Spiritual Journey Stages

The Purgative Stage is usually where a lot of us start, especially after a long season of wandering. It's a time when God starts pulling up old roots — habits, wounds, beliefs, patterns — basically anything that has been holding us back spiritually.

Common signs you might be here:

• A growing desire to leave old sins behind
• Feeling convicted about certain choices or attitudes
• Wanting to know God more but not knowing how to start
• Lots of "inner stirring" or discomfort that pushes you toward change

This stage can feel messy. It can honestly feel like you're facing everything at once. But this is where God starts clearing the way for something deeper.

The Illuminative Stage is where clarity begins to break through. Things you used to struggle to understand start clicking — not all at once, but piece by piece.

Typical signs of this stage:

• Prayer feels a little more natural
• A desire to grow spiritually becomes steady and consistent
• Scripture or spiritual teachings suddenly "hit differently"
• You recognize patterns in your past and see how God was working

This stage doesn't mean you have everything figured out — far from it. But it's where God begins to shed light on things that were confusing before.

The Unitive Stage is something many of us move in and out of over time. It's not a "final boss level" for saints only — it's simply the season when your relationship with God feels steady, honest, and close. I'm saying this section lightly, because for me there are more times I am out of this stage than in it.

Signs of this stage:

• A stronger sense of God's presence in daily life
• More peace, even when situations aren't peaceful
• Less striving, more trusting
• Prayer becomes more relational than "doing it right"

You may not stay in this stage all the time — most people move back and forth. But moments of union with God are real gifts, and they help carry us through the harder seasons. The way I've described it here is really more for a beginner. Based on what I've read in the Interior Mansions, I don't even know if I could get close enough to this stage myself.

Before the deeper cleaning-out work of the Purgative Stage, many people pass through — or return to — a season of simple awakening: a fresh curiosity, a pull toward God that feels new even if it isn't the first time.

Signs you might be here:

• Something in you feels newly curious about faith
• You're searching, without fully knowing for what
• You're just beginning to establish a regular practice

This is a beautiful place to start, or return to. The focus here is simple: establish regular prayer, learn what the Church actually teaches, and let yourself be drawn in without rushing.

Sometimes you're not fully in one stage or the other — you've moved past the rawest struggles of the Purgative Stage, but you haven't settled into the steady rhythm of the Illuminative Stage yet. This in-between place doesn't have its own name in the classic three-stage framework, but it's completely real and completely normal.

Signs you might be here:

• Progress feels real, but inconsistent
• Old struggles surface less often, but still visit
• Your practices are becoming more regular, but still take real effort

The focus here is patience — keep building consistency, and let the in-between be what it is without rushing past it.

St. John of the Cross wrote about a season when prayer that once felt consoling turns quiet and dry — not because you've done something wrong, but because God is weaning you off relying on spiritual feelings, so you can love Him for Himself rather than for the comfort He gives.

Signs you might be here:

• Prayer used to feel moving; now it feels flat
• You've lost interest in practices that once excited you
• You keep showing up anyway, even without the feeling

This isn't punishment, and it isn't a sign you're doing something wrong. It's often a sign of real, deep growth happening beneath what you can feel.

This is a deeper, rarer purification — a season marked by real emptiness, where even the sense of God's presence seems to disappear, and yet you keep choosing Him anyway, without any emotional support to lean on.

Signs you might be here:

• A quiet emptiness, even in good spiritual practices
• Choosing God without expecting anything back
• A steady, unglamorous kind of faithfulness

If this describes you, know that naked faith — trusting without feeling — is itself a profound grace. A spiritual director can be a real help if you're walking through this.

This is the initial shock of light. It's the uncomfortable feeling that the life you're leading doesn't align with the person you were made to be.

This is the heavy work of cutting ties with the things that keep you enslaved. It requires effort and often involves genuine grief for the comforting, familiar habits you must leave behind.

This is the sweet part: God gives you an actual hunger for spiritual things. You want to pray, read Scripture, and seek goodness — not out of obligation, but because you genuinely feel drawn.