When I first read The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, I thought I had read a great synthesis of the teaching of the Doctors of the Church. And I had.

But this present book has a scope that is wider, but aims at the same depth.

The Fulfilment of All Desire by Ralph Martin has the subtitle A Guidebook for the Journey to God Based on the Wisdom of the Saints, and it is accurate. The title and the subtitle say what they mean. This is a book that I didn’t know about until recently; it is packed full of things I love:

• The book follows the scope of the spiritual life: a spiritual awakening or conversion, the purgative way (beginners), the illuminative way (proficients), and the unitive way (the “perfect” who still commit venial sins without the intention to do so).
• The purgations or “dark night(s)” are discussed, too.
• It is based on the writings of seven Doctors of the Church: Augustine, Bernard, Catherine of Siena, Teresa, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, Thérèse. This is a very impressive list. There is Thérèse, who probably never committed a mortal sin. There is Augustine, with his wandering life and conversion story. There is Francis de Sales, practical and immersed in the world. There are Teresa and John of the Cross, inside Carmel. There is Catherine, who lived a withdrawn contemplative life until she reached the unitive way, then became apostolic in her way of living. The variety is great. But so is the consistency!
• The emphasis is on the validity of the three-stage journey for every Christian in every walk of life: the universal call to holiness. There is no watering down of the message of the Doctors of the Church. The three stages of the spiritual life are presented without compromise, but still as a gentle, divine invitation, in language particularly attentive to the ears of those immersed in the bustle of the world.

The format and detail are very good. The individual terminologies for the spiritual life, used by each Doctor, have even been put into a reference table together in the first chapter. I am amazed.

Perhaps the one thing that could have been helpful is a discussion of the relationship of contemplation to our neighbours. It has to be implicitly there, because the spiritual life is discussed from many angles. But an explicit mention of the act of seeing Jesus in or behind our neighbours might have made this point clearer and, in fact, more accessible to the general audience intended.

With that one reservation, I simply recommend this book. It is long. It is worth it. This is a synthesis of the “wisdom of the saints” on the three stages of the spiritual life. It is open to the reading of the “apostle” on the “unitive way”, to the “proficient”, and to the “beginner” who has never heard of the true teaching of the saints regarding contemplation and the spiritual life.