Tells how she was helped by the Lord to force herself to take the habit and of the many illnesses His Majesty began to send her.
IN THOSE DAYS while I was making these decisions, I persuaded one of my brothers to become a friar,1 telling him about the vanity of the world. We both agreed to go one morning very early to the convent where that friend of mine was, which was the convent I liked very much.2 For in this final decision I was determined to go where I thought I could serve God more, or where my father desired. For I was already thinking more of a remedy for my soul than of any easy way of life for myself.
I remember, clearly and truly, that when I left my father’s house I felt that separation so keenly that the feeling will not be greater, I think, when I die. For it seemed that every bone in my body was being sundered. Since there was no love of God to take away my love for my father and relatives, everything so constrained me that if the Lord hadn’t helped me, my reflections would not have been enough for me to continue on. In this situation He gave me such courage against myself that I carried out the task.
2. As soon as I took the habit,3 the Lord gave me an understanding of how He favors those who use force with themselves to serve Him. No one noticed this struggle, but rather they thought that I was very pleased. Within an hour, He gave me such great happiness at being in the religious state of life that it never left me up to this day, and God changed the dryness my soul experienced into the greatest tenderness. All the things of religious life delighted me, and it is true that sometimes while sweeping, during the hours I used to spend in self-indulgence and self-adornment, I realized that I was free of all that and experienced a new joy which amazed me. And I could not understand where it came from.
When I recall this, there is no task that could be presented to me, no matter how hard, that I would hesitate to undertake. For I have already experienced in many ways that if I strive at the outset with determination to do it, even in this life His Majesty pays the soul in such ways that only the one who has this joy understands it. Yet, since the task is for God alone, He may desire that the soul feel this fear before beginning so that it gain more merit. And the greater the fear it starts out with, the greater and more enjoyable will be the reward afterward. I hold this opinion through experience, as I said, with many very difficult things. And so I would never counsel anyone—if there were someone to whom I should have to give counsel—to fail out of fear to put a good inspiration into practice when it repeatedly arises. For if one proceeds with detachment for God alone, there is no reason to fear that the effort will turn out bad; for God has the power to accomplish all. May He be blessed forever, amen.
3. Enough already, O my supreme Good and Repose, are the favors You have bestowed on me in bringing me by Your mercy and greatness through so many roundabout ways to so secure a state and to a house where there are many servants of God I might imitate so as to go on increasing in Your service! I don’t know how I am going to continue here when I remember the kind of profession I made4 and the great resolve and happiness with which I made it and the espousal that I entered into with You. I cannot speak of this without tears; and were they tears of blood and were they to break my heart, the sentiment would not make up for the way I offended You afterward.
It seems to me now I was right in not wanting so great a dignity since I was going to make such bad use of it. But You, my Lord, desired to be the offended one—for almost twenty years, in which I used this favor badly—so that I might become better. It seems, my God, that I did nothing but promise not to keep a thing of what I promised You; although that was not then my intention. But I see that afterward my deeds were such (for I don’t know what intention I had) that it may be more clearly seen who You are, my Spouse, and who I am. For it is true, certainly, that many times the feeling of my great faults is tempered by the happiness experienced in the thought that the multitude of Your mercies may be known.
4. In whom, Lord, can your mercies shine as they do in me who have so darkened with my evil deeds the wonderful favors You began to grant me? Woe is me, my Creator, for if I desire to make an excuse, I find none! Nor is anyone to be blamed but myself. For if I would have paid back something of the love You began to show me, I should not have been able to employ it in anyone but You; and with that all would have been remedied. Since I did not merit this or have such good fortune, may Your mercy, Lord, help me now.
5. The change in food and lifestyle did injury to my health; and although my happiness was great, this was not enough. My fainting spells began to increase, and I experienced such heart pains that this frightened any who witnessed them; and there were many other illnesses all together. And so I passed the first year with very poor health, although I don’t think I offended God much in that year. Since the sickness was so serious that I always nearly lost consciousness, and sometimes lost it completely, my father was painstaking in looking for a remedy. Since the doctors there had none to offer, he sought to bring me to a place very famous for the cure of other sicknesses;5 and also mine they thought could be cured. This friend I mentioned who was in the convent accompanied me, for she was an older person.6 In the convent where I was a nun, there was no vow of enclosure.
6. I remained in that place almost a year, and for three of those months suffering such severe torment from the harsh cures they used on me that I don’t know how I was able to endure them. And, finally, even though I endured them, my bodily make-up could not, as I shall tell.7 The cure was supposed to begin at the beginning of the summer, and I went at the beginning of the winter. During that interval I stayed, waiting for the month of April, at my sister’s house, which I mentioned,8 which was in a hamlet nearby; and I didn’t have to be coming and going.
7. When I was on the way, that uncle of mine I mentioned9 who lived along the road gave me a book. It is called The Third Spiritual Alphabet 10 and endeavors to teach the prayer of recollection. And although during this first year I read good books (for I no longer desired to make use of the others, because I understood the harm they did me), I did not know how to proceed in prayer or how to be recollected. And so I was very happy with this book and resolved to follow that path11 with all my strength. Since the Lord had already given me the gift of tears and I enjoyed reading, I began to take time out for solitude, to confess frequently, and to follow that path, taking the book for my master. For during the twenty years after this period of which I am speaking, I did not find a master, I mean a confessor, who understood me, even though I looked for one. This hurt me so much that I often turned back and was even completely lost, for a master would have helped me flee from the occasions of offending God.
His Majesty began to grant me many favors during these early stages. I was almost nine months in this solitude, although not so free from offending God as the book told me I should be; but I could not be that free, for it seemed to me almost impossible to be so on guard. I kept from committing mortal sin and begged God to keep me so always. As for venial sins, I paid little attention; and that is what destroyed me. At the end of this time that I mentioned there, the Lord, as I was saying, began to favor me by means of this path; so much so that He granted me the prayer of quiet. And sometimes I arrived at union, although I did not understand what the one was or the other, or how much they were to be prized—for I believe it would have done me great good to have understood this. True, this union lasted for so short a time that I do not know if it continued for the space of a Hail Mary. But I was left with some effects so great that, even though at this time I was no more than twenty,12 it seems I trampled the world under foot. And so I pitied those who went following after it, even though in permissible things.
I tried as hard as I could to keep Jesus Christ, our God and our Lord, present within me, and that was my way of prayer. If I reflected upon some phrase of His Passion, I represented Him to myself interiorly. But most of the time I spent reading good books, which was my whole recreation. For God didn’t give me talent for discursive thought or for a profitable use of the imagination. In fact, my imagination is so dull that I never succeeded even to think about and represent in my mind—as hard as I tried—the humanity of the Lord. And although, if one perseveres, one reaches contemplation more quickly along this way of inability to work discursively with the intellect, this way is nonetheless most laborious and painful. For if the will is not occupied and love has nothing present with which to be engaged, the soul is left as though without support or exercise, and the solitude and dryness is very troublesome, and the battle with one’s thoughts extraordinary.
8. It is fitting for persons with this tendency to have greater purity of conscience than those who can work with the intellect. For anyone, who reflects discursively on what the world is, and what one owes God, and how much God suffered, and on how little one serves Him, and what God gives to anyone who loves Him, deduces doctrine to defend oneself from thoughts, occasions, and dangers. But anyone who cannot benefit from such a practice will derive more profit from spending a good deal of time in reading; and this is necessary since by oneself one cannot get any idea. Discursive reflection is so very arduous for such persons that if the master insists that they spend a lot of time in prayer without the help of reading, I say that it will be impossible for them to continue for long; and they will do harm to their health if they persist, for discursive reflection is an extremely difficult thing to practice. Reading is very helpful for recollection and serves as a necessary substitute—even though little may be read—for anyone who is unable to practice mental prayer.
9. Now it seems to me that it was the Lord’s providence that I not find anyone to instruct me, for, on account of my being unable as I say to reflect discursively, it would have been impossible, I think, to have persevered for the eighteen years I suffered this trial, and in that great dryness. In all those years, except for the time after Communion, I never dared to begin prayer without a book. For my soul was as fearful of being without it during prayer as it would have been should it have had to battle with a lot of people. With this recourse, which was like a partner or a shield by which to sustain the blows of my many thoughts, I went about consoled. For the dryness was not usually felt, but it was always felt when I was without a book. Then my soul was thrown into confusion and my thoughts ran wild. With a book I began to collect them, and my soul was drawn to recollection. And many times just opening the book was enough; at other times I read a little, and at others a great deal, according to the favor the Lord granted me.
It seemed to me at this initial stage I am speaking of that by having books and the opportunity for solitude there could have been no danger capable of drawing me away from so much good. And I think that with God’s help it would have been so if I had had a master or person who would have counseled me about fleeing occasions at the beginning and made me turn away quickly when coming upon them. And if the devil would have attacked me openly at that time, I think I would by no means have returned to serious sin. But he was so crafty and I so wretched that all my resolutions profited me little; although the days in which I served the Lord profited me a great deal so that I was able to suffer the terrible illnesses I had with the extraordinary patience that His Majesty gave me.
10. I often marveled to think of the great goodness of God, and my soul delighted in seeing His amazing magnificence and mercy. May He be blessed by all, for I have seen clearly that He does not fail to repay, even in this life, every good desire. As miserable and imperfect as my deeds were, this Lord of mine improved and perfected them and gave them value, and the evils and sins He then hid. His Majesty even permitted that the eyes of those who saw these sins be blinded, and He removed these sins from their memory. He gilds my faults; the Lord makes a virtue shine that He himself places in me—almost forcing me to have it.
11. I want to return to what they ordered me to write about. I say that if I were to have to tell in detail about the way the Lord dealt with me in these early stages, an intellect other than mine would be necessary to give enough force to the expression of what I owe Him for these graces and of my terrible ingratitude and wickedness since I forgot about all of them. May He be forever blessed who put up with me for so long. Amen.