Christian Perfection and Contemplation expounds the Church's traditional teaching on that full flowering of Sanctifying Grace in the soul which is known as the "mystical life." Contrary to some "modern" authors, Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange explains from Scripture, St. Thomas Aquinas and other Saints that the mystical life is not something extraordinary, like prophecy and miracles, but something to which God wants to raise all souls so that they may reach Christian perfection, which is the fullness of charity and the perfect development of Sanctifying Grace that was received at Baptism. This is an entire treatise on the operation of grace in the spiritual life that clearly and skillfully explains the great principles of the spiritual life according to St. Thomas and other sterling Catholic sources. Here the author shows us that the mystical life is "true life" and simply the flowering of the Sanctifying Grace, and the beginning of eternal life.
