Once while I was in prayer, the Lord showed me by a strange kind of intellectual vision what a soul is like in the state of grace. I saw this (through an intellectual vision) in the company of the most Blessed Trinity. From this company the soul received a power by which it had dominion over the whole earth. I was given an understanding of those words of the Song of Songs that say: Veniat dilectus meus in hortum suum et comedat.1 I was also shown how a soul in sin is without any power, but is like a person completely bound, tied, and blindfolded; for although wanting to see, such a person cannot, and cannot walk or hear, and remains in great darkness. Souls in this condition make me feel such compassion that any burden seems light to me if I can free one of them. I thought that by understanding this condition as I did—for it can be poorly explained—it wasn’t possible for me to desire that anyone lose so much good or remain in so much evil.