Continues and concludes the discussions of this last degree of prayer. Tells about what the soul that experiences this prayer feels upon returning to life in the world and about the light the Lord gives it concerning the world’s illusions. It contains good doctrine.
TO FINISH NOW WHAT I WAS DISCUSSING,1 I say that there is no need here for the consent of this soul. It has already given itself to God, and it knows that it has willingly surrendered itself into His hands and that it cannot deceive Him, because He is aware of all things. Matters aren’t as they are here on earth, for all of earthly life is filled with deception and duplicity: when you think you have won a friend, according to what is shown you, you afterward come to understand that that was all a lie. It isn’t possible anymore to live in the midst of such intrigue, especially present where there is something to be gained.
Blessed is the soul the Lord brings to the understanding of truth! Oh, how fit a state this is for kings! How much more worthwhile it would be for them to strive for this stage of prayer rather than for great dominion! What righteousness there would be in the kingdom! What evils they would avoid and have avoided! In this stage one does not fear to lose one’s life or honor for the love of God! What a great blessing this is for anyone who has a greater obligation to look after the honor of God than do all those who are subordinate, since these latter must follow their kings! For one fraction of an increase in faith and for having given some light to the heretics such a king would be willing to lose a thousand kingdoms—and rightly so; for the gain would be far greater: a kingdom without an end, which, when the soul tastes only one drop of its water, makes everything here below seem repulsive. How much more if the soul be immersed in this water?
2. O Lord! Were You to give me the office by which I could shout this aloud, they would not believe me, as they do not believe many who know how to say this better than I; but at least it would be satisfying to me. It seems to me I would have held my life in little account in order to make known only one of these truths; I don’t know what I might have done afterward, for I am not trustworthy. In spite of what I am, I experience great consuming impulses to tell these truths to those who are rulers. When I can do no more, I turn to You, my Lord, to beg of You a remedy for all. And You know well that I would very willingly dispossess myself of the favors You have granted me and give them to the kings, providing I could remain in a state in which I do not offend You; because I know that it would then be impossible for them to consent to the things that are now consented to, nor would these favors fail to bring the greatest blessings.
3. O my God! Give kings an understanding of their obligations. For You have desired to point these kings out on earth in such a way that I have even heard it said that there are signs in heaven when You take one away.2 Indeed, at the thought of this my devotion increases, that You, my King, desire that even by such happenings they realize that they must be imitators of You in life since at their death there is a sign in heaven, as when You died.
4. I am becoming very bold. Tear this up if it sounds bad to Your Reverence and believe me that I would say it better in person if I could, or if I thought they would believe me, for I very earnestly commend them to God and would like to be of some help. Everything makes the soul risk its life; I frequently desire to be without life, and the risk to gain much costs but little. There is no one now living who sees directly the great illusion in which we walk and the blindness we suffer.
5. Once the soul has reached this stage, what it possesses for God is not only desires; His Majesty gives it the strength to put these desires into practice. There is nothing that comes to mind that it thinks would be of service to Him that it wouldn’t venture to do; and the cost to it is nothing, because, as I say,3 it sees clearly that everything other than pleasing God is nothing. The trouble is that for persons as useless as myself there are few opportunities to do something. May You be pleased, my God, that there come a time in which I may be able to repay You even one mite of all I owe You. Ordain, Lord, as You wish, how this servant of Yours may in some manner serve You. Others were women, and they have done heroic things for love of You. I’m not good for anything but talk, and so You don’t desire, my God, to put me to work; everything adds up to just words and desires about how much I must serve, and even in this I don’t have freedom, because I might perhaps fail in everything. Fortify my soul and dispose it first, Good of all goods and my Jesus, and then ordain ways in which I might do something for You, for there is no longer anyone who can suffer to receive so much and not repay anything. Cost what it may, Lord, do not desire that I come into Your presence with hands so empty, since the reward must be given in conformity with one’s deeds. Here is my life, here is my honor and my will. I have given all to You, I am Yours, make use of me according to Your will. I see clearly, Lord, the little I’m capable of. But having reached You, having climbed to this watchtower, I see truths. I can do all things, providing You do not leave me. Were You to leave, for however short a time, I would return to where I was, which was in hell.
6. Oh, how painful it is for a soul who finds itself in this stage to have to return to dealing with everything, to behold and see the face of this so poorly harmonized life, to waste time in taking care of bodily needs, sleeping, and eating! Everything wearies it; it doesn’t know how to flee; it sees itself captured and in chains. Then it feels more truly the misery of life and the captivity we endure because of our bodies. It knows the reason St. Paul had for beseeching God to be liberated from the body;4 it cries out with him; it begs God for freedom, as I have mentioned at other times.5 But in this state the impulse is often so great that it seems the soul wants to leave the body and go in search of this freedom since there is no one else who will free it. It goes about as one sold into a foreign land, and what wearies it most is that it doesn’t find many who will complain with it and beg for this freedom; rather, what is more common is the desire to live. Oh, if only we were not bound to anything, if our satisfaction were not derived from any earthly thing, how the pain experienced from always living without Him and the desire to enjoy the true life would temper the fear of death!
7. If someone like myself, to whom the Lord has given this light (in spite of such lukewarm charity and such uncertainty about true rest on account of my not having merited it through my deeds), often feels so strongly the fact of my exile, I at times wonder what the feeling of the saints must have been. What must St. Paul and the Magdalene and others like them have undergone, in whom this fire of the love of God had grown so intense? It must have been a continual martyrdom.
It seems to me that those who bring me some relief, and in whose company I find rest, are persons who I find have themselves these desires—I mean desires accompanied by works. I say accompanied by works because there are some persons who, in their own opinion, are detached; so they publish the fact. And the fact of their detachment should be true since their state demands it as well as the many years that have passed since some of them have set out on the way of perfection. But this soul recognizes well, from far off, those who have only a lot of words and those who have confirmed their words with works. It understands the small amount of good that the former do and the great amount that the latter do—and this is something that anyone who has experience sees very clearly.
8. I have already mentioned these effects that the raptures that are from God’s Spirit cause; the truth is that these effects are greater or less. I say less, because in the beginning, even though the rapture causes these effects, they are not proven with deeds; thus it cannot be determined whether they are present. The raptures also make perfection grow, and they take away every trace of a cobweb—and this requires time. The more that love and humility grow, the greater the fragrance these flowers of virtues give off, both for oneself and for others. It is true that in one of these raptures the Lord can work in the soul in such a way that only a little labor is still required in order that it reach perfection, for no one who doesn’t have this experience will be able to believe what the Lord gives the soul in this stage. In my opinion no effort of ours brings us to this perfection. I don’t deny that someone with the help of God, making use of the means mentioned by authors who have written about prayer, its principles, and properties, will by means of many efforts reach perfection and great detachment. But they will not do so in as short a time as it takes for the Lord to accomplish it in this stage, without anything done on our part. He definitely draws the soul up from the earth and gives it dominion over every earthly thing, even though there may be no more merits in it than there were in me—and I cannot overstress this absence of merit in me, because I had hardly any.
9. Why His Majesty does this is because He wants to, and He does it in the way He wants to; and even though the soul may not be ready, His Majesty prepares it to receive the good He gives it. Wherefore He doesn’t always give raptures because souls have merited them through good cultivation of the garden (although it is very certain that anyone who does take good care of the garden and strives to be detached will not fail to be favored), but sometimes it is His will to show His greatness on very wretched soil, as I have said.6 He so prepares the soul for every good that it seems it is not longer capable, after a fashion, of turning back to its former life of offending God. Its thought becomes so accustomed to understanding what the real truth is that everything else seems to it to be child’s play. It sometimes laughs to itself when it sees seriously religious and prayerful persons making a big issue out of some rules of etiquette which it has already trampled under foot. They claim that this is a matter of discretion and of the prestige accompanying their office so that they might bring about more good. The soul knows very well that they would bring about more good in one day than they would in ten years if for the love of God they thought a lot less of the prestige of their office.
10. Thus it lives a laborious life and always with the cross, but it continues to grow rapidly. When it is observed by its companions it seems to be at the summit. Within a short while it is much improved because God always goes on favoring it more. It is His soul; it is He who has taken it into His charge, and thus He illumines it. For it seems that by His assistance, He is ever guarding it from offending Him and favoring it and awakening it to His service.
When my soul reached this stage where God granted it such a great favor, the evil in me disappeared, and the Lord gave me strength to break away from it. It didn’t bother me to be amid the occasions of falling and with people who formerly distracted me any more than if there were no occasions at all; what used to do me harm was helping me. All things were a means for my knowing and loving God more, for seeing what l owed Him, and for regretting what I had been.
11. I understood well that these effects didn’t come from me, nor did I gain them through my diligence, for there wasn’t even time for that. His Majesty solely out of His goodness had given me fortitude for them.
From the time the Lord began to grant me the favor of these raptures up until now, this fortitude has always been increasing; and in His goodness He has held me by His hand so that I might not turn back. Nor does it seem to me that I do hardly anything on my part—and that is true; I understand clearly that it is the Lord who does everything. Hence it seems to me that souls upon whom the Lord bestows these favors and who receive them with humility and fear—always understanding that it is the Lord Himself who grants them and that we ourselves do almost nothing—could be placed in the company of any kind of people. Even if these people are distracted and corrupt, the soul will not be disturbed or enticed in anything; on the contrary, this experience will help it and serve as a means to greater progress. These are now strong souls the Lord chooses to benefit others, even though their fortitude doesn’t come from themselves. Little by little, as the soul approaches the Lord in this stage, He communicates to it very deep secrets.
12. Here in this ecstasy are received the true revelations and the great favors and visions—and all serves to humiliate and strengthen the soul, to lessen its esteem for the things of this life, and to make it know more clearly the grandeurs of the reward the Lord has prepared for those who serve Him.
May it please His Majesty that the extraordinary generosity He has shown this miserable sinner serve to encourage and rouse those who read this to abandon completely everything for God. If His Majesty repays so fully that even in this life the reward and gain possessed by those who serve Him is clearly seen, what will this reward be in the next life?