CHAPTER XIII.

Other sweet effects wrought in the soul in the dark night of contemplation.
By the expression i burning ' we understand some of the sweet effects which are wrought in the soul by the dark night of contemplation ; for occasionally, amid the darkness, the soul receives light — Might shineth in darkness ’* — the mystical inflowing streaming directly into the understanding, and the will in some measure partaking of it, with a calmness and pureness so exquisite and so delicious to the soul as to be utterly indescribable : now God is felt to be present in one way, and again in another. Sometimes, too, it wounds the will at the same time, and enkindles love deeply, tenderly, and strongly ; * St. Johni. 5.
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for, as I have said, the more the understanding is purified the more perfectly and delicate, at times, is the union of the understanding and the will. But, before the soul attains to this state, it is more common for the touch of the fire of love to be felt in the will than for the touch of the perfect intelligence to be felt in the understanding.
2. This burning, and thirst of love, inasmuch as it now proceeds from the Holy Ghost, is very different from that of which I spoke in describing the night of sense.* For though sense also has now its part in this, because it cannot but share in the afflictions of the spirit ; yet the root and living force of the thirst of love are felt in the higher part of the soul, that is, in the spirit. The spirit perceives and understands what it feels, and that it possesses not that which it longs for, so that it counts as nothing all the pain it feels, though it is beyond comparison greater than the pain of the first night, which is the night of sense ; for it thoroughly understands that one great good is absent, and that there is no remedy possible.
3. It may be observed here that, although at first, in the beginning of the spiritual night, this burning love is not felt because the fire of love has not yet done its work, God communicates to the soul, instead of it, a reverent love of Himself so great that, as I have said,f the
♦ Bk. 1, ch. xi. § 2. f Ch. v. § 7.
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heaviest trials and deepest afflictions of this night are the distressing thought that it has lost God, and that He has abandoned it. It may, therefore, be always said that from the beginning of this night the soul is full of the anxieties of love, at one time that of reverence, at another that of burning. It is evident that the greatest of its sufferings is this doubt : for if it could be per- suaded that all is not lost and over, and that the trials it undergoes are, as in truth they are, for its greater good, and that God is not angry, it would make no account whatever of all these afflictions ; on the con- trary, it would rejoice, knowing that by them it is serving God.
4. This reverential love of God is so strong in the soul — though in the darkness and unaware of it — that it would be glad not only to endure its trials, but also to die a thousand deaths to serve Him. But when the fire of love and the reverent love of God together have set the soul in a flame, it is wont to gain such strength and energy, and such eager longing after God — effects of this glowing love — that it boldly disregards all con- siderations, and sets everything aside, in the inebriating force of love, and, without much consideration of its acts, it conducts itself strangely and extravagantly in every way that it may come to Him whom the soul loveth.
5. This is the reason why Mary Magdalene, though
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so noble, heeded not the many guests, high and low, who were feasting, as we read in St. Luke, in the house of the Pharisee. She considered not that she was not welcome, and that tears were unseemly at the feast, provided she could, without an hour’s delay, or waiting for another occasion, reach Him for whom her soul was wounded and on fire.* This is that inebriating and daring force of love, which, when she knew that her Love was in the sepulchre, guarded by soldiers, and a stone rolled over it and sealed, allowed none of these things to move her ; for she went thither before dawn with the ointments to anoint her Beloved. And, finally, it was under the inebriating influence and anxieties of love that she asked Himself, Whom she took for the gardener, who, she thought, had robbed the sepulchre, to tell her, if he had taken Him away, where he had laid Him. ‘ If thou hast carried Him away, tell me where thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away.’f She did not reflect upon the imprudence of her words ; for it is clear that if the gardener had stolen the Body he would not have told her, still less would he have allowed her to take Him away.
6. This conduct of Mary Magdalene proceeded from the vehemence and energy of her love : for love thinks all things possible, and that all are of the same mind with itself ; for it cannot believe that there is anything ♦ St. Luke vii. 37. f St. John xx. 15.
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to occupy men, or anything to be sought for by them, except that which itself seeks and loves; it considers that there can be no other occupation or desire except its own. Thus, when the bride went out into the streets and highways seeking her beloved, she, believing that all were employed, like herself, in searching for him, adjured them, if they found him, to tell him that she languished with love.*
7. So strong was Mary’s love that she intended, if the gardener had told her where he had hidden our Lord, to go and take Him away, in spite of any prohibition. Of
‘this kind are those anxieties of love which the soul feels when it has made some progress in the spiritual purgation. The soul rises by night— that is, in the purifying darkness— in the affections of the will. As a lioness or a bear, robbed of its whelps, whom it cannot find, seeks them anxiously and earnestly, so does the wounded soul seek after God. Being in darkness, it feels His absence, and is dying of love. This is that impatient love which no man can endure long without obtaining his wishes or dying. It is like Rachel s longing for children, when she said to Jacob, ‘ Give me children, otherwise I shall die.’f
8. We have now to consider how it is that the soul, conscious of its own misery and unworthiness before God, can be so bold, amid the purifying darkness, as to
* Cant. iii. 2 v. 8. t Gen. xxx. 1 .
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aspire after union with Him. The reason is, that love gives it strength to love in earnest, it being the nature of love to seek for union, companionship, equality with, and likeness to the object beloved, so as to attain to the perfection of itself. Hence it is that the soul not yet made perfect in love, because it has not attained to union, hungers and thirsts for that which it has not — namely, union ; and the strength which love com- municates to the will, which is on fire, renders it bold and daring as to the will, though as to the understanding, because that is in darkness, it feels itself to be an unworthy and miserable object.
9. I must not omit here to say why it is that the divine light, being always light to the soul, does not illumine it the moment it strikes it, as it does at a later time, instead of bringing with it the darkness and misery of which I am speaking.* Something has been already said, but I now speak of it directly. The darkness and other miseries of which the soul is conscious proceed not from the divine light when it strikes the soul, but from the soul itself, and it is the light which enables it to see them. The divine light gives light at once, but the soul sees nothing at first but th at which is im mediately before it, or rather within itself ; its own darkness and misery, which, by the mercy of God, it sees now, and formerly saw not,
♦ Ch. ix. § 1.
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because this supernatural light had not been granted it.
10. This is the reason why, in the beginning, the soul is conscious of nothing but of darkness and misery. But when it has been purified by the knowledge and sense of its misery it will have eyes to discern the blessings of the divine light, and being delivered and set free from all darkness and imperfections, the great blessings and profit will become known which the soul is gaining for itself in this blessed night.
11. This shows how great is the mercy of God to the soul when He thus purifies it in this strong lye and bitter purgation, as to its sensual and spiritual part, from all its affections and imperfect habits in all that relates to time, nature, sense, and spirit ; by darkening its interior faculties, and emptying them of all objects, by correcting and drying up all affections of sense and spirit, by weakening and wasting the natural forces which the soul never could have done of itself as we shall immediately show. God ^makes it die, in this way , to -a ll that i s not^ God v that, being denuded and strippe d of its fo rmer clothing T jt may cloth e itself anew. Thus the soul’s * youth shall be renewed like the eagle’s/* clothed with ‘ the new man, which, in the words of the Apostle, is created according to God in justice.’f
12. Now this is nothing else but the supernatural
* Ps. cii. 5. -f Ephes. iv. 24.
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light giving light to the understanding, so that the human understanding becomes divine, made one with the divine. In the same way divine love inflames the will so that it becomes nothing less than divine, loving in a divine way, united and made one with the •divine will and divine love. ' The memory is affected in like manner; all the desires and affections also are changed divinely according to God. Thus the soul will be of heaven, heavenly, divine rather than human.
13. All this, as is clear from what I have said, is the work of God in the soul, during this night, enlightening it and setting it on fire in a divine way with an anxious solicitude for God alone, and for nought besides.
14. It is with great propriety and justice, therefore, that the soul repeats the third line of the stanza, which, together with those that follow, I repeat again and explain in the following chapter.