Treats of the third degree of prayer. Explains sublime matters and what the soul that reaches this stage can do and the effects produced by these great favors of the Lord. This chapter lifts the soul up in the praises of God and brings wonderful consolation to whoever reaches this stage.
LET US COME NOW to speak of the third water by which this garden is irrigated, that is, the water flowing from a river or spring. By this means the garden is irrigated with much less labor, although some labor is required to direct the flow of the water. The Lord so desires to help the gardener here that He Himself becomes practically the gardener and the one who does everything.
This prayer is a sleep of the faculties: the faculties neither fail entirely to function nor understand how they function. The consolation, the sweetness, and the delight are incomparably greater than that experienced in the previous prayer. The water of grace rises up to the throat of this soul since such a soul can no longer move forward; nor does it know how; nor can it move backward. It would desire to enjoy the greatest glory. It is like a person who is already holding the candle and for whom little is left before dying the death that is desired: such a one rejoices in that agony with the greatest delight describable. This experience doesn’t seem to me to be anything else than an almost complete death to all earthly things and an enjoyment of God.
I don’t know any other terms for describing it or how to explain it. Nor does the soul then know what to do because it doesn’t know whether to speak or to be silent, whether to laugh or to weep. This prayer is a glorious foolishness, a heavenly madness where the true wisdom is learned; and it is for the soul a most delightful way of enjoying.
2. In fact five or even six years ago the Lord often gave me this prayer in abundance, and I didn’t understand it; nor did I know how to speak of it. Thus it was my intention, at this point, to say very little or nothing at all. I did understand clearly that it was not a complete union of all the faculties and that this type of prayer was more excellent than the previous one. But I confess that I couldn’t discern or understand where the difference lay. I believe that on account of the humility Your Reverence1 has shown in desiring to be helped by as simple-minded a person as myself, the Lord today after Communion granted me this prayer; and interrupting my thanksgiving, He put before me these comparisons, taught me the manner of explaining it, and what the soul must do here. Certainly I was startled and I understood at once. Often I had been as though bewildered and inebriated in this love, and never was I able to understand its nature. I understood clearly that it was God’s work, but I couldn’t understand how He was working in this stage. For the truth of the matter is that the faculties are almost totally united with God but not so absorbed as not to function. I am extremely pleased that I now understand it. Blessed be the Lord who so favored me!
3. The faculties have only the ability to be occupied completely with God. It doesn’t seem that anyone of them dares to move, nor can we make them stir unless we strain to distract ourselves; but even then I don’t think we could do so entirely. One utters many words here in praise of God without thinking them up, unless it is the Lord who thinks them up; at least the intellect is worth nothing here. The soul would desire to cry out praises, and it is beside itself—a delightful disquiet. Now the flowers are blossoming; they are beginning to spread their fragrance. The soul would desire here that everyone could see and understand its glory so as to praise God and that they would all help it to praise Him and share in its joy since it cannot bear so much joy. I think it is like what is said in the Gospels about the woman that wanted to call or did call in her neighbors.2 This joy it seems to me must have been what was felt in the admirable spirit of the royal prophet David when he played on the harp and sang the praises of God. I’m very devoted to this glorious king, and I would desire all to be so, especially those of us who are sinners.3
4. Oh, help me God! What is the soul like when it is in this state! It would want to be all tongues so as to praise the Lord. It speaks folly in a thousand holy ways, ever trying to find means of pleasing the one who thus possesses it. I know a person who though not a poet suddenly composed some deeply-felt verses well expressing her pain. They were not composed by the use of her intellect; rather, in order that she enjoy the glory so delightful a distress gave to her, she complained of it in this way to God. She desired all her body and soul to break in pieces to demonstrate the joy she felt in this pain. What torments can then be offered her that will not give her delight when she suffers them for her Lord? I see clearly that the martyrs did nothing of themselves in suffering torments, for the soul well knows that fortitude comes from another. But what will it feel in returning to its senses so as to live in the world and in having to return to the world’s cares and formalities?
Well, it doesn’t seem to me that I have exaggerated. Nothing can compare with the delight the Lord desires a soul to enjoy in this exile. May You be blessed forever, Lord! May all things praise You forever! Since while I write this I am not freed from such holy, heavenly madness coming from Your goodness and mercy—for You grant this favor without any merits on my part at all—either desire, my King, I beseech You, that all to whom I speak become mad from Your love, or do not permit that I speak to anyone! Either ordain, Lord, that I no longer pay attention to anything in the world, or take me out of it! No longer my God, can this servant of Yours suffer the many trials that come from seeing herself without You since if she must live, she desires no rest—nor should You give it to her! This soul would now want to see itself free—eating kills it; sleeping distresses it. It observes that its lifetime is passing in pleasure and that nothing other than You can give it pleasure any longer; for since it desires to live no longer in itself but in You, it seems that its life is unnatural.
5. O true Lord and my Glory! How delicate and extremely heavy a cross You have prepared for those who reach this state! “Delicate” because it is pleasing; “heavy” because there come times when there is no capacity to bear it; and yet the soul would never want to be freed from it unless it were for the sake of being with You. When it recalls that it hasn’t served You in anything and that by living it can serve You, it would want to carry a much heavier cross and never die until the end of the world. It finds no rest in anything except in doing You some small service. It doesn’t know what it wants, but it well understands that it wants nothing other than You.
6. O my son!4 (The one to whom this is addressed and who ordered me to write this is so humble that he wants to be so called.) Let some of these things which Your Reverence sees that I go to excess in be for you alone. There is no reason sufficient to prevent me from this excess when the Lord carries me out of myself—nor since this morning when I received Communion do I think it is I who am speaking. It seems that what I see is a dream, and I would desire to see no other persons than those who are sick with this sickness I now have. I beg Your Reverence that we may all be mad for love of Him who for love of us was called mad. Since Your Reverence says that you love me, prove it to me by preparing yourself so that God may grant you this favor; I see very few who do not have much more discretion than is necessary for their spiritual progress. It could well be that I am the one who abounds in this more than all others. Don’t allow this to happen to me, my father (since you are also like a son), for you are my confessor and the one to whom I have entrusted my soul. Disillusion me with truth since these truths are seldom made use of.
7. I should like the five of us who at present love each other in Christ5 to make a kind of pact that since others in these times gather together in secret against His Majesty to prepare wicked deeds and heresies, we might seek to gather together some time to free each other from illusion and to speak about how we might mend our ways and please God more since we do not know ourselves as well as others who observe us if they do so with love and concern for our progress. I say we should gather in secret because this kind of talk is no longer in fashion. Even preachers are composing their sermons so as not to displease. They may have good intentions, and the good deeds may follow; but the result is that few try to amend! But why don’t sermons influence many to give up public vice? Do you know my opinion? Those who preach are very cautious; they don’t have the great fire of love of God that the Apostles did, and so the flame has little power to enkindle. I don’t say the fire should be as intense as that of the Apostles, but would that it were greater than what I see. Does Your Reverence know what ought to be stressed? That souls abhor their lives and hold their reputations in little esteem, that—providing they tell the truth and uphold it for the glory of God—they pay little attention to whether or not they lose or gain all. Those who in fact risk all for God will find that they have both lost all and gained all. I don’t say that I’m like this, but I wish I were.
8. Oh what great freedom to consider it a captivity to have to live and behave in conformity with the laws of the world! Since this freedom is obtained from the Lord, there are no slaves who would not risk all in order to be redeemed and return to their country. Since this is the true way, there is no reason to stop in the middle; otherwise we will never completely gain so great a treasure until life is finished. May the Lord grant us the favor of obtaining it.
Tear up what I have just said, if Your Reverence thinks you should, as though it were a private letter to you, and pardon me for I have been very bold.