The Living Flame of LoveStanza II

O sweet burn!
O delicious wound!
O tender hand! O gentle touch!
Savouring of everlasting life,
And paying the whole debt,
In destroying death Thou hast changed it into life.

Explanation.

We learn here that it is the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Who accomplish the divine work of union in the soul. The ‘hand,’ the ‘touch,’ and the ‘burn’ are in substance one and the same; and the three terms are employed because they express effects peculiar to each. The ‘burn’ is the Holy Ghost; the ‘hand’ is the Father; and the ‘touch’ is the Son. Thus the soul magnifies the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, extolling those three grand gifts and graces which They perfect within it, in that They have changed death into life, transforming it in Themselves.

2. The first of these gifts is the delicious wound, attributed to the Holy Ghost, and so the soul calls it the ‘burn.’ The second is the ‘taste of everlasting life,’ attributed to the Son, and the soul calls it the ‘gentle touch.’ The third is that ‘gift’ which is the perfect recompense of the soul, attributed to the Father, and is therefore called the ‘tender hand.’ Though the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity are referred to severally, because of the operations peculiar to Each, the soul is addressing itself to but One Essence, saying, ‘Thou hast changed it into life,’ for the Three Divine (STAN. 11.] OF LOVE a Persons work together, and the whole is attributed to Each, and to All.

“O sweet burn.’

3. In the book of Deuteronomium, Moses saith, ‘Our Lord God is a consuming fire,’ * that is, a fire of love. And as His power is infinite, He consumes infinitely, burning with great vehemence, and transforming into Himself all He touches. But He burns everything according to the measure of its preparation, some more, others less; and also according to His own good pleasure, as, and when, and how, He will. And as this is an infinite fire of love, so when He touches the soul somewhat sharply, the burning heat within it becomes so extreme as to surpass all the fires of the world. This is the reason why this touch of God is said to be a ‘burn:’ for the fire there is more intense, and more concentrated, and the effect of it surpasses that of all other fires.

4. When the divine fire shall have transformed the soul into itself, the soul not only feels the burn, but itself is become wholly and entirely burnt up in this vehement fire. O how wonderful the fire of God! though so vehement and so consuming, though it can destroy a thousand worlds with more ease than the material fire can destroy a single straw, it consumes not the spirit wherein it burns, but rather, in proportion to its strength and heat, delights and deifies it, burning sweetly within according to the strength which God has given. Thus, on the day of Pentecost the fire descended with great vehemence upon the Apostles, who, according to St. Gregory,² sweetly burned interiorly. The Church also says, when celebrating that event: ‘The divine fire came down, not consuming but enlightening.’ ¢ For as the object of these communications is to elevate the soul, the burning of the fire does not distress it but gladdens it, does not weary it but delights it, and renders it glorious and rich. This is the reason why it is said to be sweet.

5. Thus then the blessed soul, which by the mercy of God has been burnt, knoweth all things, tasteth all things, ‘whatever it shall do shall prosper,’ f against it nothing shall prevail, nothing shall touch it. It is of that soul that the Apostle said: ‘The spiritual man judgeth all things, and he himself is judged of no man,’ § for ‘the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God,’ |] because it belongs to love to search into all that the Beloved has. O this supreme fire which, having infinite power to consume and annihilate you, consumes you not, but makes you infinitely perfect in glory! Wonder not that God should elevate some souls to so high a degree, for He alone is wonderful in His marvellous works. As this burn then is so sweet—as it is here said to be—how happy must that soul be which this fire has touched! The soul would speak of it, but cannot, so it says only, ‘O delicious wound.’

‘O delicious wound.’

7. He Who inflicts the wound relieves, and heals while He inflicts it. It bears some resemblance to the caustic usage of natural fire, which when applied to a wound increases it, and renders a wound, which iron or other instruments occasioned, a wound of fire. The longer the caustic is applied, the more grievous the wound, until the whole matter be destroyed, Thus the divine burn of love heals the wound which love has caused, and by each application renders it greater. The healing which love brings is to wound again what was wounded before, until the soul melts away in the fire of. love. So when the soul shall become wholly one wound of love it will then be transformed in love, wounded with love. For herein he who is most wounded is the most healthy, and he who is all wound is all health. consequently sound, the divine burning is not intermitted; it continues its work, which is to wound the soul with love. But then, too, its work is to soothe the healed wound, and the soul therefore cries out, ‘O delicious wound,’ and so much the more delicious the more penetrating the fire of love. The Holy Ghost inflicted the wound that He might soothe it, and as His will and desire to soothe it are great, great will be the wound which He will inflict, in order that the soul He has wounded may be greatly comforted. O blessed wound inflicted by Him Who cannot but heal it!

9. O happy and most blessed wound! For thou art inflicted only for the joy and comfort of the soul. Great is the wound, because He is great Who has wrought it; and great is the delight of it: for the fire of love is infinite. O delicious wound then, and the more delicious the more the burn of love penetrates the inmost substance of the soul, burning all it can burn that it may supply all the delight it can give. This burning and wound, in my opinion, are the highest condition attainable in this life. There are many other forms of this burning, but they do not reach so far, neither are they like unto this: for this is the touch of the Divinity without form or figure, either natural, formal, or imaginary. [STAN. II.] OF LOVE | ag

10. But the soul is burned in another and most excellent way, which is this: when a soul is on fire with love, but not in the degree of which Am now speaking— though it should be so, that it may be the subject of this —it will feel as if a seraph with a burning brand of love had struck it, and penetrated it already on fire as glowing coal, or rather as a flame, and burns it utterly.⁸ And then in that burn the flame rushes forth and surges vehemently as in a glowing furnace or forge; the fire revives and the flame ascends when the burning fuel is disturbed. Then when the burning brand touches it, the soul feels that the wound it has thus received is delicious beyond all imagination. For beside being altogether moved or stirred, at the time of this stirring of the fire, by the vehement movement of the seraph, wherein the ardour and the melting of love is great, it feels that its wound is perfect, and that the herbs which serve to attemper the steel are efficacious; it feels the very depths of the spirit transpierced, and its delight to be exquisite beyond the power of language to express. The soul feels, as it were, a most minute grain of mustard seed, most pungent and burning in the inmost heart of the spirit; in the spot of the wound, where the substance and the power of the herb reside, diffuse itself most subtilely through all the spiritual veins of the soul in proportion to the strength and power of the heat. It feels its love to grow, strengthen, and refine itself to such a degree, as to seem to itself as if seas of fire were in it filling it with love.

11. The fruition of the soul now cannot be described otherwise than by saying that it understands why the kingdom of heaven is compared in the gospel to a mustard seed, which by reason of its great natural heat grows into a lofty tree. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field. Which is the least surely of all seeds; but when it is grown up, it is greater than all herbs, and is made a tree, so that the fowls of the air come and dwell in the branches thereof.’ * The soul beholds itself now as one immense sea of fire. Few souls, however, attain to this state, but some have done so, especially those whose spirit and power is to be transmitted to their spiritual children; since God bestows on the founder gifts and graces, according to the succession of the order in the first-fruits of the Spirit. |

12. To return to the work of the seraph, which in truth is to strike and wound. If the effect of the wound be permitted to flow exteriorly into the bodily senses, an effect corresponding to the interior wound itself will manifest itself without. Thus it was with St. Francis, for when the seraph wounded his soul with love, the effects of that wound became outwardly visible. God confers no favours on the body which He does not confer in the first place chiefly on the soul. In that case, the greater the joy and violence of the love which is the cause of the interior wound, the greater will be the pain of the visible wound, and as the former grows so does the latter.

13. The reason is this: such souls as these, being already purified and strong in God, their spirit, strong and sound, delights in the strong and sweet Spirit of God; Who, however, causes pain and suffering in their weak and corruptible flesh. It is thus a most marvellous thing to feel pain and sweetness together. Job felt it when he said, ‘Returning, Thou tormentest me wonderfully.’ * This is marvellous, worthy of the multitude of the sweetness of God, which He has hidden for them that fear Him; f the greater the sweetness and delight, | the greater the pain and suffering.

14. O Infinite greatness, in all things showing Thyself omnipotent. Who, O Lord, can cause sweetness in the midst of bitterness, and pleasure in the midst of pain? O delicious wound, the greater the delight the deeper the wound. But when the wound is within

Job x. 16, Ps. xxx. 20.

the soul, and not communicated to the body without, it is then much more intense and keen. As the flesh is bridle to the spirit, so, when the graces of the latter overflow into the former, the flesh draws in and restrains the swift steed of the spirit and checks its course; ‘for the corruptible body is a load upon the soul, and the earthly habitation presseth down the mind that museth upon many things.’¹⁰ He, therefore, who shall trust much to the bodily senses will never become a very — spiritual man.

15. This I say for the sake of those who think they can ascend to the heights and power of the spirit, by the mere energy and action of the senses, which are mean and vile. We cannot become spiritual unless the bodily sense be restrained. It is a state of things wholly different from this, when the spirit overflows into the senses, for there may be great spirituality in this; as in the case of St. Paul, whose deep sense of the sufferings of Christ overflowed into his body, so that he said; ‘I bear the marks of our Lord Jesus in my body.’ ¢ Thus, as the wound and the burn, so the hand that inflicted it; and as the touch, so He who touched. ‘O tender hand, O gentle touch.’

‘O tender hand, O gentle touch.’

16. O hand, as generous as Thou art powerful and rich, giving me gifts with power. O gentle hand! laid so gently upon me, and yet, if Thou wert to press at all, the whole world must perish; for only at the sight of Thee the earth trembles, * the nations melt, and the mountains are crushed in pieces. t O gentle hand, I say it again, for him thou didst touch so sharply. Upon me Thou art laid so softly, so lovingly, and so tenderly; Thou art the more gentle and sweet for me than thou wert hard for him; the loving sweetness with which Thou art laid upon me is greater than the severity with which he was touched. Thou killest, and Thou givest life, and there is no one who shall escape out of Thy hand.

17. But Thou, O divine life, never killest but to give life, as Thou never woundest but to heal. Thou hast wounded me, O divine hand! that Thou mayest heal me. Thou hast slain in me that which made me dead, and without the life of God which I now live. This Thou hast wrought in the liberality of Thy gracious generosity, through that touch, wherewith Thou dost touch me, of the brightness of Thy glory and the figure of Thy substance, } Thine only begotten Son, in Whom. being Thy Wisdom, Thou reachest ‘from end to end mightily.’ §

18. O gentle, subtile touch, the Word, the Son of God, Who, because of the pureness of Thy divine nature, dost penetrate subtilely the very substance of my soul, and, touching it gently, absorbest it wholly in divine ways of sweetness not ‘heard of in the land of Canaan,’ nor ‘seen in Teman.’¹⁶ O touch of the Word, so gentle, so wonderfully gentle to me; and yet Thou wert ‘overthrowing mountains, and breaking rocks in Horeb,’ by the shadow of Thy power going before, when Thou didst announce Thy presence to the prophet in ‘the whisper of a gentle air.’ | O soft air, how is it that Thou touchest so softly when Thou art so terrible and so strong? O blessed soul, most blessed, which Thou, who art so terrible and so strong, touchest so gently. Proclaim it to the world, O my soul—no, proclaim it not, for the world knoweth not the ‘gentle air,’ neither will it listen to it, because it cannot comprehend matters so deep.

19. O my God and my life, they shall know Thee and behold Thee when Thou touchest them, who, making themselves strangers upon earth, shall purify themselves, because purity corresponds with purity. The more gently Thou touchest, the more Thou art hidden in the purified soul of those who have made themselves strangers here, hidden from the face of all creatures, and whom ‘Thou shalt hide in the secret of Thy face from the disturbance of men.’ *

20. O, again and again, gentle touch, which by the power of its tenderness, undoest the soul, removest it far away from every touch whatever, and makest it Thine own; Thou which leavest behind Thee effects and impressions so pure, that the touch of everything else seems vile and low, the very sight offensive, and all relations therewith a deep affliction. The more subtile any matter is, the more it spreads and fills, and the more it diffuses itself the more subtile is it. O gentle touch, the more subtile the more infused. And now the vessel of my soul, because Thou hast touched it, is pure and clean and able to receive Thee.

21. O gentle touch! as in Thee there is nothing material, so Thy touch is the more penetrating, changing what in me is human into divine, for Thy Divine essence, wherewith Thou touchest me, is wholly unaffected by modes and manner, free from the husks of form and figure. Finally then, O gentle touch, and most gentle, for Thou touchest me with Thy most simple and pure essence, which being infinite is infinitely gentle; therefore it is that this touch is so subtile, so loving, so deep, and so delicious.

“Savouring of everlasting life.’

22. What the soul tastes now in this touch of God, is, in truth, though not perfectly, a certain foretaste of everlasting life, as I said before.²⁰ It is not incredible that it should be so when we believe, as we do believe, that this touch is most substantial, and that the substance of God touches the substance of the soul. Many Saints have experienced it in this life. The sweetness of delight which this touch occasions baffles all description. Neither will I speak of it, lest men should suppose that it is nothing beyond what my words imply, for there are no terms by which we can designate or explain the deep things of God transacted in perfect souls. The proper way to speak of them is for him who has been favoured with them to understand them, feel them, and enjoy them, and be silent.

23. For the soul now sees that they are in some measure like the white counter of which it is written “To him that overcometh I will give. . . a white counter, and in the counter a new name written, which no man knoweth but he that receiveth it.’t Thus it may be truly said, ‘savouring of everlasting life.’ For though the fruition of it is not perfect in this life as it will be in glory; nevertheless the touch, being of God, savoureth of everlasting life, and accordingly the soul tastes in a marvellous manner, and by participation, of all the things of God; fortitude, wisdom, love, beauty, grace, and goodness being communicated unto it.

24. Now as God is all this, the soul tastes of all in one single touch of God in a certain eminent way. And from this good bestowed upon the soul, some of the unction of the Spirit overflows at times into the body itself, penetrating into the very bones, as it is written, ‘All my bones shall say: Lord, who is like unto Thee?’ * But as all I can say falls short of the subject, it is enough to repeat, ‘savouring of everlasting life.’

‘And paying the whole debt.’

25. But what debts are they to which the soul here refers, and which it declares to be paid or satisfied? We should know that souls which attain to this high state, to the kingdom of the spiritual betrothal, have in general passed through many tribulations and trials, because it is ‘through many tribulations that we enter into the kingdom of heaven.’ f And these tribulations are now passed.

26. What they have to suffer who are to attain unto union with God are divers afflictions and temptations of sense, trials, tribulations, temptations, darkness, and distress of mind, so that both the flesh and the spirit may be purified together, as I said in the Dark Night in my treatise of the Ascent of Mount Carmel. The reason is that the joy and knowledge of God cannot be established in the soul, if the flesh and spirit are not perfectly purified and spiritualised, and as trials and penances purify and refine the senses, as tribulations, temptations, darkness and distress spiritualise and prepare the spirit, so they must undergo them who would be transformed in God—as the souls in purgatory who through that trial attain to the beatific vision—some more intensely than others, some for a longer, others for a shorter time, according to those degrees of union to which God intends to raise them, and according to their need of purification.

27. It is by these trials to which God subjects the spirit and the flesh that the soul, in bitterness, acquires virtues and fortitude and perfection, as the Apostle writes, ‘Power is made perfect in infirmity ;’ * for virtue is made perfect in weakness, and refined by sufferings. Iron cannot be fashioned according to the pattern of the artificer but by fire and the hammer, and during the process its previous condition is injured. This is the way in which God taught Jeremias, ‘From on high He hath cast a fire in my bones and hath taught me.’ f The prophet speaks of the hammer also when he saith, ‘Thou hast chastised me, and I am taught.’ { So, too, the Wise Man asks, ‘He that hath not been proved, what knoweth he?’ *

28. Here comes the question, why is it that so few ever attain to this state? The reason is that, in this marvellous work which God Himself begins, so many are weak, shrinking from trouble, and unwilling to endure the least discomfort or mortification, or to labour with constant patience. Hence it is that God, not finding them diligent in cultivating the graces He has given them when He began to try them, proceeds no further with their purification, neither does He lift them up out of the dust of the earth, because it required greater courage and resolution for this than they possessed.

29. Thus it may be said to those who desire to advance, but who will not endure a lighter trial nor submit themselves thereto, in the words of Jeremias, “If with running with footmen thou hast laboured how canst thou contend with horses? and whereas in a land of peace thou hast been secure, what wilt thou do in the pride of Jordan?’ That is, if the ordinary trials of human life to which all men living are liable are wearisome and a burden for thee, how art thou to ‘contend with horses’? that is, how canst thou venture out of the common trials of life upon others of greater violence and swiftness? If thou hast been unwilling to make war against the peace and pleasures of the earth, thine own sensuality, but rather seekest comfort and tranquillity on it, what wilt thou do in the pride of Jordan? that is, how wilt thou stand against the rushing waters of tribulations and the more interior trials of the spirit?

30. O souls that seek your own ease and comfort, if you knew how necessary for this high state is suffering, and how profitable suffering and mortification are for attaining to these great blessings, you would never seek for comfort anywhere, but you would rather take up the cross with the vinegar and the gall, and would count it an inestimable favour, knowing that by thus dying to the world and to your own selves, you would live to God in spiritual joy; in the patient endurance of your exterior afflictions you would merit at the hands of God, that He should look upon you, cleanse and purify you more and more in these spiritual tribulations. They whom He thus blesses must have served Him well and long, must have been patient and persevering, and their life most pleasing in His sight. The angel said unto Tobias “Because thou wast acceptable to God, it was necessary that temptation should prove thee.’²⁸ Tobias was acceptable to God, therefore He tried him; He gave him the grace of tribulation, the source of greater graces still, and it is written of him that ‘the rest of his life was in joy.’ *

31. The same truth is exemplified in the life of Job. God acknowledged him as His faithful servant in the presence of the angels good and evil, and immediately sent him heavy trials, that He might afterwards raise him higher, as He did, both in temporal and spiritual things. ft:

32. This is the way God deals with those whom it is His will to exalt. He suffers them to be tempted, afflicted, tormented and chastened, inwardly and outwardly, to the utmost limit of their strength, that He may deify them, unite them to Himself in His wisdom, which is the highest state, purifying them, first in that wisdom, as David observed, saying that the ‘words of our Lord are chaste words, silver, examined by fire,’ tested in the earth of our flesh and purified { seven times, that is, made perfectly pure.

33. It is not necessary I should stop here to say how each of these purgations tends to the divine wisdom, which in this life is as silver, for however pure it may be, yet is not comparable to the pure gold, which is reserved for everlasting glory.

34. But it is very necessary for the soul to endure these tribulations and trials, inward and outward, spiritual and corporal, great and small, with great resolution and patience, accepting all as from the hand of God for its healing and its good, not shrinking from them, because they are for the health of the soul. ‘If the spirit of him that hath power,’ saith the Wise Man, ‘ascend upon thee, leave not thy place, because carefulness ’—that is healing—‘will make the greatest sins to cease.’ “Leave not thy place,’ that is, the place of thy trial, which is thy troubles; for the healing which they bring will break the thread of thy sins and imperfections, which is evil habits, so that they shall proceed no further. Thus, interior trials and tribulations destroy and purge away the imperfect and evil habits of the soul. We are, therefore, to count it a great favour when our Lord sends us interior and exterior trials, remembering that they are few in number who deserve to be made perfect through sufferings so as to attain to so high a state as this.

35. I return to the explanation of the words before me. The soul now remembers that its past afflictions are most abundantly recompensed, for ‘as the darkness so also the light thereof,’ t and that having once been ‘a partaker of the sufferings,’ it is now ‘of the consolation, t that its interior and exterior trials have been recompensed by the divine mercies, none of them being without its corresponding reward. It therefore acknowledges itself perfectly satisfied, and says, ‘paying the whole debt,’ as David did, ‘How great tribulations hast Thou shown me, many and evil, and turning Thou hast quickened me, and from the depths of the earth Thou hast brought me back again. Thou hast multiplied Thy magnificence, and turning to me Thou hast comforted me.’ *

36. Thus the soul which once stood without at the gates of the palace of God—like Mardochai weeping in the streets of Susan because his life was threatened, clothed with sackcloth and refusing the garments which Esther sent him, unrewarded for his faithful service in defending the king’s honour and life, t—finds, also, like Mardochai, all its trials and service rewarded in one day. It is not only admitted within the palace and stands in royal robes before the king, but has also a diadem on its head, and in its hand a sceptre, and sitting on the royal throne with the king’s signet on its finger, symbols of its power in the kingdom of the Bridegroom. For those souls who attain to this high state obtain all their desires; the whole debt is amply paid: the appetites, — their enemies which sought their life, are dead, while they are living in God. ‘In destroying death Thou hast changed it into life.’

‘Thou hast changed death into life.’

37. Death is nothing else but the privation of life, for when life cometh there is no trace of death in that which is spiritual. There are two kinds of life, one beatific, consisting in the vision of God, and this must be preceded by a natural and bodily death, as it is written, ‘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.’ * The other is the perfect spiritual life, consisting in the possession of God by the union of love. Men attain to this through the mortification of their evil habits and desires. Until this be done, the perfection of the spiritual life of union with God is unattainable, ‘For,’ as the Apostle saith, ‘if you live according to the flesh, you shall die: but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live.’ ¢

38. By ‘death’ here is meant the old man, that is the employment of our faculties, memory, understanding, and will, upon the things of this world, and the desire of the pleasure which created things supply. All this is the old life; it is the death of the new life which is spiritual, and which the soul cannot live perfectly unless to the old man it be perfectly dead, for so the Apostle teaches, when he bids us put ‘away according to the old conversation, the old man. . . and put on the new man, which, accord- [STAN. II. ] . OF LOVE La) ing to God, is created in justice and holiness of the truth.’³⁸ In this new life, when the soul shall have attained to perfect union with God, all its affections, powers, and acts, in themselves imperfect and vile, become as it were divine. And as everything that lives, to use the expression of philosophers, lives in its acts, so the soul, having its acts in God by virtue of its union with Him, lives the life of God, its death being changed into life.

39. This is so, because the understanding, which, previous to its union with God, understood but dimly by means of its natural light, is now under the influence and direction of another principle, and of a higher illumination of God. The will, which previously loved but weakly, is now changed into the life of divine love, for now it loves deeply with the affections of divine love, moved by the Holy Ghost in whom it now lives. The memory, which once saw nothing but the forms and figures of created things, is now changed, and keeps in ‘mind the eternal years,’ f as David spoke. The desire, which previously longed for created food, now tastes and relishes the food that is divine, influenced by another and more efficacious principle, the sweetness of God.

40. Finally, all the motions and acts of the soul, proceeding from the principle of its natural and imperfect life, are now changed in this union with God into motions divine. For the soul, as the true child of God, is moved by the Spirit of God, as it is written, ‘Whosoever are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.’⁴⁰ The substance of the soul, though it is not the substance of God, because inconvertible into Him, yet being united to Him and absorbed in Him, is by participation God. This is accomplished in the perfect state of the spiritual life, but not so perfectly as in the other; hence is it well said: * While slaying thou hast changed death into life.’

41. The soul, therefore, has good reason for saying with St. Paul, ‘I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ f What in the soul is dead and cold, becomes changed into the life of God, the soul ‘swallowed up of life’ ¢ in fulfilling the words of the Apostle, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory,’ § and those of See, ‘I will be thy death, O death.’ ||

42. The soul being thus swallowed up of life, detached from all secular and temporal things, and delivered from the disorderliness of nature, is led into the chamber of the King, where it rejoices and is glad in the Beloved, remembering His breasts more than wine, and saying, ‘I am black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,’ 4 for my natural blackness is changed into the beauty of the heavenly King. O then, the burning of the fire! infinitely burning above all other fires, O how infinitely beyond all other fires dost thou burn me, and the more thou burnest the sweeter thou art to me. ‘O delicious wound,’ more delicious to me than all the delights and health of the world. ‘O tender hand,’ infinitely more tender than all tenderness, and the greater the pressure of it the more tender is it to me. ‘O gentle touch,’ the gentleness of which surpasses infinitely all the gentleness ~ and all the loveliness of created things, sweeter and more delicious than honey and the honeycomb, because thou savourest of everlasting life; and is the more sweet the more profoundly thou dost touch me. Thou art infinitely more precious than gold and precious stones, for thou payest debts which nothing else can pay, because thou changest marvellously death into life.

43. In this state of life, so perfect, the soul is, as it were, keeping a perpetual feast with the praises of God in its mouth, with a new song of joy and love, full of the knowledge of its high dignity. It sometimes exulteth, repeating the words of Job, ‘My glory shall always be renewed, and ‘as a palm tree’ I ‘will multiply days.’ * That is, God will not suffer my glory to grow old as before, and He will multiply my days, that is, my merits, unto heaven, as a palm tree multiplies its branches. And also the words of David in the twenty-ninth Psalm, the soul sings interiorly to God, especially the conclusion thereof, ‘Thou hast turned my mourning into joy unto me: Thou hast cut my sackcloth and hast compassed me with gladness, that my glory may sing to Thee, and I be not confounded—for this state is inaccessible to pain— “Lord my God, for ever will I confess to Thee.’ *

44. Here the soul is so conscious of God’s solicitude to comfort it, feeling that He is Himself encouraging it with words so precious, so tender, so endearing; that He is conferring graces upon it, one upon another, so that it seems as if there were no other soul in the world for Him to comfort, no other object of His care, but that everything was done for this one soul alone. This truth is admitted by the bride in the Canticle when she says, ‘My Beloved to me and I to Him.’ ¢