CHAPTER XXII.

THE SAINT SHOWS HOW SECURE A WAY IT IS FOR THOSE "WHO GIVE THEMSELVES TO CONTEMPLATION, NOT TO RAISE THEIR MINDS TO II 1C II THINOS UNLESS OUR LORD RAISE THEM HIMSELF, AND HOW THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST MAY SERVE AS A MEANS OF REACHING THE HIGHEST DEGREE OF CONTEMPLATION.
I WISH to make a remark here which, in my opinion, is very important; and if your Reverence consider it proper, it may serve as a word of advice to you; and, perhaps, you may even stand in need of it. I have read in some books which treat of prayer, that though the soul is not able of herself to arrive at this state, because everything is super-
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natural which our Lord works therein, yet that she may help herself towards this object, by raising her mind above all created things : and that so raising it with humility for many years, and having first passed through the " purgative " way, and then through the illuminative (I do not know why it is called by this name), the writers particularly advise persons to abstract themselves from all reflection on corporeal things, that so they may be able to arrive at the contemplation of the divinity. They say, that though it should be even the Humanity of Christ, yet it is some impediment for those who have advanced so far, and that it hinders persons from applying to the most perfect kind of contemplation. To support this opinion, they allege what our Lord said to His apostles, when He was ascending into heaven, respecting the descent of the Holy Ghost upon them. My opinion is, that if then they had that lively faith of our Lord being both God and man — (as they had after the coming of the Holy Spirit), His corporal presence would have been no hinderance to them ; for He spoke not thus to His mother, though she loved Him much more than all of them together. But they quote what our Lord said to His apostles, when He ascended into heaven, because it seems to them (as all the action is spiritual), that every corporeal object will prove a hinderance and obstacle to this kind of prayer ; that they should con sider themselves independent of creatures ; that God sur rounds them on all sides, and hence, that it should be their endeavor to see themselves engulfed in Him. To make use of this sometimes seems to me good : but to separate our selves entirely from Christ, and to place His divine body in the same company with our miseries, or even with all created things, this I can by no means allow. May His Majesty grant that I may make myself understood. I do ijpt wish to contradict these men, because they are spiritual and learned, and they know well what they say : it is also true, that God conducts souls through several ways and paths, as He did mine. And now I will declare some particulars thereof (in other matters I will not interfere) ; but I w.ll only speak of the danger in which I found myself, because I acted con formably to w7hat I read. I firmly believe, that whoever shall have arrived at the state of union, and not have passed 17*
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further on, so as to have raptures and visions, and those other favors our Lord communicates to souls, may consider that which is mentioned above to be better, as I did. But if I had continued in that state, I believe I never should have arrived to where I am now, because, in my opinion, it is an error ; though perhaps I myself may be deceived, but yet I will relate what happened to me.
When I had no director, and was engaged in reading those books alluded to above, I thought that by little and little I came to understand something; but I afterwards found out, that if our Lord had not been my teacher, I should have learnt very little by these books. It was a mere nothing which I understood, till His Majesty was pleased to make me know it by experience ; neither did I know what I was doing. But when I began to understand a little about supernatural prayer (I mean the prayer of Quiet), I endeavored to avoid all corporeal objects, thoi gh I dared not exalt my soul ; for knowing how very wicked I always v, as, I saw that this would be great presumption in me. But it seemed to me that I felt the presence of God, as indeed I did, and I endeavored to keep myself recollected with him. This is a sweet kind of prayer, if our Lord assist a soul therein, and the delight is very great ; and when both the profit and the pleasure are perceived, no one could then make me return to the Humanity of Christ, because I thought that it was in reality an impediment to me. 0 Lord of my soul! my Good! Jesus Christ crucified! I never c.'.ll to mind the opinion which I then held, without feeling pain at the thought, for I think I committed a great treason against Thee, though perhaps in ignorance. I have been especially devoted to the Passion of Christ throughout all my life, for this other cir cumstance happened in the latter part of it ; I say, " in the latter part," before our Lord granted n;e the favor of having raptures and visions. I remained but a short time in this opinion, and then I always returned to regale myself with my Lord ; and especially when I received the most blessed Sacrament, I always desired to have some picture or image of Him near my eyes, since I was not able to have Him as deeply engraven on my soul as I could wish. But is it possible, 0 my Lord ! a thought should ever have entered
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my mind, even for an hour, that Thou couldst be a hinderancc to me in obtaining iny greatest good ? Whence have ci me all the blessings I have received, but from Thee ? But I will not think I was in fault in this respect : rather I ought to pity myself for that which certainly proceeded from igno rance ; and so Thou wert pleased in Thy goodness to remedy it, by giving me a person who delivered me from this error , and also by enabling me to see Thee so often, as I shall after wards declare, that so I might the more clearly understand how great that ignorance of mine was ; and likewise that 1 might declare the same to many persons, as I have already done, and declare it here also. I believe that the cause why many souls do not advance more, nor attain great liberty of soul when they arrive at the prayer of Union, is on this very account.
There are two reasons on which, it seems to me, this opinion may be grounded. And though what I am going to say may be of little or no importance, yet I will declare it, because I have found by experience, that my soul was not at all in a proper state till our Lord was pleased to give me light. For all those joys which she received came to me only by draughts ; and when these were over, I did not find myself in such company, nor possessed of such strength to endure tribulations and temptations as I found afterwards. The first reason is, that there is a little want of humility, which, however, lies hidden in such a manner that it is not perceived by the person. And who will be so proud and miserable as I was, even though he should have passed his whole life in numerous acts of penance, in prayers, and all imaginable persecutions, as not even then to consider himself very rich, and very well repaid, were our Lord to allow him to stand at the foot of the cross with St. John ? No one but myself could help being content with such a happiness as this, for I was a loser many ways in all those things in which I ought to have been a gainer. But if our frail nature, or our infirmities, will not allow us always to be meditating on the Passion (on account of its painf'ulness), what should prevent us from remaining with Him now that He is risen again to glory, since we have Him so near us in the Blessed Sacrament 1 Nor need we behold Him there BO afflicted,
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torn in pieces, covered with blood, so weary going along those rugged ways, so persecuted by those to whom He did such good, and even not believed in by His own apostles : because it is true that no one can bear always to be medi tating on all the sufferings which He endured. But in the Blessed Sacrament we have Him without His enduring any pain, and full of glory, giving strength to some and courage to others, just as He did before He ascended into heaven. Here, in this most adorable Sacrament, He is our companion, and it seems as if it were not in His power to absent Himself one moment from us : and yet I was able to remove myself from Thee, under the pretext of serving Thee better! But when I was offending Thee, I knew Thee not : and when I did know Thee, how could I think of gaining by the way I walked ? Oh ! what a rugged road I walked along ! And now I find I should have quite lost my way, if Thou hadst not conducted me back to Thee ; for as Thou wert near me, I saw I had all good things. And whenever any affliction conies upon me I consider how Thou wert treated before the Jews, and then the affliction is very easily borne. With the presence of so good a friend, and under the guidance of so valiant a qaptain, who was in the foremost rank to suffer, everything can be endured for His sake. He assists us and gives us strength, and never fails in his promises : He is a true friend. I see clearly, that in order to please God, and to receive great favors from Him, He wishes to give them to us through the hands of this most sacred Humanity, in which His Majesty has said, He is " well pleased." Many, many times, I have known this truth by experience: besides, our Lord himself has told me so. I have also seen, that by this gate wd must enter, if we wish His Sovereign Majesty to communicate great secrets to our souls.
Thus it is that I wish your Reverence not to choose any other way, though you should have arrived at the very height of contemplation ; for here you will be safe, since this is our Lord, from whom all blessings come : if you consider His life, your own will be improved, for He is the very best pattern we can have. What can we- desire more than to have so good a friend by our side, who will never desert us in our afflictions and tribulations, like men in the world do?
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Blessed is that man who loves our Lord truly, and who always has Him rear to him. Let us consider the glorious St. Paul, who had the name of Jesus continually on his lips, because he had it deeply engraven in his heart. And from the time I have know this truth, I have carefully considered the life of many other great contemplative saints, and I have noticed that they walked along no other way. St. Francis shows this clearly by his wounds (" stigmata ") ; and St. Antony of Padua by the infant. St. Bernard took great delight in the humanity of our Lord ; so also did St. Catherine of Sienna, and many other saints, with whom your Reverence is better acquainted than I am. This abstraction from corporeal objects must be good, since persons of such spirituality tell us so ; but, in my opinion, what they say must be understood of souls very far advanced in perfection ; for till then it is evident that the Creator must be sought for by means of creatures. But I will not say much on this point, since all depends on the favors our Lord is pleased to show to any soul. What I wish to be understood is, that the most sacred Humanity of Christ must not be taken into this account ; and let this point be well understood, that I would wish to know how to express myself properly.
When God is pleased to suspend all the powers of the soul, as He does in those kinds of prayer already mentioned, we have seen plainly that this presence is taken away from us, whether we will or no. But let it go ; for what a happy loss is that whereby we gain more than what we thought we had lost ! Then the whole soul is employed in loving Him whom the understanding has already endeavored to know ; and she loves that which she did not comprehend, and enjoys what she could not have enjoyed, except only by losing her self for her greater gain, as I have already mentioned. But that we should accustom ourselves, by a kind of artifice, not to endeavor with all our strength to place always before our eyes — (and would it were always] — this most sacred Hu manity : this, I repeat, is what I do not like, for it is as if the soul walked in the air, as the saying is, because she seems to have no support, however much she may fancy herself to be full of God.
Since we are mortal, it is very important for us as long as
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•\vc live to represent our Lord's Humanity to our mind ; for this is that other subject on which I wish to speak. The first (I said) proceeded from a want of a little humility, by presuming to raise the soul up before our Lord raised her ; and not contenting herself with meditating on a subject so precious and sacred, she wishes to be Mary before she has labored with Martha. If our Lord should wish her to be Mary, we have nothing to fear then, though it should happen on the very first day of our entering His service. But let us consider the subject well, as I think I have mentioned be fore. This mote of little humility, though it may appear to be a mere nothing, will hinder us a great deal from advanc ing in contemplation.
Let us return now to the second point. Though we are not angels, but have bodies, yet to desire to make ourselves angels, while we are still upon the earth, is a kind of mad ness. But our thoughts require some support, generally speaking, though sometimes the soul may be so raised above herself, and often so full of God, as not to stand in need of any created object in order to recollect herself. But this is not so common when the soul is overpowered with business, or in persecutions and troubles, when she cannot have so much quiet : and in times also of dryness and dulness, Christ our Lord is found to be a very good friend, because we con sider Him as man, and we behold Him full of weakness and afflictions, and there He keeps us company ; and when once we acquire the custom, we shall find it very easy to keep Him close to us, though it will sometimes happen that we shall not be able to do either the one or the other. 'For this reason it will be well to do what I mentioned before, viz., not to strive to procure any consolation of soul, come what may ; but willingly to embrace the cross of Christ, is very important. Our Lord was deprived of all consolation : He was left alone in his afflictions : let us not leave Him so. lie will stretch out His hand to us, which will raise us up better than all our own endeavors ; and yet He will absent Himself also whenever He shall think fit, and will raise the soul above herself when He wishes, as I have already men tioned.
God is much pleased to see a soul take, with humility,
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His Son for her intercessor ; and He loves her so much, that even if His Majesty should desire to raise her up to a very high degree of contemplation, she acknowledges herself unwor thy, and exclaims with St. Peter, " Depart from me, 0 Lord! for I am a sinful man." This I have experienced myself, and in this manner has God guided my soul. Let others go (as I have said) by another short cut ; but what I have learnt is, that all this edifice of prayer is grounded on humility ; and that the more the soul humbles herself in prayer, the more does God exalt her. I do not remember that He ever showed any of those singular favors (of which I shall speak hereafter) — but only when I was in confusion at seeing myself so wicked : and His Majesty sometimes took care to make me understand certain things, which I never could have imagined myself, in order to help me to know myself better. I believe that when the soul docs any thing on her part to help herself on in this prayer of Union, yet the building will very quickly fall (though for the pre sent her efforts may seem to advance her), because it has no so. id foundation. And I am afraid she will never arrive at true poverty of spirit, which consists not in seeking com fort and pleasure in prayer (for the pleasures of this world are already forsaken), but consolation in afflictions, for the love of Him who always lived in them, and grace to remain patient under them, as well as quiet in aridities ; arid though such souls cannot help feeling some pain thereat, yet they do not disturb themselves so much as some persons do, who imagine that if they are not always working with the under standing, and do not have sensible devotion, all is lost ! As if they could merit so great a blessing by their own exer tions ! I do not mean to say, that they should not endeavor with care to keep themselves in the presence of God ; but if they should be unable to have even one good thought (as 1 have mentioned in another place), yet they must not tor ment themselves. We arc unprofitable servants, and what therefore can we fancy we are able to do ? Our Lord is much better pleased that we should know this truth, and that we should consider ourselves only fit to be treated like some poor little asses, to turn the wheel for drawing the water spoken of before ; for though these have their eyes
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blindfolded, and know not what they are doing, yet they draw up more water than the gardener can, with all his strength and exertions. We must walk in this way with liberty, and put ourselves in the hands of God. If His Ma jesty shall be pleased to rank us among the number of His confidential friends, we must accept the honor with a good will ; but if not, we must be content to serve in inferior em ployments, and not sit down in the best place, as I have said elsewhere. God takes more care of us than we do ourselves, and knows what every one is fit for ; what use then is it for him, who has already given his whole will to God, to govern himself? In my opinion, this is less to be allowed here than in the first degree of prayer, and it does xis much more harm (if any error be committed), for these are supernatural blessings. If a man have a bad voice, however much he may force himself to sing, the voice will not thereby become good ; but if God should please to give him a good voice, he need not torment himself. Let us, therefore, always beg of God to grant us His favors ; and let the soul be re signed, though yet confiding in the greatness of God. And when she has received leave to remain at the feet of Christ, let her continue there in whatever way she can : let her imi tate Mary Magdalen ; and when she becomes strong, our Lord will take her into the desert.
Your Reverence will do well to keep yourself in this way, until you meet with some one else who has more experience than I have in this matter. If they be persons who are only beginning to delight in God, do not believe them, for they think they receive more profit and delight when they help themselves. Oh ! how manifestly does God show His power, when He wills, without these poor helps ! And so, what ever resistance we may make, He carries away the soul, just as some giant would carry away a straw. What an incredible thing would it be for a man to believe and to hope, that a toad could fly whenever it liked ! Now I consider it to be a more difficult and absurd thing for our soul to raise herself up, without being raised by God, because it is laden with earth, and hindered by a thousand obstacles ; and merely wishing to fly will be of little use to her. And though fly ing be more natural to a soul than to a toad, yet the soul is
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so deeply buried in mire, that she has lost the power of fly ing by her own fault.
I wish then to conclude with this remark, that whenever we meditate on Christ our Lord, we should ever remember the love wherewith He bestowed so many favors upon us. and how great that love was by His giving us such a pledge of it; for love produces love. And though we should bo mere beginners, and withal very wicked, yet let us always be endeavoring to consider what I have been saying, and be exciting ourselves to love Him. If once our Lord shall be pleased to do us the favor of imprinting this love in our hearts, everything will become easy to us, and very quickly shall we begin to work, and this without any trouble. May His Majesty grant us this favor, since He knows how neces sary it is for us ; and we beg this favor by the great love He bore us, and for the sake of His divine £on, who also loved us so much to His own cost. Amen.
One thing I would fain ask your Keverence, viz., how our Lord, when He begins to confer such high favors on a soul, as to raise her to a state of perfect contemplation — (and this soul ought then most certainly to become reifect entirely and immediately, since a soul which receives such great favors should no longer desire the consolations of this world) — how our Lord can in process of time abandon this soul, without maintaining her in the perfection of virtue, especially after she has received raptures and been accus tomed to receive other favors ; for the more she becomes dis engaged from creatures, the more highly is she favored, con sidering, too, how when our Lord enters a soul He can sanc tify her in a moment ? This I desire to know, for I do not understand it, though I know well there is a difference be tween the strength which these raptures give in the begin ning, when they continue only for the twinkling of an eye, and between the strength which the soul receives when they continue longer. But the doubt often occurs to me, whether the cause of this may not be, that the soul does not give herself up entirely to God, till His Majesty leads her little by little, and makes her determine at once, and gives her the strength of a full-grown man, that so she may trample everything un der her feet, just as Mary Magdalen did so quickly. And 18
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so does He do to others, in proportion as they co-operate with Him, and as they allow His Majesty to dispose of them according to His own good pleasure ; for we cannot but be lieve, that even in this life God rewards us a hundredfold.
I thought also of this comparison : that supposing what is given to beginners as well as to proficients be all the same, it is like a delicious viand whereof many persons eat ; that they who eat little retain the sweet taste of it only for a short time, and they who eat more are enabled to subsist, but that they who feed plentifully on it receive life and strength. A soul may even feed so often and so fully on this food of life, as to have no relish at all for anything but that food, because she derives great benefit therefrom. Her taste also is so accustomed to this sweetness, that she would rather cease to exist than feed on other things, all of which would only serve to take away the good taste which the for mer food left on her lips. Besides, the conversation and company of a holy person does not do us so much good in one day as in many ; but we may, by the Divine assistance, become like unto Him by remaining long with Him. Finally, the chief point depends upon God, to whom and when He is pleased to give His graces : but it is important to remember, that he who begins to receive this favor must resolve to dis engage himself from everything, and to esteem the favors of our Lord as highly as they deserve.
It also seems to me as if His Majesty were resolved to try who they are that love Him — whether this soul or that : and that He likewise wishes to discover who He is Himself, by giving us such excessive delights to quicken our faith, if it should be dead or weak, about those blessings He intends to give the soul : and He says : " Behold ! this is but a drop of that immense ocean of blessing which I mean to give to those that love Me." And when He sees that we receive them as He gives them, He then gives us Himself. He loves those who love Him : and what a good friend, and who more worthy to be loved ! O Lord of my soul ! who will give me words that I might make men understand what Thou dost give to those who trust in Thee, and what they lose who arrive at this state and yet remain attached to themselves? Do not permit this, 0 Lord ! since Thou dost so much in
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Coining to so wicked a place as my heart. Be Thou blessed forever and ever.
And now I wish to entreat your Reverence, that should you mention these matters on prayer, concerning which I have written, you would do so only to spiritual persons ; be cause if they understand only one way, or have remained stationary half-way, they cannot judge correctly. There are some whom God quickly raises to a very sublime degree, and they may think that others also might arrive there, and keep the understanding quiet, without making use of corpo real objects as means ; such persons, however, will remain as dry as a stick. And some who have enjoyed a little the Prayer of Quiet, presently imagine, that as they have reached one degree they may reach the other ; but these, instead of advancing, go backwards, as I have mentioned before. Thus, in all these matters both experience and prudence are necessary; and may our Lord in his goodness grant them to us.