and learning the habits of prayer and virtue. - The Illuminative Way (Proficients)
Here the soul grows in deeper knowledge of God, guided more directly by the gifts of the Holy Spirit. - The Unitive Way (The Perfect)
This stage is characterized by a profound union with God through charity.
These are not rigid boxes. They are more like stages of growth. Just as a child becomes an adult gradually, so the spiritual life matures over time.
But the beginning is always purification. And that is exactly what Lent is about.
The Ascetical Life and the Mystical Life
To understand why the purgative way comes first, we need to distinguish between two important aspects of the spiritual life: the ascetical life and the mystical life.
The ascetical life refers to the part of the spiritual life where we actively cooperate with grace through discipline, prayer, and the practice of virtue. It involves effort, struggle, and deliberate conversion.
The mystical life, by contrast, refers to the deeper work that God himself does in the soul through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In this stage, the soul becomes more directly guided by divine action. And according to Matthew 16, this stage involves more crosses that we are given than only acts of denying ourselves (i.e., God purifies us directly).
Garrigou-Lagrange explains the distinction like this:
Ascetical theology treats of the purgative way of beginners who . . . exercise themselves generously in the practice of the virtues, but still according to the human mode of the virtues, ex industria propria, with the help of ordinary grace.
In other words, in the early stages of the spiritual life, we are still learning how to live the Christian life through deliberate effort. We are cooperating with grace, but the initiative often feels as though it begins with us: we decide to pray, we discipline our appetites, we struggle against sin.
The mystical life comes later, when the Holy Spirit begins to guide the soul more directly (following the dreaded dark night of the sense).
But before that can happen, something has to take place first. We must be purified.
Why Purification Comes First
The purgative way exists for a simple reason: our loves are disordered. Even after conversion, most of us still carry deep attachments—to comfort, reputation, pleasure, control, or self-reliance. (The greatest enemy of the soul’s growth is disordered self-love!) These attachments cloud our spiritual vision and weaken our love for God.
The purgative stage is where God begins to clean house.
Garrigou-Lagrange describes this stage in sobering terms:
The purgative way, proper to beginners . . . treats of the active purification of the external and internal senses, of the passions, of the intellect and the will, by mortification, meditation, and prayer.
Notice the emphasis: purification of the senses, passions, intellect, and will. The entire person must be reordered.
The great masters always insist on this point: true mysticism presupposes serious asceticism. Only the pure of heart will see God.
Lent and the Purgative Way
This is exactly why the Church gives us Lent—we are all called to true holiness, the kind that leads to a mystical relationship with God.
The three traditional Lenten disciplines—prayer, fasting, and almsgiving—are not random acts of piety. They correspond directly to the purification needed in the purgative stage.
Each one targets a different dimension of the soul.
- Prayer: Purifying the Mind (and growing in humility)
Prayer reorders the intellect and the heart toward God. In the purgative stage, prayer is often simple and deliberate: daily mental prayer, meditation on Scripture, examination of conscience. This is how we begin to learn the habit of turning our attention toward God rather than toward ourselves. - Fasting: Purifying the Senses
Fasting disciplines our appetites. It teaches the flesh that it is not in charge. The purpose is not suffering for its own sake, but conforming our will to God and making the passions submit to the will. The person who cannot deny himself a small comfort will find it very difficult to deny himself a serious temptation. - Almsgiving: Purifying the Heart
Almsgiving attacks one of the deepest attachments we have: possession and self-interest.
Giving away what belongs to us—time, money, energy—loosens our grip on the illusion that our life consists of what we own. It helps to rid us of our attachment to worldly things so we can become attached only to God.
Together, these three practices begin the work of purification that defines the purgative way.
The First Conversion . . . and the Second
For many Christians, conversion happens once: they turn toward God and begin practicing the Faith.
But the spiritual tradition speaks of something deeper—a second conversion that occurs as the soul begins to take the interior life seriously.
Garrigou-Lagrange connects this second conversion with the transition out of the purgative stage.
Quoting St. John of the Cross, he writes, “The night of sense is common, and the lot of many: these are the beginners.”
This purification prepares the soul for something greater.
The spiritual life is not meant to remain permanently in the beginner stage. The purgative way prepares the soul for the deeper work of God—the illuminative and unitive ways.
Lent as the Beginning of the Journey
With Lent comes the knowledge of Easter, the Ascension, and even Pentecost. Just as we know our forty days of penance leads to resurrection, we ought to know that the purgative stage is meant to lead to the illuminative and unitive. Though most of us won’t reach the unitive stage this side of heaven, we had better try! It is in the normal way of sanctity, which means that if you cooperate, God will bring you there (provided we suffer with him! see Rom. 8:17).
As Garrigou-Lagrange insists, ascetical theology is ordered toward mystical theology. The purgative way is not the end of the journey.
Lent places us squarely in that beginning again every year. It reminds us that the path to union with God always starts the same way: with purification, humility, and the willingness to let God begin his work in us, and that we must both take initiative and be receptive to his work.
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