The Living Flame of LoveStanza I

‘O living flame of love.’

z. In order to express the fervour and reverence with which the soul is speaking in these four stanzas, it begins | them with ‘O’ and ‘How,’ which are significant of great earnestness, and whenever uttered show that something passes within that is deeper than the tongue can tell. ‘O’ is the cry of strong desire, and of earnest supplication, in the way of persuasion. The soul employs in it both senses here, for it magnifies and intimates its great desire, calling upon love to end its mortal life.

3. This flame of love is the Spirit of the Bridegroom, the Holy Ghost, of whose presence within itself the soul is conscious, not only as fire which consumes it, and transforms it in sweet love, but as a fire burning within it, sending forth a flame which bathes it in glory and recreates it with the refreshment of everlasting life. The work of the Holy Ghost in a soul transformed in His love is this: His interior action within it is to kindle it and set it on fire; this is the burning of love, in union with which the will loves most deeply, being now one by love with that flame of fire. And thus the soul’s acts of love are most precious, and even one of them more meritorious than many elicited not in the state of transformation. The transformation in love differs from the flame of love as a habit differs from an act, or as the glowing fuel from the flames it emits, the flames being the effect of the fire which is there burning.

4. Hence then we may say of the soul which is transformed in love, that its ordinary state is that of the fuel in the midst of the fire; that the acts of such a soul are the flames which rise up out of the fire of love, vehement in proportion to the intensity of the fire of union, and to the rapture and absorption of the will in the flame of the Holy Ghost; rising like the angel who ascended to God in the flame which consumed the holocaust of Manue.¹ And as the soul, in its present condition, cannot elicit these acts without a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, all these acts must be divine, in so far as the soul is under the special influence of God. Hence then it seems to the soul, as often as the flame breaks forth, causing it to love sweetly with a heavenly disposition, that its life everlasting is begun, and that its acts are divine in God.

5. This is the language in which God addresses purified and stainless souls, namely, words of fire. ‘Thy word,’ saith the Psalmist, ‘is a vehement fire.’ * And in Jeremias we read, ‘are not My words as a fire? saith our Lord.’ f His ‘words,’ we learn from Himself, ‘are a spirit and life;’ { the power and efficacy of which are felt by such souls as have ears to hear; pure souls full of love. But those souls whose palate is not healthy, whose desire is after other things, cannot perceive the spirit and life of His words. And therefore the more wonderful the words of the Son of God, the more insipid they are to some who hear them, because of the impurity in which they live.

6. Thus, when He announced the doctrine of the. Holy Eucharist, a doctrine full of sweetness and of love, ‘many of His disciples went back.’ § If such persons as these have no taste for the words of God which He speaks inwardly to them, it is not to be supposed that all others are like them. St. Peter loved the words of Christ, for he replied, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.’ * The woman of Samaria forgot the water, and ‘left her waterpot’ ¢ at the well, because of the sweetness of the words of God.

7. And now when the soul has drawn so near unto God as to be transformed in the flame of love, when the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are in communion with it, is it anything incredible to say that it - has a foretaste—though not perfectly, because this life admits not of it—of everlasting life in this fire of the Holy Ghost? This is the reason why this flame is said to be a living flame, not because it is not always living, but because its effect is to make the soul live spiritually in God, and to be conscious of such a life, as it is written, My heart and my flesh have rejoiced toward the living God.’ { The Psalmist makes use of the word ‘living,’ not because it was necessary, for God is ever-living, but to show that the body and the spirit had a lively feeling of God; that is the rejoicing in the living God. Thus in this flame, the soul has so vivid a sense of God and a perception of Him so sweet and delicious, that it cries out: ‘O living flame of love!”

‘That woundest tenderly.’

8. That is, Thou touchest me tenderly in Thy love. For when this flame of divine life wounds the soul with the gentle languishing for the life of God, it wounds it with so much endearing tenderness, and softens it so that it melts away in love. The words of the bride in the Canticle are now fulfilled in the soul. ‘My soul melted when He spoke.’ * This is the effect in the soul when God speaks. . . g. But how can we say that it wounds the soul, when there is nothing to wound, seeing that it is all consumed in the fire of love? It is certainly marvellous; for as fire is never idle, but in continual movement, flashing in one direction, then in another, so love, the function of which is to wound, so as to cause love and joy, when it exists in the soul as a living flame, darts forth its most tender flames of love, causing wounds, exerting joyously all the arts and wiles of love as in the palace of its wedding feast. So Assuerus exhibited his riches, and the glory of his power at ‘the wedding and marriage of Esther ;’ + and so is wrought in the soul what is read in the Proverbs: I ‘was delighted every day .. . playing in the world, and My delights were to be with the children of men,’ f that is to give Myself to them. This wounding, therefore, which is the ‘playing’ of divine wisdom, is the flames of those tender touches which touch the soul continually, touches of the fire of love which is never idle. And of these flashings of the fire it is said that they wound the soul in its inmost substance.

‘My soul in its inmost depth.’

10. The feast of the Holy Ghost is celebrated in the aimee of the soul, which is inaccessible to the devil, the world, and the flesh; and therefore the more interior the feast, the more secure, substantial, and delicious is it. For the more interior it is, the purer it is; and the greater the purity, the greater the abundance, frequency, and universality of God’s communication of Himself; and thus the joy of the soul and spirit is so much the greater, for it is God Himself Who is the author of all this, and the soul doeth nothing of itself, in the sense I shall immediately explain. * ii. And inasmuch as the soul cannot work naturally here, nor make any efforts of its own otherwise than through the bodily senses and by their help—of which it is in this case completely free, and from which it is most detached—the work of the soul is solely to receive what God communicates, Who alone in the depths of the soul, without the help of the senses, can influence and direct it, and operate within it. Thus, then, all the movements of such a soul are divine, and though of God, still they are the soul’s, because God effects them within it, itself willing them and assenting to them.

12, The expression, ‘inmost depth,’ implies other depths of the soul less profound, and it is necessary to consider this. In the first place the soul, regarded as spirit, has neither height nor depth of greater or less degree in its own nature, as bodies have which have bulk. The soul has no parts, neither is there any difference between its interior and exterior, for it is uniform; it has no depths of greater or less profundity, nor can one part of it be more enlightened than another, as is.the case with physical bodies, for the whole of it is enlightened uniformly at once.

13. Setting aside this signification of depth, material and measure able, we say that the inmost depth of the soul is there where its being, power, and the force of its action and movement penetrate and cannot go further. Thus fire, or a stone, tend by their natural force to the centre of their sphere, and cannot go beyond it, or help resting there, unless some obstacle intervene. Accordingly, when a stone lies on the ground it is said to be within its centre, because within the sphere of its active motion, which is the element of earth, but not in the inmost depth of that centre, the middle of the earth, because it has still power and force to descend thither, provided all that hinders it be taken away. So when it shall have reached the centre of the earth, and is incapable of further motion of its own, we say of it that it is then in its inmost or deepest centre.

14. The centre of the soul is God. When the soul shall have reached Him, according to its essence, and according to the power of its operations, it will then have attained to its ultimate and deepest centre in God. This will be when the soul shall love Him, comprehend Him, and enjoy Him with all its strength. When, however, the soul has not attained to this state, though it be in God, Who is the centre of it by grace and communion with Him, still if it can move further and is not satisfied, though in the centre, it is not in the deepest centre, because there is still room for it to advance.

15. Love unites the soul with God, and the greater its love the deeper does it enter into God, and the more is it centered in Him. According to this way of speaking we may say, that as the degrees of love, so are the centres which the soul finds in God. These are the many mansions of the Father’s house.⁷ Thus, a soul which has but one degree of love is already in God, Who is its centre: for one degree of love is sufficient for our abiding in Him in the state of grace. If we have two degrees of love we shall then have found another centre, more interiorly in God; and if we have three we shall have reached another and more interior centre still.

16. But if the soul shall have attained to the highest degree of love, the love of God will then wound it in its inmost depth or centre; and the soul will be transformed and enlightened in the highest degree in its substance, faculties, and strength, until it shall become most like unto God. The soul in this state may be compared to crystal, lucid and pure; the greater the light thrown upon it, the more luminous it becomes by the concentration thereof, until at last it seems to be all light and undistinguishable from it; it being then so illumined, and to the utmost extent, that it seems to be one with the light itself.

17. The flame wounds the soul in its inmost depth; that is, it wounds it when it touches the very depths of its substance, power and force. This expression implies that abundance of joy and bliss, which is the greater and the more tender, the more vehemently and substantially the soul is transformed and centred in God. It greatly surpasses that which occurs in the ordinary union of love, for it is in proportion to the greater heat of the fire of love which now emits the living flame. The soul which has the fruition only of the ordinary union of love may be compared, in a certain sense, to the ‘fire’ of God which is in Sion, that is in the Church Militant; while the soul which has the fruition of glory so sweet may be compared to ‘His furnace in Jerusalem,’ * which means the vision | of peace.

18. The soul in the burning furnace is in a more peaceful, glorious, and tender union, the more the flame of the furnace transcends the fire of ordinary love. Thus the soul, feeling that the living flame ministers to it all good—divine love brings all blessings with it—cries out: *O living flame of love, that woundest tenderly.’ The cry of the soul is: O kindling burning love, how tenderly dost thou make me glorious by thy loving movements in my greatest power and strength, giving me a divine intelligence according to the capacity of my understanding, and communicating love according to the utmost freedom of my will; that is, thou hast elevated to the greatest height, by the divine intelligence, the powers of my understanding in the most intense fervour and substantial union of my will. This ineffable effect then takes place when this flame of fire rushes upwards in the soul. The divine wisdom absorbs the soul—which is now purified and most clean—profoundly and sublimely in itself; for ‘wisdom reacheth everywhere by reason of her purity.’ * It is in this absorption of wisdom that the Holy Ghost effects those glorious quiverings of His flame of which I am speaking. And as the flame is so sweet, the soul says: ‘As Thou art no longer grievous.’

‘As Thou art no longer grievous.’

19. Thou dost not afflict, nor vex, nor weary me as before. This flame, when the soul was in the state of spiritual purgation, that is, when it was entering that of contemplation, was not so friendly and sweet as it is now in the state of union. In order to explain this we must dwell a little on this point. For before the divine fire enters into the soul and unites itself to it in its inmost depth by the complete and perfect purgation and purity thereof, the flame, which is the Holy Ghost, wounds it, destroys and consumes the imperfections of its evil habits. This is the work of the Holy Ghost, Who thereby disposes the soul for its divine union and a substantial transformation in God by love. For the flame which afterwards unites itself to the soul, glorifying it, is the very same which before assailed and purified it; just as the fire which ultimately penetrates the substance of the fuel is the very same which in the beginning darted its flames around it, playing about it, and depriving it of its ugliness until it prepared it with its heat for its own entrance into it, and transformation of it into itself.

20. The soul suffers greatly in this spiritual exercise, and endures grievous afflictions of spirit which occasionally overflow into the senses; for then the flame is felt to be grievous, for in this state of purgation the flame does not burn brightly but is darksome, and if it gives forth | any light at all it is only to show to the soul and make it feel all its miseries and defects; neither is it sweet but painful, and if it kindles a fire of love that fire causes torments and uneasiness; it does not bring delight but aridity, for although God in His kindness may send the soul some comfort to strengthen and animate it He makes it pay, both before and after, with sufferings and trials. It is not a refreshing and peaceful fire, but a consuming and searching one that makes the soul faint away and grieve at the sight of Self; not a glorious brightness, for it embitters the soul and makes it miserable, owing to the spiritual light it throws on Self, for, as Jeremias says, God ‘hath sent fire into my bones’ * or, in the words of David ‘Thou hast tried me by fire.’ | Thus, at this juncture, the soul suffers in the understanding from deep darkness, in the will from aridity and conflict, and in the memory from the consciousness of its miseries—for the eye of the spiritual understanding is clear—and in its very substance the soul suffers from poverty and dereliction. Dry and cold, yea, at times, even hot, nothing gives it relief, nor has it a single good thought to console it and to help it to lift up the heart to God, for this flame has made it ‘grievous,’ even as Job said when he found himself in this plight: ‘Thou art changed to be cruel toward me.’¹⁰ Suffering all these things together the soul undergoes, as it were, its Purgatory, for all happiness being taken away the torture is hardly inferior to the torments of Purgatory.

I should scarcely know how to describe this ‘grievousness,’ and what the soul feels and bears in it were it not for these telling words of Jeremias: ‘I am the man that see my poverty by the rod of His indignation; He hath led me, and brought me into darkness and not into light. Only against me He hath turned, and turned again His hand all the day. My skin and my flesh He hath made old, He hath broken my bones. He hath built round about me, and He hath encompassed me with gall and labour. He hath set me in dark places, as those that are dead for ever. He hath built against me round about, that I may not get out: He hath made my fetters heavy.’¹² Jeremias says a great deal more besides this in the same place; for this is the remedy and medicine chosen by God to restore health to the soul after its many infirmities, the cure being of a necessity commensurate to the disease. Here then, the heart is ‘laid upon coals to drive away all kind of devils;’ ft here, too, all its maladies are brought to light, and openly exhibited before the eyes, and thus they are cured. Whatever may have been hidden within its depths now becomes visible and palpable to the soul by the glare and heat of that fire, for previously nothing could be seen. When the flame acts upon a log of wooed steam and smoke are seen to issue in evidence of humidity and frigidity which were unsuspected beforehand. Thus the soul, near this flame, sees and feels clearly its miseries, because, O wonder! there arise within it contraries at variance with each other, yet seated side by side, making war against each other on the battlefield of the soul, and striving, as the philosophers say, to expel each other so as to reign uppermost in the soul. The virtues and properties of God, being in the highest degree perfect, arise and make war within the soul, on the habits and properties of man which are in the highest degree imperfect. For since this flame gives forth a dazzling light it penetrates the darkness of the soul which, in its way, is profound in the extreme; the soul now feels its natural darkness oppose the supernatural light, without feeling the supernatural light itself, for ‘the darkness does not comprehend it,’ * Rather, it feels its natural darkness only in so far as it is penetrated by light, for no soul can see its own darkness except by the side of the Divine light until, the darkness being dissipated, itself becomes illumined and sees the light, the eye being now made clear and strong. For an intense light is to a weak sight, or an eye that is not wholly clear, nothing but darkness, because the excess of light destroys the power of seeing. For this reason the flame was ‘grievous’ to the eye of the understanding, for, being at once loving and tender, it lovingly

“St John i, s.

and tenderly penetrates the will which, by its nature, is arid and hard. And as hardness is discovered when contrasted with tenderness, and aridity when compared with love, so the will comes to a knowledge of its own hardness and aridity when contrasted with God, though it does not feel the love and tenderness of the flame, for hardness and aridity cannot comprehend their contraries, until, being expelled by these, the love and tenderness of God reign supreme in the will, for two contraries cannot coexist in one subject. Similarly, the soul perceives its own smallness in comparison with the immensity of the flame, and suffers great uneasiness until the flame, acting on it, dilates it. Thus, the latter has proved ‘grievous’ to the will also, for the sweet nourishment of love is insipid to a palate not yet weaned from other affections. Finally, the soul, which of itself is exceedingly poor, having nothing whatever, nor the means of procuring any satisfaction, gains a knowledge of its poverty, misery and malice by contrasting them with the riches, goodness and delights possessed by this flame, for malice does not comprehend goodness, nor poverty riches, etc., until the flame succeeds in purifying the soul, and, while transforming it, enriches, glorifies, and delights it too. In this manner the ‘flame was at first 'grievous' to the soul, which suffers severely in its substance and powers from the uneasiness and anguish caused by the war of contraries within its ailing frame. Here, God Who is all perfection, there the habits of imperfection of the soul; cauterising it with a Divine fire He extirpates them and leaves a well-prepared soil upon which He may enter with His gentle, peaceful and glorious love, as does a flame when it gets held of wood.

So powerful a purgation is the lot of but few souls, namely of those whom He intends to lift by contemplation to some degree of union; the more sublime that degree, the fiercer the purification. When He resolves to snatch a soul from the common way of natural operations and to lead it to the spiritual life, from meditation to contemplation—which is heavenly rather than earthly life —and to communicate Himself by the union of love, He begins by making Himself known to the spirit, as yet impure and imperfect and full of evil habits. Each one suffers in proportion to his imperfections. This purgation is sometimes as fierce in its way as that of Purgatory, for the one is meant to dispose the soul for a perfect union even here below, while the other is to enable it to see God hereafter. I shall say nothing here of the intention of this cleansing, the degrees of its intensity, its operation in the will, the understanding and the memory, in the substance of the soul, in all its powers, or in the sensitive part alone, nor how it may be ascertained whether it is this or that, at what time or at which precise point of the spiritual journey it begins, as all this has nothing to do with my present purpose; moreover, I have fully discussed it in my treatise on the Dark Night in the Ascent of Mount Carmel.¹³ It is enough for us to know that God, Who seeks to enter the soul by union and transformation of love, is He who previously assailed the soul, purifying it with the light and heat of His divine flame, just as it is the same fire that first disposes the wood for combustion and afterwards consumes it. Thus, the same which now is sweet, being seated within the soul, was at first ‘grievous’ while assailing it from without.

21. The meaning of the whole is as follows: Thou art now not only not darkness as before, but the divine light of my understanding wherewith I behold Thee: not only dost Thou abstain from causing me to faint in my weakness, but Thou art become the strength of my will, wherein I can love and enjoy Thee, being wholly transformed by divine love. Thou art no longer grief and affliction, but rather my glory, my delight, and my liberty, seeing that the words of the Canticle may be said of me, ‘Who is this that cometh up from the desert flowing with delights leaning upon her Beloved,’ * scattering love on this side and on that? ‘Perfect Thy work, if it be Thy will.’

‘Perfect Thy work, if it be Thy will.’

22. That is, do Thou perfect the spiritual marriage in the beatific vision. Though it is true that the soul is the more resigned the more it is transformed, when it has attained to a state so high as this, for it knows nothing and seeks nothing with a view to itself, but only in and for the Beloved—for Charity seeks nothing but the good and glory of the Beloved—still because it lives in hope, and hope implies a want, it groans deeply—though sweetly and joyfully—because it has not fully attained to the perfect adoption of the sons of God, in which, being perfected in glory, all its desires will be satisfied. However intimate the soul’s union may be with God, it will never be satisfied here below till His ‘glory shall appear;’ especially because it has already tasted, by anticipation, of its sweetness.

23. That sweetness is such that if God had not had pity on its natural frailty and covered it with His right hand, as He did Moses, that he might not die when he saw the glory of God—for the natural powers of the soul receive comfort and delight from that right hand, rather than hurt—it would have died at each vibration of the flame, seeing that the inferior part thereof is incapable of enduring so great and so sharp a fire. This desire of the soul is therefore no longer painful, for its condition is now such that all pain is over, and its prayers are offered for the object it desires in great sweetness, joy and resignation. This is the reason why it says, ‘if it be Thy will,’ for the will and desire are now so united in God, each in its own way, that the soul regards it as its glory that the will of God should be done in it. Such are now the glimpses of glory, and such the love which now shines forth, that it would argue but little love on its part if it did not pray to be admitted to the perfect consummation of love.

24. Moreover, the soul in the power of this sweet communication, sees that the Holy Ghost incites it, and invites it in most wonderful ways, and by sweet affections, to this immeasurable glory, which He there sets before it, saying, ‘Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, and come. For winter is now past, the rain is gone and departed. The flowers have appeared in our land. .. . The fig-tree hath brought forth her green figs, the flourishing vineyards have given their savour. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come; my dove in the holes of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall, show me thy face, let thy voice sound in mine ears, for thy voice is sweet, and thy face comely.’ * The soul hears all this spoken by the Holy Ghost in this sweet and tender flame, and therefore answers Him, saying, ‘Perfect Thy work, if it be Thy will,’ thereby making the two petitions which our Lord commands, ‘Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done;’ * that is, give me Thy kingdom according to Thy will, and that it may be so ‘Break the web of this sweet encounter.’

‘Break the web of this sweet encounter.’

' 25. That is, the hindrance to this so grand an affair. It is an easy thing to draw near unto God when all hindrances are set aside, and when the web that divides us from Him is broken. There are three webs to be broken before we can have the perfect fruition of God: 1. The temporal web, which comprises all created things. 2. The natural web, which comprises all mere natural actions and inclinations. 3. The web of sense, which is merely the union of soul and body; that is, the sensitive and animal life, of which St. Paul speaks, saying, ‘For we know if our earthly house of this habitation be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in heaven.’ f

26. The first and second web must of necessity have been broken in order to enter into the fruition of God in the union of love, when we denied ourselves in worldly things and renounced them, when our affections and desires were mortified, and when all our operations became divine. These webs were broken in the assaults of this flame when it was still grievous. In the spiritual purgation the soul breaks the two webs I am speaking of, and becomes united with God; the third alone, the web of the life of sense remains now to be broken. This is the reason why but one web is mentioned here. For now one web alone remains, and this the flame assails not painfully and grievously as it assailed the others, but with great sweetness and delight.

27. Thus the death of such souls is most full of sweetness, beyond that of their whole spiritual life, for they die of the sweet violence of love, like the swan which sings more sweetly when death is nigh.

28. This is why the Psalmist said, ‘Precious in the sight of our Lord is the death of His saints,’ * for then the rivers of the soul’s love flow into the sea of love, so wide and deep as to seem a sea themselves; the beginning and the end unite together to accompany the just departing for His Kingdom. ‘From the ends of the earth,’ in the words of Isaias, are ‘heard praises, the glory of the just one,’ f and the soul feels itself in the midst of these glorious encounters on the point of departing in all abundance for the perfect fruition of the kingdom, for it beholds itself pure and rich, and prepared, so far as it is possible, consistently with the faith and the conditions of this life. God now permits it to behold its own beauty, and intrusts it with the gifts and graces He has endowed it with, for all this turns into love and praise without the stain of presumption or of vanity, because no leaven of imperfection remains to corrupt it.

29. When the soul sees that nothing is wanting but the breaking of the frail web of its natural life, by which its liberty is enthralled, it prays that it may be broken; for it longs ‘to be dissolved and to be with Christ,’ * to burst the bonds which bind the spirit and the flesh together, that both may resume their proper state, for they are by nature different, the flesh to ‘return to its earth, and the spirit unto God Who gave it.’ The mortal body, as St. John saith, ‘profiteth nothing,’ but is rather a hindrance to the good of the spirit. The soul, therefore, prays for the dissolution of the body, for it is sad that a life so mean should be a hindrance in the way of a life so noble. |

30. This life is called a web for three reasons: 1. Because of the connection between the spirit and the flesh. 2. Because it separates the soul and God. 3. Because a web is not so thick but that light penetrates it. The connection between soul and body, in this state of perfection is so slight a web that the divinity shines through it, now that the soul is so spiritualised, subtilised, and refined. When the power of the life to come is felt in the soul, the weakness of this life becomes manifest. Its present life seems to be but a slender web, even a spider’s web, in the words of David, ‘our years shall be considered as a spider,’ and even less than that, when the soul is raised to a state so high, for being raised so high, it perceives things as God does, in Whose sight ‘a thousand years are as yesterday which is past,’ and before Whom ‘all nations are as if they had no being at all.’ In the same way all things appear to the soul as nothing, yea, itself is nothing in its own eyes, and God alone is its all.

31. It may be asked here why the soul prays for the breaking of the web rather than for its cutting or its removal, since the effect would be the same in either case. There are four reasons which determine it: 1. The expression it employs is the most proper, because it is more natural that a thing should be broken in an encounter, than that it should be cut or taken away. 2. Because love likes force, with violent and impetuous contacts, and these result in breaking rather than in cutting or taking away. 3. Because its love is so strong, it desires that the act of breaking the web may be done in a moment; the more rapid and spiritual the act, the greater its force and worth.

32. The power of love is now more concentrated and more vigorous, and the perfection of transforming love enters the soul, as form into matter, in an instant. Until now there was no act of perfect transformation, only the disposition towards it in desires and affections successively repeated, which in very few souls attain to the perfect act of transformation. Hence a soul that is disposed may elicit many more, and more intense acts in a brief period than another soul not so disposed in a long time, for this soul spends all its energies in the preparation of itself, and even afterwards the fire does not wholly penetrate the fuel it has to burn. But when the soul is already prepared, love enters in continuously, and the spark at the first contact seizes on the fuel that is dry. And thus the enamoured soul prefers the abrupt breaking of the web to its tedious cutting or waiting for its removal.

33. 4. The fourth reason why the soul prays for the breaking of the web of life is its desire that it may be done quickly: for when we cut or remove anything we do it deliberately, when the matter is ripe, and then time and thought become necessary; but a violent rupture requires nothing of the kind. The soul’s desire is not to wait for the natural termination of its mortal life, because the violence of its love and the disposition it is in incline it with resignation towards the violent rupture of its natural life in the supernatural assaults of love. Moreover, it knows well that it is the way of God to call such souls to Himself before the time, that He fills them with good, and delivers them from evil, perfecting them in a short space, and bestowing upon them, through love, what they could have gained only by length of time. ‘Pleasing God, he is made beloved, and living among sinners he was translated. He was taken away lest malice should change his understanding, or lest any guile deceive his soul. Being consummate in a short space, he fulfilled much time, for his soul he pleased God; for this cause He hastened to bring him out of the midst of iniquities."* The constant practice of love is therefore a matter of the last importance, for when the soul is perfect therein, its detention here below cannot be long before it is admitted to see God face to face.

34. But why is this interior assault of the Holy Ghost called an encounter? Though the soul is very desirous to see the end of its natural life, yet because the time is not yet come, that cannot be, and so God, to make it perfect and to raise it above the flesh more and more, assails it divinely and gloriously, and these assaults are really encounters wherein God penetrates the soul, deifies the very substance of it, and renders it as it were divine. The substance of God absorbs the soul, because He assails and pierces it to the quick by the Holy Ghost, whose communications are vehement when they are of fire as at present. The soul says this encounter is sweet, because it has therein a lively taste of God; not that many other touches and encounters of God, of which the soul is now the object, cease to be sweet and delicious, but on account of the supereminent sweetness of this; for God effects it in order to detach it perfectly and make it glorious. Hence the soul relying on His protection becomes bold, and says, ‘Break the web of this sweet encounter.’

35. The whole stanza may be paraphrased as follows: O flame of the Holy Ghost, penetrating so profoundly and so tenderly the very substance of my soul, and burning it with Thy heat, since Thou art now so gentle as to manifest Thy desire of giving Thyself wholly to me in everlasting life; if formerly my petitions did not reach Thine ears, when I was weary and worn with love, suffering through the weakness of sense and spirit, because of my great infirmities, impurity, and little love, I prayed to be set free—for with desire hath my soul desired Thee —when my impatient love would not suffer me to submit to the conditions of this life according to Thy will—for it was Thy will that I should live—and when the previous impulses of my love were insufficient in Thy sight, because there was no substance in them; now that I am grown strong in love, that body and soul together do not only follow after Thee, but that my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God * with one consent, so that I am praying for that which Thou willest I should pray for, and what Thou willest not, that I pray not for—it seems even that I could not do it, neither does it enter into my mind to do so—and as my prayers are now more efficacious and more reasonable in Thy sight, for they proceed from Thee, and Thou willest I should so pray, and as I pray in the joy and sweetness of the Holy Ghost, and ‘my judgment cometh forth from Thy countenance,’ f when Thou art pleased with my prayer and hearkenest to it—break Thou the slender web of this life that I may be enabled to love Thee hereafter with that fulness and abundance which my soul desires, without end for evermore.