Discusses the fourth degree of prayer. Begins to offer an excellent explanation of the great dignity the Lord bestows upon the soul in this state. Gives much encouragement to those who engage in prayer that they might strive to attain so high a stage since it can be reached on earth, although not by merit but through God’s goodness. This should be read attentively, for the explanation is presented in a very subtle way and there are many noteworthy things.1
MAY THE LORD TEACH ME the words necessary for explaining something about the fourth water. Clearly His favor is necessary, even more so than for what was explained previously. In the previous prayer, since the soul was conscious of the world, it did not feel that it was totally dead—for we can speak of this last prayer in such a way. But, as I said,2 the soul has its senses by which it feels its solitude and understands that it is in the world; and it uses exterior things to make known what it feels, even though this may be through signs.
In all the prayer and modes of prayer that were explained, the gardener does some work, even though in these latter modes the work is accompanied by so much glory and consolation for the soul that it would never want to abandon this prayer. As a result, the prayer is not experienced as work but as glory. In this fourth water the soul isn’t in possession of its senses, but it rejoices without understanding what it is rejoicing in. It understands that it is enjoying a good in which are gathered together all goods, but this good is incomprehensible. All the senses are occupied in this joy in such a way that none is free to be taken up with any other exterior or interior thing.
In the previous degrees, the senses are given freedom to show some signs of the great joy they feel. Here in this fourth water the soul rejoices incomparably more; but it can show much less since no power remains in the body, nor does the soul have any power to communicate its joy. At such a time, everything would be a great obstacle and a torment and a hindrance to its repose. And I say that if this prayer is the union of all the faculties, the soul is unable to communicate its joy even though it may desire to do so—I mean while being in the prayer. And if it were able, then this wouldn’t be union.
2. How this prayer they call3 union comes about and what it is, I don’t know how to explain. These matters are expounded in mystical theology; I wouldn’t know the proper vocabulary. Neither do I understand what the mind is; nor do I know how it differs from the soul or the spirit. It all seems to be the same thing to me, although the soul sometimes goes forth from itself. The way this happens is comparable to what happens when a fire is burning and flaming, and it sometimes becomes a forceful blaze. The flame then shoots very high above the fire, but the flame is not by that reason something different from the fire but the same flame that is in the fire. Your Reverence with your learning will understand this, for I don’t know what else to say.
3. What I’m attempting to explain is what the soul feels when it is in this divine union. What union is we already know since it means that two separate things become one. O my Lord, how good You are! May You be blessed forever! May all things praise You, my God, for You have so loved us that we can truthfully speak of this communication which You engage in with souls even in our exile! And even in the case of those who are good, this still shows great generosity and magnanimity. In fact, it is Your communication, my Lord; and You give it in the manner of who You are. O infinite Largess, how magnificent are Your works!4 It frightens those whose intellects are not occupied with things of the earth that they have no intellect by which they can understand divine truths. That You bestow such sovereign favors on souls that have offended You so much certainly brings my intellect to a halt; and when I begin to think about this, I’m unable to continue. Where can the intellect go that would not be a turning back since it doesn’t know how to give You thanks for such great favors? Sometimes I find it a remedy to speak absurdities.
4. After I have just received these favors or when God is beginning to give them to me (for at the time one is receiving them as I have already mentioned there’s no power to do anything), it often happens that I say:
Lord, look what You are doing. Don’t forget so quickly my great wickedness. Now that in order to pardon me You have forgotten it, I beseech You to remember it that You might put a limit on Your favors. Don’t, my Creator, pour such precious liqueur in so broken a bottle;5 You have already seen at other times how I only spill and waste it. Don’t place a treasure like this in a place where cupidity for life’s consolations is still not cast off as it should be; otherwise it will be badly squandered. How is it that You surrender the strength of this city and the keys to its fortress to so cowardly a mayor who at the first attack allows the enemy to enter? Don’t let Your love be so great, eternal King, as to place in risk such precious jewels. It seems, my Lord, that the occasion is given for esteeming them but little since You put them in the power of a thing so wretched, so lowly, so weak and miserable, and of so little importance. For although she strives with Your help not to lose them (and there is need for more than a little effort because of what I am), she cannot make use of them to win over anyone. In sum, she is a woman; and not a good but a wretched one. It seems that the talents are not only hidden but even buried6 by being placed in such vile earth. You are not accustomed, Lord, to bestow on a soul grandeurs and favors like these unless for the profit of many. You already know, my God, that with all my heart and will I beseech You and have besought You at times in the past that You grant these favors to someone who would make better use of them for the increase of Your glory—and that I would consider it a blessing to lose the greatest earthly good possessable in order that You do so.
5. These and other things it often occurred to me to say. I saw afterward my foolishness and lack of humility; the Lord well knows what is fitting and that I would not have the strength in my soul to be saved if His Majesty didn’t give it to me through so many favors.
6. I also intend to speak of the graces and effects that are left in the soul, of whether it can do something on its own to reach so great a state, and of what this something might be.
7. The elevation of the spirit, or joining with heavenly love, which I shall describe, takes place within this very union.7 The union, as I understand it, is different from the elevation. It will seem to anyone who may not have experienced this elevation of the spirit that there is no difference between the two; but, in my opinion, though they are one, the Lord works differently in each case. And in the flight of the spirit this difference is seen by a much greater increase in detachment from creatures. I have perceived clearly that the elevation of the spirit is a particular favor, even though as I say it may be the same as union or appear to be so. A small fire is just as much a fire as is a large one. Through this example one can see the difference there is between union and elevation of the spirit. In a small fire it takes a lot of time for a piece of iron to become red-hot. But if the fire is great, the piece of iron, even though large, will in a short time lose its entire being—or it will appear to do so. This example, it seems to me, shows what the difference between the two favors from the Lord is like. I know that anyone who has reached the experience of raptures will understand the difference well. To one who has no experience the explanation will seem confusing, and it could well be. It is not surprising that there is confusion when a person like myself wants to speak of such a thing and to give some explanation of an experience that it seems one cannot even begin to put into words.
8. But I believe the Lord will help me in this explanation. His Majesty knows that besides obeying it is my intention to attract souls to so high a blessing. I shall say nothing about things of which I don’t have much experience. And it is a fact that when I began to write about this last water it seemed impossible to know how to speak of it without making it sound like Greek; for it is very difficult to explain. So I set the work aside and went to receive Communion. Blessed be the Lord who so favors the ignorant! O virtue of obedience that can do all things! God enlightened my intellect: sometimes with words, at other times showing me how to explain this favor, as He did with the previous prayer.8 His Majesty, it seems, wanted to say what I neither was able nor knew how to say.
What I am telling is the complete truth, and so whatever is good is His doctrine; whatever is bad clearly comes from the ocean of evil that I am. Thus I say that if persons who had reached the experiences in prayer that the Lord has favored this miserable creature with—and there must be many—wanted to speak to me of these because they thought they had gone astray, the Lord would help His servant to show them the true way.
9. Well now, let us speak of this heavenly water that in its abundance soaks and saturates this entire garden: if the Lord were always to give it when there is need, the gardener would evidently have it easy. And if there were no winter and the weather were always mild, there would be no lack of flowers and fruit. It is obvious how delighted the gardener would be. But this is impossible while we are living on this earth. Individuals must always take care so that when one kind of water is lacking they might strive for the other. This water from heaven often comes when the gardener is least expecting it. True, in the beginning it almost always occurs after a long period of mental prayer. The Lord comes to take this tiny bird from one degree to another and to place it in the nest so that it may have repose. Since He has seen it fly about for a long time, striving with the intellect and the will and all its strength to see God and please Him, He desires to reward it even in this life. And what a tremendous reward; one moment is enough to repay all the trials that can be suffered in life!
10. While the soul is seeking God in this way, it feels with the most marvelous and gentlest delight that everything is almost fading away through a kind of swoon in which breathing and all the bodily energies gradually fail. This experience comes about in such a way that one cannot even stir the hands without a lot of effort. The eyes close without one’s wanting them to close; or if these persons keep them open, they see hardly any thing nor do they read or succeed in pronouncing a letter, nor can they hardly even guess what the letter is. They see the letter; but since the intellect gives no help, they don’t know how to read it even though they may desire to do so. They hear but don’t understand what they hear. Thus they receive no benefit from the senses—unless it be that these latter do not take away their pleasure, since doing so would cause harm. In vain do they try to speak because they don’t succeed in forming a word, nor if they do succeed is there the strength left to be able to pronounce it. All the external energy is lost, and that of the soul is increased so that it might better enjoy its glory. The exterior delight that is felt is great and very distinct.
11. This prayer causes no harm, no matter how long it lasts. At least it never caused me any, nor do I recall the Lord ever having granted me this favor that I didn’t feel much better afterward no matter how ill I had been before. But what illness can produce so wonderful a blessing? The external effects are so apparent that one cannot doubt that a great event has taken place; these external powers are taken away with such delight in order to leave greater ones.
12. It is true that in the beginning this prayer passes so quickly—at least it happened this way to me—that neither these exterior signs nor the failure of the senses are very noticeable. But the soul well understands that the sun’s brightness therein was powerful since it melted the soul away. It is noteworthy that the longest space of time, in my opinion, in which the soul remains in this suspension of all the faculties is very short; should it remain suspended for a half hour, this would be a very long time. I don’t think I ever experienced this suspension for so long. It is true that since there is no sensory consciousness one finds it hard to know what is happening. But I am saying that in an occurrence of this prayer only a short time passes without one of the faculties returning to itself. It is the will that holds high the banner;9 the other two faculties quickly go back to being a bother. Since the will remains quiet, the others are again suspended for a little while—then return again to life.
13. In this way a person can and in fact does spend several hours in prayer. Once the two faculties have begun to taste the divine wine and be inebriated by it,10 they easily lose themselves again so as to gain much more; and they accompany the will, and all three rejoice. But I say this loss of them all and suspension of the imagination—which as I understand it is also completely lost—lasts only a short while; yet these faculties don’t return to themselves so completely that they are incapable of remaining for several hours as though bewildered while God gradually gathers them again to Himself.
14. Now let us come to what the soul experiences here interiorly. Let those who know how speak of it since it cannot be understood—much less put into words!
After having received Communion and been in this very prayer I’m writing about, I was thinking when I wanted to write something on it of what the soul did during that time. The Lord spoke these words to me: “It detaches itself from everything, daughter, so as to abide more in me. It is no longer the soul that lives but I. Since it cannot comprehend what it understands, there is an understanding by not understanding.”
Whoever may have experienced this prayer will know something about it; since what happens is so obscure, it can’t be explained more clearly. I can only say that the soul appears to be joined to God, and there remains such certitude about this union that the soul cannot help believing in the truth of it. In this prayer all the faculties fail and they are so suspended that in no way, as I said,11 does one think they are working. If a person is reflecting upon some scriptural event, it becomes as lost to the memory as it would be if there had never been any thought of it. If the person reads, there is no remembrance of what was read; nor is there any remembrance if one prays vocally. Thus this bothersome little moth, which is the memory, gets its wings burnt here; it can no longer move. The will is fully occupied in loving, but it doesn’t understand how it loves. The intellect, if it understands, doesn’t understand how it understands; at least it can’t comprehend anything of what it understands. It doesn’t seem to me that it understands, because, as I say, it doesn’t understand—I really can’t understand this!
15. In the beginning I was ignorant about a certain matter because I didn’t know that God was in all things, and though He seemed so present to me, I thought this omnipresence was impossible. I couldn’t stop believing that He was there since it seemed to me that I understood most clearly that He was there by His very presence. Those who had no learning told me that He was present only by grace. I couldn’t believe this, because, as I say, it seemed to me He was present; and so I was troubled. A very learned man from the order of the glorious St. Dominic12 freed me from this doubt, for he told me that God was present and of how God communicates Himself to us; these truths consoled me tremendously.
It should be noted and understood that this heavenly water, this magnificent favor from the Lord, always leaves great fruits in the soul as I shall now explain.