A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom ChristStanza VIII

But how thou perseverest, O life!
Not living where thou livest;
The arrows bring death
Which thou receivest
From thy conceptions of the Beloved.

The soul, perceiving itself to be dying of love, as it has just said, and yet not dying so as to have the free enjoyment of its love, complains of the continuance of its bodily life, by which the spiritual life is delayed. Here the soul addresses itself to the life it is living upon earth, magnifying the sorrows of it. The meaning of the stanza therefore is as follows: ‘O life of my soul, how canst thou persevere in this life of the flesh, seeing that it is thy death and the privation of the true spiritual life in God, in Whom thou livest in substance, love, and desire, more truly than in the body? And if this were not reason enough to depart, and free thyself from the body of this death, so as to live and enjoy the life of God, how canst thou still remain in a body so frail? Besides, these wounds of love made by the Beloved in the revelation of His majesty are by themselves alone sufficient to put an end to thy life, for they are very deep; and thus all thy feelings towards Him, and all thou knowest of Him, are so many touches and wounds of love that kill,

“But how thou perseverest, O life!
Not living where thou livest.’

2. We must keep in mind, for the better understanding of this, that the soul lives there where it loves, rather than in the body which it animates. The soul does not live by the body, but, on the contrary, gives it life, and lives by love in that which it loves. For beside this life of love which it lives in God Who loves it, the soul has its radical and natural life in God, like all created things, according to the saying of St. Paul: ‘In Him we live, and move, and are ;’¹ that is, our life, motion, and being is in God. St. John also says that all that was made was life in God: ‘That which was made, in Him was life.’

3. When the soul sees that its natural life is in God through the being He has given it, and its spiritual life also because of the love it bears Him, it breaks forth into lamentations, complaining that so frail a life in a mortal body should have the power to hinder it from the fruition of the true, real, and delicious life, which it lives in God by nature and by love. Earnestly, therefore, does the soul insist upon this: it tells us that it suffers between two contradictions—its natural life in the body, and its spiritual life in God; contrary the one to ‘the other, because of their mutual repugnance. The soul living this double life is of necessity in great pain; for the painful life hinders the delicious, so that the natural life is as death, seeing that it deprives the soul of its spiritual life, wherein is its whole being and life by nature, and all its operations and feelings by love. The soul, therefore, to depict more vividly the hardship of this fragile life, says:

‘The arrows bring death
which thou receivest.’

4. That is to say: ‘Besides, how canst thou continue in the body, seeing that the touches of love—these are the arrows—with which the Beloved pierces thy heart, are alone sufficient to deprive thee of life?’ These touches of love make the soul and the heart so fruitful of the knowledge and love of God, that they may well be called conceptions of God, as in the words that follow:

‘From thy conceptions of the Beloved.’

5. That is, of the majesty, beauty, wisdom, grace, and power, which thou knowest to be His.

Note.

As the hart wounded with a poisoned arrow cannot be easy and at rest, but seeks relief on all sides, plunging into the waters here and again there, whilst the poison spreads notwithstanding all attempts at relief, till it reaches the heart, and occasions death; so the soul, pierced by the arrow of love, never ceases from seeking to alleviate its pains. Not only does it not succeed, but its pains increase, let it think, and say, and do what it may; and knowing this, and that there is no other remedy but the resignation of itself into the hands of Him Who wounded it, that He may relieve it, and effectually slay it through the violence of its love; it turns towards the Bridegroom, Who is the cause of all, and says: