Tells of the reason for the failure to reach the perfect love of God in a short time. Begins to explain through a comparison four degrees of prayer. Goes on to deal here with the first degree.1 The doctrine is very beneficial for beginners and for those who do not have consolations in prayer.
WELL, LET US SPEAK NOW of those who are beginning to be servants of love. This doesn’t seem to me to mean anything else than to follow resolutely by means of this path of prayer Him who has loved us so much. To be a servant of love is a dignity so great that it delights me in a wonderful way to think about it. For servile fear soon passes away if in this first state we proceed as we ought. O Lord of my soul and my good! When a soul is determined to love You by doing what it can to leave all and occupy itself better in this divine love, why don’t You desire that it enjoy soon the ascent to the possession of perfect love? I have poorly expressed myself. I should have mentioned and complained that we ourselves do not desire this. The whole fault is ours if we don’t soon reach the enjoyment of a dignity so great, for the perfect attainment of this true love of God brings with it every blessing. We are so miserly and so slow in giving ourselves entirely to God that since His Majesty does not desire that we enjoy something as precious as this without paying a high price, we do not fully prepare ourselves.
2. I see clearly that there is nothing on earth with which one can buy so wonderful a blessing. But if we do what we can to avoid becoming attached to any earthly thing and let all our care and concern be with heavenly things, and if within a short time we prepare ourselves completely, as some of the saints did, I believe without a doubt that in a very short time this blessing will be given to us. But it seems to us that we are giving all to God, whereas the truth of the matter is that we are paying God the rent or giving Him the fruits and keeping for ourselves the ownership and the root. We resolve to be poor—and this is very meritorious—but then very often turn back to being anxious and diligent about possessing not only the necessities but superfluities as well and about winning friends who might provide these things for us. And we are thereby placed in a state of greater anxiety and perhaps danger—about not being in want than we were before when we had our own possessions.
It also appears to us that we are renouncing our status when we become religious or that we renounce it when we begin to live a spiritual life and follow the path of perfection. No sooner is some little point of etiquette concerning our status brought up than we forget we have already offered it to God; and we desire to take it right back out of His hands, so to speak, after having made Him, as it seemed, the Lord of our wills. So it is with everything else.
3. What a charming way to seek the love of God! And then we desire it with our hands full, as they say. We have our attachments since we do not strive to direct our desires to a good effect and raise them up from the earth completely; but to have many spiritual consolations along with attachments is incongruous, nor does it seem to me that the two can get along together. Since we do not succeed in giving up everything at once, this treasure as a result is not given to us all at once. May it please the Lord that drop by drop He may give it to us, even though it cost us all the trials in the world.
4. Indeed a great mercy does He bestow on anyone to whom He gives the grace and courage to resolve to strive for this good with every ounce of energy. For God does not deny Himself to anyone who perseveres. Little by little He will measure out the courage sufficient to attain this victory. I say “courage” because there are so many things the devil puts in the minds of beginners to prevent them in fact from starting out on this path. For he knows the damage that will be done to him in losing not only that one soul but many others. If beginners with the assistance of God struggle to reach the summit of perfection, I believe they will never go to heaven alone; they will always lead many people along after them. Like good captains they will give whoever marches in their company to God. The devil puts so many dangers and difficulties into the beginner’s head that no little courage, but a great deal, is necessary in order not to turn back—and a great deal of assistance from God.
5. Speaking now of the initial stages of those who are determined to seek out this good and embark on this enterprise (for I shall speak afterward of the other stages I began to mention in regard to mystical theology,2 which I believe it is called), the greatest labor is in the beginning because it is the beginner who works while the Lord gives the increase. In the other degrees of prayer the greatest thing is enjoying; although whether in the beginning, the middle, or the end, all bear their crosses even though these crosses be different. For all who follow Christ, if they don’t want to get lost, must walk along this path that He trod. And blessed be the trials that even here in this life are so super abundantly repaid.
6. I shall have to make use of some comparison, although I should like to excuse myself from this since I am a woman and write simply what they ordered me to write. But these spiritual matters for anyone who like myself has not gone through studies are so difficult to explain. I shall have to find some mode of explaining myself, and it may be less often that I hit upon a good comparison. Seeing so much stupidity will provide some recreation for Your Reverence.
It seems now to me that I read or heard of this comparison—for since I have a bad memory, I don’t know where or for what reason it was used,3 but it will be all right for my purposes. Beginners must realize that in order to give delight to the Lord they are starting to cultivate a garden on very barren soil, full of abominable weeds. His Majesty pulls up the weeds and plants good seed. Now let us keep in mind that all of this is already done by the time a soul is determined to practice prayer and has begun to make use of it. And with the help of God we must strive like good gardeners to get these plants to grow and take pains to water them so that they don’t wither but come to bud and flower and give forth a most pleasant fragrance to provide refreshment for this Lord of ours. Then He will often come to take delight in this garden and find His joy among these virtues.
7. But let us see now how it must be watered so that we may understand what we have to do, the labor this will cost us, whether the labor is greater than the gain, and for how long it must last. It seems to me the garden can be watered in four ways. You may draw water from a well (which is for us a lot of work). Or you may get it by means of a water wheel and aqueducts in such a way that it is obtained by turning the crank of the water wheel. (I have drawn it this way sometimes4—the method involves less work than the other, and you get more water.) Or it may flow from a river or a stream. (The garden is watered much better by this means because the ground is more fully soaked, and there is no need to water so frequently—and much less work for the gardener.) Or the water may be provided by a great deal of rain. (For the Lord waters the garden without any work on our part—and this way is incomparably better than all the others mentioned.)
8. Now, then, these four ways of drawing water in order to maintain this garden—because without water it will die—are what are important to me and have seemed applicable in explaining the four degrees of prayer in which the Lord in His goodness has sometimes placed my soul. May it please His goodness that I manage to speak about them in a way beneficial for one of the persons5 who ordered me to write this, because within four months the Lord has brought him further than I got in seventeen years. This person has prepared himself better, and so without any labor of his own the flower garden is watered with all these four waters, although the last is still not given except in drops. But he is advancing in such a way that soon he will be immersed in it, with the help of the Lord. And I shall be pleased if you laugh should this way of explaining the matter appear foolish.
9. Beginners in prayer, we can say, are those who draw water from the well. This involves a lot of work on their own part, as I have said. They must tire themselves in trying to recollect their senses. Since they are accustomed to being distracted, this recollection requires much effort. They need to get accustomed to caring nothing at all about seeing or hearing, to practicing the hours of prayer, and thus to solitude and withdrawal—and to thinking on their past life. Although these beginners and the others as well must often reflect upon their past, the extent to which they must do so varies, as I shall say afterward.6 In the beginning such reflection is even painful, for they do not fully understand whether or not they are repentant of their sins. If they are, they are then determined to serve God earnestly. They must strive to consider the life of Christ—and the intellect grows weary in doing this.
These are the things we can do of ourselves, with the understanding that we do so by the help of God, for without this help as is already known we cannot have so much as a good thought. These things make up the beginning of fetching water from the well, and please God that it may be found. At least we are doing our part, for we are already drawing it out and doing what we can to water these flowers. God is so good that when for reasons His Majesty knows—perhaps for our greater benefit—the well is dry and we, like good gardeners, do what lies in our power, He sustains the garden without water and makes the virtues grow. Here by “water” I am referring to tears and when there are no tears to interior tenderness and feelings of devotion.
10. But what will they do here who see that after many days there is nothing but dryness, distaste, vapidness, and very little desire to come to draw water? So little is the desire to do this that if they don’t recall that doing so serves and gives pleasure to the Lord of the garden, and if they aren’t careful to preserve the merits acquired in this service (and even what they hope to gain from the tedious work of often letting the pail down into the well and pulling it back up without any water), they will abandon everything. It will frequently happen to them that they will even be unable to lift their arms for this work and unable to get a good thought. This discursive work with the intellect is what is meant by fetching water from the well.
But, as I am saying, what will the gardener do here? He will rejoice and be consoled and consider it the greatest favor to be able to work in the garden of so great an Emperor! Since he knows that this pleases the Lord and his intention must be not to please himself but to please the Lord, he gives the Lord much praise. For the Master has confidence in the gardener because He sees that without any pay he is so very careful about what he was told to do. This gardener helps Christ carry the cross and reflects that the Lord lived with it all during His life. He doesn’t desire the Lord’s kingdom here below or ever abandon prayer. And so he is determined, even though this dryness may last for his whole life, not to let Christ fall with the cross. The time will come when the Lord will repay him all at once. He doesn’t fear that the labor is being wasted. He is serving a good Master whose eyes are upon him. He doesn’t pay any attention to bad thoughts. He considers that the devil also represented them to St. Jerome in the desert.7
11. These labors take their toll. Being myself one who endured them for many years (for when I got a drop of water from this sacred well I thought God was granting me a favor), I know that they are extraordinary. It seems to me more courage is necessary for them than for many other labors of this world. But I have seen clearly that God does not leave one, even in this life, without a large reward; because it is certainly true that one of those hours in which the Lord afterward bestowed on me a taste of Himself repaid, it seems to me, all the anguish I suffered in persevering for a long time in prayer.
I am of the opinion that to some in the beginning and to others afterward the Lord often desires to give these torments and the many other temptations that occur in order to try His lovers and know whether they will be able to drink the chalice and help Him carry the cross before He lays great treasures within them. I believe His Majesty desires to bring us along this way for our own good so that we may understand well what little we amount to. The favors that come afterward are of such great worth that He desires first that before He gives them to us we see by experience our own worthlessness so that what happened to Lucifer will not happen to us.
12. My Lord, what do You do but that which is for the greater good of the soul You understand now to be Yours and which places itself in Your power so as to follow You wherever You go, even to death on the cross, and is determined to help You bear it and not leave You alone with it?
Those who see in themselves this determination have no reason, no reason whatsoever, to fear. Spiritual persons, you have no reason to be afflicted. Once you are placed in so high a degree as to desire to commune in solitude with God and abandon the pastimes of the world, the most has been done. Praise His Majesty for that and trust in His goodness who never fails His friends. Conceal from your eyes the thought about why He gives devotion to one after such a few days and not to me after so many years. Let us believe that all is for our own greater good. Let His Majesty lead the way along the path He desires. We belong no longer to ourselves but to Him. He grants us a great favor in wanting us to desire to dig in His garden and be in the presence of its Lord who certainly is present with us. Should He desire that for some these plants and flowers grow by the water they draw, which He gives from this well, and for others without it, what difference does that make to me? Do, Lord, what You desire. May I not offend You. Don’t let the virtues be lost, if You only out of Your goodness have already given me some. I desire to suffer, Lord, since You suffered. Let Your will be done in me in every way, and may it not please Your Majesty that something as precious as Your love be given to anyone who serves you only for the sake of consolations.
13. It should be carefully noted—and I say this because I know it through experience—that the soul that begins to walk along this path of mental prayer with determination and that can succeed in paying little attention to whether this delight and tenderness is lacking or whether the Lord gives it (or to whether it has much consolation or no consolation) has traveled a great part of the way. However much it stumbles, it should not fear that it will turn back, because the building has been started on a solid foundation. This is true because the love of God does not consist in tears or in this delight and tenderness, which for the greater part we desire and find consolation in; but it consists in serving with justice and fortitude of soul and in humility. Without such service it seems to me we would be receiving everything and giving nothing.
14. In the case of a poor little woman like myself, weak and with hardly any fortitude, it seems to me fitting that God lead me with gifts, as He now does, so that I might be able to suffer some trials He has desired me to bear. But when I see servants of God, men of prominence, learning, and high intelligence make so much fuss because God doesn’t give them devotion, it annoys me to hear them. I do not mean that they shouldn’t accept it if God gives it, and esteem it, because then His Majesty sees that this is appropriate. But when they don’t have devotion, they shouldn’t weary themselves. They should understand that since His Majesty doesn’t give it, it isn’t necessary; and they should be masters of themselves. They should believe that their desire for consolation is a fault. I have experienced and seen this. They should believe it denotes imperfection together with a lack of freedom of spirit and the courage to accomplish something.
15. Although I lay great stress on this because it is very important that beginners have such freedom and determination, I am not saying it so much for beginners as for others. For there are many who begin, yet they never reach the end. I believe this is due mainly to a failure to embrace the cross from the beginning; thinking they are doing nothing, they become afflicted. When the intellect ceases to work, they cannot bear it. But it is then perhaps that their will is being strengthened and fortified, although they may not be aware of this.
We should think that the Lord is not concerned about these inabilities. Even though they seem to us to be faults, they are not. His Majesty already knows our misery and our wretched nature better than we do ourselves, and He knows that these souls now desire to think of Him and love Him always. This determination is what He desires. The other affliction that we bring upon ourselves serves for nothing else than to disquiet the soul, and if it was incapable before of engaging in prayer for one hour, it will be so now for four. Very often this incapacity comes from some bodily disorder. I have a great deal of experience in this matter, and I know that what I say is true because I have considered it carefully and discussed it afterward with spiritual persons. We are so miserable that our poor little imprisoned soul shares in the miseries of the body; the changes in the weather and the rotating of the bodily humors often have the result that without their fault souls cannot do what they desire, but suffer in every way. If they seek to force themselves more during these times, the bad condition becomes worse and lasts longer. They should use discernment to observe when these bodily disorders may be the cause, and not smother the poor soul. They should understand that they are sick. The hour of prayer ought to be changed, and often this change will have to continue for some days. Let them suffer this exile as best they can. It is a great misfortune to a soul that loves God to see that it lives in this misery and cannot do what it desires because it has as wretched a guest as is this body.
16. I have said they should use discernment because sometimes the devil is the cause. And so it isn’t always good to abandon prayer when there is great distraction and disturbance in the intellect just as it isn’t always good to torture the soul into doing what it cannot do.
There are other exterior things like works of charity and spiritual reading, although at times it will not even be fit for these. Let it then serve the body out of love of God—because many other times the body serves the soul—and engage in some spiritual pastimes such as holy conversations, provided they are truly so, or going to the country, as the confessor might counsel. Experience is a great help in all, for it teaches what is suitable for us; and God can be served in everything. His yoke is easy,8 and it is very helpful not to drag the soul along, as they say, but to lead it gently for the sake of its greater advantage.
17. So I return to the advice—and even if I repeat it many times this doesn’t matter—that it is very important that no one be distressed or afflicted over dryness or noisy and distracting thoughts. If people wish to gain freedom of spirit and not be always troubled, let them begin by not being frightened by the cross, and they will see how the Lord also helps them carry it and they will gain satisfaction and profit from everything. For, clearly, if the well is dry, we cannot put water into it. True, we must not become neglectful; when there is water we should draw it out because then the Lord desires to multiply the virtues by this means.