As we enter into this Great and Holy Week, I would bring to an end my thoughts on St. John’s Ladder of Divine Assent. His ending step on the Ladder is love. While Christ told us that by imitating God’s love, mercy and forgiveness we will “be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect”, we are speaking in human language that cannot adequately convey the exact truth about God, who is beyond human understanding and all human speech. For God is infinitely perfect and no matter how perfect we become, we will never enter into the essence of God. We will never become anywhere near as perfect as He is. This is why St. John describes dispassion as an uncompleted perfection of the perfect.

This applies even to the last step of the Ladder. If God is infinite, and if “God is love,” then love Is infinite, which means we will never reach the end of it. Even in the eternal life to come, we shall be forever increasing in love, forever plunging the infinite depths of God. Thus St. John describes love as the progress of eternity. He writes:

Love has no boundary, and both in the present and in the future age we will never cease to progress in it, as we add light to light.

Each step of the Ladder can be understood as a progression in divine love, and with each step we come a little closer to the Trinity. Love is not only the final step of the Ladder, but every step of our divine ascent into the Kingdom of heaven.

Thus the Ladder concludes with the voice of God, who is love, inviting us to grow ever closer to Him, truly exhorting us to climb ever higher on the Ladder of Divine Love.

We have a wonderful opportunity during this Great and Holy Week to consider St. John’s Ladder and ask Almighty God to help us progress in our love of Him through our love of all of our neighbors. All this is for our salvation.