How does one become a saint, a man of God?

What stages must one go through? What virtues must he develop?

Saint Anthony offers many, notable points of departure for a theology of becoming spiritual.

If communion with God is a "state" of the Christian, it can not be ignored that this new state is a "life" (la vita nova, cf. Rom 6,4). Like any life, it supposes a birth and a development. The sacraments preside at the origin and at the becoming of this life and offer, therefore, the dynamic plot of Christian spirituality.

But, there is no Christian life if man does not add his own collaboration to the action of God. A child in his Christian life upon being baptised, the Christian must develop to reach the maturity that is eternal life.

The saint places particular focus on the psychological-ethical aspect of the phases in the path to perfection:

• the dynamic of the organism of virtues;
• an itinerary of spiritual life susceptible to reflection and immense development.

From Anthony's doctrine on virtue, one that could be called a true dialectic of the spiritual becoming shines through.

The path toward true spiritual perfection is one in substance, even though it has various phases. Saint Anthony does not present it theoretically or abstractly, as do studies of aesthetic or mystic theology, but concretely in the Christian who follows that path with difficulty, often limping and sometimes even slipping.

As for divine intervention, perfection has three characteristic moments which correspond to the three classic levels of the Christian spiritual life: that of the incipient, the proficient and the perfect.

• At the first level - of the incipient - purification is predominant;
• in the second - of the proficient - the opening of the soul to truth and its clothing in virtue;
• in the third - of the perfect - the soul throws open the door to communion with God, with whom he often experiences gentle effusions.

The first level coincides with the return to God from a life of sin, and it absorbs man in a labour full of struggle and purification. Exiting from the mire of sin, he still carries with him the stigmata of a sad heredity: bad habits to overcome, a past to expiate. To the inner disagreement between body and spirit must be added the external deceit of the world and the Devil. Two "great friends" who act together to the spiritual damage of the believer. Necessary virtues: vigilance and constance.