Continues on the same subject: the foundation of this house of our glorious father St. Joseph. Tells of the means the Lord provided by which holy poverty would be observed in it, the reason why she left the lady she was staying with and returned, and of some other things that happened to her.
WELL, WHILE I WAS WITH this lady I mentioned;1 with whom I stayed more than a half year, the Lord ordained that a beata 2 of our order who lived more than seventy leagues from here should find out about me. She decided to come here, making a detour of several leagues, to speak to me. The Lord had inspired her the same year and month He did me to found another monastery of this order. As soon as He gave her this desire, she sold all that she had and walked to Rome barefoot to get a patent for it.
2. She is a woman who practices much penance and prayer; the Lord has granted her many favors, and our blessed Lady appeared to her and ordered her to make the foundation. She was so far ahead of me in serving the Lord that I was ashamed to stand in her presence. She showed me the patent letters she brought from Rome, and during the fifteen days she stayed with me we arranged how we should go about founding these monasteries. Until I had spoken to her, it hadn’t been brought to my notice that our rule—before it was mitigated—ordered that we own nothing,3 nor had I been about to found the house without an income. My intention had been that we have no worries about our needs; I hadn’t considered the many cares ownership of property brings with it. Since the Lord had taught her, this holy woman understood well, without knowing how to read, what I, after having read over our constitutions so often, didn’t know. As she told me about it, it seemed to me to be right, although I feared they wouldn’t allow me, but say I was doing something foolish and that I shouldn’t do a thing that would make others suffer on my account. Had I been alone it wouldn’t have held me back either little or much; rather, it would have been a great pleasure for me to think I was keeping the counsels of Christ, our Lord, since His Majesty had already given me great desires for poverty. Thus I didn’t doubt that poverty was the best thing for me, because for a long time I had been desiring that it would be possible for me to go begging for love of God and not have a house or anything. But I feared that if the Lord didn’t give the others these desires, their lives would be unhappy. I also feared that poverty would be the cause of some distraction since I observed certain poor monasteries in which there wasn’t much recollection. I failed to reflect that this lack of recollection was the cause of their being poor and that it was not the practice of poverty that caused their distraction. For distraction won’t make monasteries richer; nor does God ever fail anyone who serves Him. In sum, I had weak faith, which was not true of this servant of God.
3. Since I consulted in all things with so many, I nonetheless found almost no one with this opinion, neither my confessor nor the learned men with whom I dealt. They brought out so many reasons against poverty that I didn’t know what to do. Since I knew it was in the rule and saw that observing poverty would be more perfect, I couldn’t persuade myself that the monastery should have an income. And if sometimes they had me convinced, when I returned to prayer and contemplating Christ on the cross, so poor and so naked, I couldn’t patiently accept the idea of being rich. I tearfully begged Him to ordain things so that I would see myself poor, as He was.
4. I found so many disadvantages in having an income and saw it would be so great a cause of disquiet and even distraction that I did nothing else but dispute with learned men. I wrote about it to the Dominican religious4 who was helping us. He sent me two pages with objections and theology written on both sides on why I shouldn’t do it, and he also told me he had studied the matter very carefully. I answered him that I didn’t want to benefit from theology if it wasn’t conducive to my following my vocation, my vow of poverty, and the counsels of Christ with total perfection, and that in this case he did me no favor with his learning. If I found some person who would help me, I became very happy. That lady with whom I was staying5 was a great help to me in this matter. Some told me in the beginning that the idea seemed to them good; afterward, as they began to reflect about it, they found so many disadvantages that they returned to insist on my not carrying it out. I told them that, since they were so quick to change their opinion, I preferred to follow the first.
5. At this time, since this lady hadn’t seen the holy Friar Peter of Alcántara, the Lord was pleased through my entreaties that he come to her house. Because he was a true lover of poverty and had practiced it for so many years, he knew well the riches that lay within it; so he helped me a great deal and ordered that I should by no means fail to go through with my plan.6 With this favorable opinion from one who could give the best opinion since he had known about poverty through wide experience, I made up my mind not to go looking for other opinions.
6. One day while praying intensely to God about this matter, the Lord told me I shouldn’t in any way fail to found the monastery in poverty, that this was both the will of His Father and His own, that He would help me. This took place during a deep rapture with so many remarkable effects that I couldn’t have any doubt the desire was from God.
Another time He told me an income would cause disturbance of mind, and added other things in favor of poverty, assuring me that whoever would observe it would not lack the necessities of life; this lack, as I say, I never feared for myself. The Lord also changed the heart of the presentado,7 I mean of the Dominican I mentioned who had written to me that I shouldn’t found the monastery without income. I was very happy to hear this then and to have these opinions. It seemed to me I possessed all the world’s riches in resolving to live by the love of God.
7. At this time, since there was going to be an election in my monastery, my provincial8 lifted his command and the obedience he had placed me under to stay with this lady, and he left it up to me to choose whether to return or to remain with her for awhile. Some sent me the news that many wanted to give me the charge of being superior. Merely to think of such a thing was a terrible torment. Whereas I was determined to suffer easily any martyrdom for God, by no artifice could I persuade myself to suffer this one. Besides the great amount of work (there were many nuns)9 and other reasons for which I never liked the thought of having any office, it seemed to me that being superior would be very dangerous for my conscience; so I praised God I wasn’t there. I wrote to my friends not to vote for me.
8. While I was very happy that I wasn’t in the midst of all that clatter, the Lord told me I should by no means fail to go, that since I desired the cross a good one was ready for me, that I shouldn’t reject it, that I ought to go with courage, that He would help me, and that I must go right away. I became very disturbed and didn’t do anything but weep, for I thought the cross meant I would be elected superior; and, as I say, I couldn’t be persuaded that such an office would be any good for my soul—nor did I find in myself the qualifications. I gave an account of all to my confessor. He told me I should thus try to go, that it would be clearly the more perfect thing to do, and that since it was very hot it would be sufficient for me to be there for the election, and that I could wait some days before going so as not to get sick from the journey. But the Lord had ordained otherwise, and so things came about.
Interiorly I was extremely restless, and I couldn’t practice prayer. It seemed to me I was failing to do what the Lord had commanded me and that, since I was in that place to my own liking and pleasure, I didn’t want to go to offer myself to the trial; that I was all words with God and that, since I could be there where it would be more perfect for me to be, I had to ask why I was failing to go; that if I should die, I should die! Along with all this went a constriction of soul, and the Lord took away all satisfaction in prayer. In sum, I was in such a state and so severely tormented that I asked that lady to be good enough to let me go. Already my confessor—since he saw me in this state—had told me to go, for God likewise moved him as He did me.
9. She so regretted my leaving her that her sorrow was another torment for me. It had cost her very much, many kinds of urgent pleas, to get permission from the provincial to have me with her. Thus it was a most difficult thing for her to let me go, and she felt it keenly. But since she was very God-fearing and I told her, in addition to many other things, that my going could render God great service, and I gave her the hope it would be possible for me to return to see her, she accepted the fact of my leaving—although regretfully.
10. I no longer was sorry to go; once I understood it was something more perfect and that it would render greater service to God, by means of the happiness it gives me to please Him, I was able to endure the pain of leaving that lady who I saw felt the separation so deeply and other persons whom I owed a great deal, especially my confessor, who was from the Society of Jesus,10 and with whom I got along very well. But the more I saw I was losing consolation for the Lord’s sake, the happier I became at losing it. I couldn’t understand how this was possible, because I saw clearly these two contraries: my being pleased and consoled and happy over what weighed upon my soul. For I had been consoled and at peace there and had found time for many hours of prayer. I saw I was about to place myself in a fire, for the Lord had already told me11 I was going to undergo a great cross, although I never thought it would be as great as I afterward found out it was. Nonetheless, I was happy in going; and since the Lord had desired me to go, I was disturbed that I hadn’t entered the battle immediately. Thus His Majesty sent strength and placed it in the midst of my weakness.
11. I wasn’t able, as I say, to understand how these contraries were possible. I thought of this comparison: Were I to possess a jewel, or something else that gave me great happiness, and then to find out that one whom I loved and wanted to please more than myself desired that object, my happiness in going without it would be greater than in possessing it if I made that other person happy. And because the happiness in pleasing the other would surpass my first happiness, it would take away any pain I might feel in the lack of the jewel, or of the thing cherished, or in losing the happiness it gave me. Thus, though I wanted to feel distress upon seeing that I was leaving persons from whom I so much regretted being separated (and I am by nature so grateful that at another time this would have been enough to cause me deep affliction), now, even though I wanted to feel it, I couldn’t.
12. It was so important, as regards the business of this holy house, for me not to have delayed a day longer that I don’t know how I might have brought things to a conclusion if I had then stayed on there. O greatness of God! Often I am amazed when I consider how particularly His Majesty wanted to help me found this little dwelling corner for God. I believe this is what it is; it is an abode in which His Majesty delights, for He once said to me while I was in prayer that this house12 was a paradise of delight for Him. And thus it seems His Majesty has selected the souls He has brought to this monastery. I live in their company very, very much ashamed. I wouldn’t have known how to desire for this purpose souls such as these; so austere, poor, and prayerful. And they bear this austerity with a joy and happiness that makes each one feel unworthy to have deserved to come to a place like this. There are some, especially, whom the Lord called out of a world of much vanity and ostentation where they could have been satisfied in conformity with its laws. And the Lord has so doubled their joys in this house that they realized clearly He has given them a hundred joys for everyone they left.13 And they can’t get enough of thanking His Majesty. With others, He has changed what was good into something better. To those who are young He gives fortitude and knowledge so that they are unable to desire anything else, and they understand that to be detached from all the things of life is to live in the greatest calm, even in regard to earthly things. To those who are older and have poor health He gives strength, and He gives them the power to bear the austerity and penance the others do.
13. O my Lord, how obvious it is that You are almighty! There’s no need to look for reasons for what You want. For, beyond all natural reason, You make things so possible that You manifest clearly there’s no need for anything more than truly to love You and truly to leave all for You, so that You, my Lord, may make everything easy. It fits well here to say that You feign labor in Your law. For I don’t see, Lord, nor do I know how the road that leads to You is narrow;14 I see that it is a royal road, not a path; a road that is safer for anyone who indeed takes it. Very far off are the occasions of sin, those narrow mountain passes and the rocks that make one fall. What I would call a path, a wretched path and a narrow way, is the kind which has on one side, where a soul can fall, a valley far below, and on the other side a precipice: as soon as one becomes careless one is hurled down and broken into pieces.
14. They who really love You, my Good, walk safely on a broad and royal road. They are far from the precipice. Hardly have they begun to stumble when You, Lord, give them Your hand. One fall is not sufficient for a person to be lost, nor are many, if they love You and not the things of the world. They journey in the valley of humility. I cannot understand what it is that makes people afraid of setting out on the road of perfection. May the Lord, because of who He is, give us understanding of how wretched is the security that lies in such manifest dangers as following the crowd and how true security lies in striving to make progress on the road of God. Let them turn their eyes to Him and not fear the setting of this Sun of Justice, nor, if we don’t first abandon Him, will He allow us to walk at night and go astray.
15. They aren’t afraid to walk among lions (by which I mean whatever the world calls honors, delights, and similar pleasures) where it seems each lion would want to tear off a piece of them; and here on this road it seems the devil makes them afraid of field mice. A thousand times do I marvel and ten thousand times would I like to find satisfaction in bewailing and crying out to everyone my great blindness and wickedness so that doing this might help them open their eyes. May anyone who can, through God’s goodness, open them; and may He not permit me to become blind, amen.