The Dark Night of the SoulChapter XIV. Repeats and explains the last three lines of the first stanza

1. The soul leaves the house of self-indulgence. 2. The passions subdued, the soul goes forth to God. 3. Happiness of such a soul

O happy lot!
Forth unobserved I went,
My house being now at rest.

The happy lot of which the soul is singing in the first of these three lines befell it through those means of which it speaks in the two lines that follow it; making use of a metaphor, it describes itself as one who, for the better execution of his purpose, goes out of his house by night, in the dark, the inmates of which are at rest, in order that none might hinder him. The soul having to perform so heroic and so rare an act, that of being united to the divine Beloved, sallies forth, because the Beloved is to be found only without, in solitude. The bride therefore desired to find Him alone, saying: ‘Who shall give Thee to me for my brother, sucking the breasts of my mother, that I may find Thee without and kiss Thee ?’! It is necessary for the enamoured soul, in order to obtain the end desired, to act in the same way; to go out by night when all the inmates of its house repose and sleep; that is, when its lower operations, passions, and desires are at rest and asleep in this night. These are the inmates of its house which when awake ever hinder its good, enemies of its freedom. These are they of whom our Saviour said in the holy gospel, ‘A man’s enemies shall be they of his own household!’ |.

2. Thus it is necessary that their operations and motions should be lulled to sleep in this night in order that they may be no hindrance to the supernatural blessings of union with God in love, for which they continue to energise and act, that is unattainable. All movement and action on their part, instead of helping, hinder the reception of the spiritual blessings of the union of love, because all natural exertion is defective with regard to those supernatural blessings which God alone secretly and silently infuses into the passive soul, Hence it is necessary that the powers of the soul should be at rest, keeping passive,’ if it is to receive what God infuses, and should not interfere with their own inferior actions and base inclinations.

3. It was a happy lot for the soul when God in this night put all its household to sleep, that is, all the powers, passions, affections, and desires of the sensual and spiritual soul, that it may attain to the spiritual union of the perfect love of God ‘unobserved,’ that is, unhindered by these affections—now lulled and mortified in the dark of this night that they may notice or feel naught according to their mean nature whereby to prevent the soul from going forth from self and the habitation of sensuality... O how happy must the soul then be, when it can escape from the house of its sensuality! None can understand it, I think, except that soul which has experienced it. That soul clearly sees how wretched was its former slavery, and how great its misery when it lay at the mercy of its passions and desires; it learns now that the life of the spirit is true liberty and riches, with innumerable blessings in its train, some of which I shall speak of while explaining the following stanzas, when it will more clearly appear what good reasons the soul has for describing the passage of this awful night as a happy lot.

1 Para que ella sin ser notada, es to es, sin ser impedida de estas afecciones, etc. (por quedar ellas adormidas y mortificadas en esta noche en que las dejaron a oscuras, para que no pudiesen notar ni sentir a su modo bajo y natural, y asi impidiesen al alma el salir de si y de la casa de su sensualidad) llegase a la union spiritual de perfecto amor de Dios.