(Program 10646)
Guest: Dan Burke

St. Thomas Aquinas likens spiritual growth to the way the human person develops. This analogy is a good one and helps us understand that there are passages in the spiritual life just as there are in our physical life.

In our natural existence, we pass from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. And so it is in the spiritual life as well. We pass from lack of maturity to full maturity. These three stages of interior growth are named the purgative stage, the illuminative stage, and the unitive stage.