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Many evils, both interior and exterior, come to the
spiritual person when he desires to follow after
sweetness of sense in these matters aforementioned.
For, as regards the spirit, he will never attain to
interior spiritual recollection, which consists in
neglecting all such things, and in causing the soul
to forget all this sensible sweetness, and to enter
into true recollection, and to acquire the virtues by
dint of effort.
As regards exterior things, he will become unable
to dispose himself for prayer in all places, but will
be confined to places that are to his taste; and thus
he will often fail in prayer, because, as the saying
goes, he can understand no other book than his own
village.
2. Furthermore, this desire leads such persons
into great inconstancy. Some of them never continue
in one place or even always in one state: now they
will be seen in one place, now in another; now they
will go to one hermitage, now to another; now they
will set up this oratory, now that.
Some of them, again, wear out their lives in
changing from one state or manner of living to
another. For, as they possess only the sensible
fervour and joy to be found in spiritual things, and
have never had the strength to attain spiritual
recollection by the renunciation of their own will,
and submitting to suffering inconveniences, whenever
they see a place which they think well suited for
devotion, or any kind of life or state well adapted
to their temperament and inclination, they at once go
after it and leave the condition or state in which
they were before.
And, as they have come under the influence of that
sensible pleasure, it follows that they soon seek
something new, for sensible pleasure is not constant,
but very quickly fails. |