The author of the book entitled "De Spiritu et Anima" tells us that to ascend to God means nothing else than to enter into oneself. And, indeed, he who enters into the secret place of his own soul passes beyond himself, and does in very truth ascend to God.
Banish, therefore, from your heart the distractions of earth and turn your eyes to spiritual joys, that you may learn at last to repose in the light of the contemplation of God.
Verily the soul's true life and her repose are to abide in God, held fast by love, and sweetly refreshed by the Divine consolations.
But many are the obstacles which hinder us from tasting this rest, and of our own strength we could never attain to it. The reason is evident - the mind is distracted and preoccupied; it cannot enter into itself by the aid of the memory, for it is blinded by phantoms; nor can it enter by the intellect, for it is vitiated by the passions. Even the desire of interior joys and spiritual delights fails to draw it inward. It lies so deeply buried in things sensible and transitory that it cannot return to itself as to the image of God.
How needful is it, then, that the soul, lifted upon the wings of reverence and humble confidence, should rise above itself and every creature by entire detachment, and should be able to say within itself: He Whom I seek, love, desire, among all, more than all, and above all, cannot be perceived by the senses or the imagination, for He is above both the senses and the understanding. He cannot be perceived by the senses, yet He is the object of all our desires; He is without shape, but He is supremely worthy of our heart's deepest love. He is beyond compare, and to the pure in heart greatly to be desired. Above all else is He sweet and love-worthy; His goodness and perfection are infinite.
When you understand this, your soul will enter into the darkness of the spirit, and will advance further and penetrate more deeply into itself. You will by this means attain more speedily unto the beholding in a dark manner of the Trinity in Unity, and Unity in Trinity, in Christ Jesus, in proportion as your effort is more inward; and the greater is your charity, the more precious the fruit you will reap. For the highest, in spiritual things, is ever that which is most interior. Grow not weary, therefore, and rest not from your efforts until you have received some earnest or foretaste of the fulness of joy that awaits you, and has obtained some first-fruits of the Divine sweetness and delights.
Cease not in your pursuit till you behold "the God of gods in Sion."
In your spiritual ascent and in your search after a closer union with God you must allow yourself no repose, no slipping back, but must go forward till you have obtained the object of your desires. Follow the example of mountain-climbers. If your desires turn aside after the objects which pass below you will lose yourself in by-ways and countless distractions. Your mind will become dissipated and drawn in all directions by its desires. Your progress will be uncertain, you will not reach your goal, nor find rest after your labours.
If, on the other hand, the heart and mind, led on by love and desire, withdraw from the distractions of this world, and little by little abandon base things to become recollected in the one true and unchangeable Good, to dwell there, held fast by the bonds of love, then will you grow strong, and your recollection will deepen the higher you rise on the wings of knowledge and desire.
They who have attained to this dwell as by habit in the Sovereign Good, and become at last inseparable from it.
True life, which is God Himself, becomes their inalienable possession; for ever, free from all fear of the vicissitudes of time and change, they repose in the peaceful enjoyment of this inward happiness, and in sweet communication with God. Their abode is for ever fixed within their own souls, in Christ Jesus, Who is to all who come to Him "the Way, the Truth, and the Life."
- text taken from On Union with God, by Saint Albert the Great, translated by a Benedictine of Princethorpe Priory; it has the Imprimatur of Edmund Surmont, Vicar General, Westminster, 7 December 1911