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1. Because these aridities may not proceed from the sensory night and purgation,
but from sin and imperfection, or weakness and lukewarmness, or some bad humor
or bodily indisposition, I will give some signs here for discerning whether the
dryness is the result of this purgation or of one of these other defects. I find
there are three principal signs for knowing this.
2. The first is that since these souls do not get satisfaction or consolation
from the things of God, they do not get any from creatures either. Since God
puts a soul in this dark night in order to dry up and purge its sensory
appetite, he does not allow it to find sweetness or delight in anything.
Through
this sign it can in all likelihood be inferred that this dryness and distaste is
not the outcome of newly committed sins and imperfections. If this were so, some
inclination or propensity to look for satisfaction in something other than the
things of God would be felt in the sensory part, for when the appetite is
allowed indulgence in some imperfection, the soul immediately feels an
inclination toward it, little or great in proportion to the degree of its
satisfaction and attachment.
Yet, because the want of satisfaction in earthly or
heavenly things could be the product of some indisposition or melancholic humor,
which frequently prevents one from being satisfied with anything, the second
sign or condition is necessary.
3. The second sign for the discernment of this purgation is that the memory
ordinarily turns to God solicitously and with painful care, and the soul thinks
it is not serving God but turning back, because it is aware of this distaste for
the things of God. Hence it is obvious that this aversion and dryness is not the
fruit of laxity and tepidity, for lukewarm people do not care much for the
things of God nor are they inwardly solicitous about them.
There is,
consequently, a notable difference between dryness and lukewarmness. The
lukewarm are very lax and remiss in their will and spirit, and have no
solicitude about serving God. Those suffering from the purgative dryness are
ordinarily solicitous, concerned, and pained about not serving God. Even though
the dryness may be furthered by melancholia or some other humor - as it often is
- it does not thereby fail to produce its purgative effect in the appetite, for
the soul will be deprived of every satisfaction and concerned only about God. If
this humor is the entire cause, everything ends in displeasure and does harm to
one's nature, and there are none of these desires to serve God that accompany
the purgative dryness. Even though in this purgative dryness the sensory part of
the soul is very cast down, slack, and feeble in its actions because of the
little satisfaction it finds, the spirit is ready and strong.
4. The reason for this dryness is that God transfers his goods and strength from
sense to spirit. Since the sensory part of the soul is incapable of the goods of
spirit, it remains deprived, dry, and empty. Thus, while the spirit is tasting,
the flesh tastes nothing at all and becomes weak in its work.1 But through this
nourishment the spirit grows stronger and more alert, and becomes more
solicitous than before about not failing God. If in thethe beginning the soul
does not experience this spiritual savor and delight, but dryness and distaste,
the reason is the novelty involved in this exchange. Since its palate is
accustomed to these other sensory tastes, the soul still sets its eyes on them.
And since, also, its spiritual palate is neither purged nor accommodated for so
subtle a taste, it is unable to experience the spiritual savor and good until
gradually prepared by means of this dark and obscure night. The soul instead
experiences dryness and distaste because of a lack of the gratification it
formerly enjoyed so readily.
5. Those whom God begins to lead into these desert solitudes are like the
children of Israel. When God began giving them the heavenly food, which
contained in itself all savors and changed to whatever taste each one hungered
after [Wis. 16:20-21], as is there mentioned, they nonetheless felt a craving
for the tastes of the fleshmeats and onions they had eaten in Egypt, for their
palate was accustomed and attracted to them more than to the delicate sweetness
of the angelic manna. And in the midst of that heavenly food, they wept and
sighed for fleshmeat [Nm. 11:4-6]. The baseness of our appetite is such that it
makes us long for our own miserable goods and feel aversion for the
incommunicable heavenly good.
6. Yet, as I say, when these aridities are the outcome of the purgative way of
the sensory appetite, the spirit feels the strength and energy to work, which is
obtained from the substance of that interior food, even though in the beginning
it may not experience the savor, for the reason just mentioned. This food is the
beginning of a contemplation that is dark and dry to the senses. Ordinarily this
contemplation, which is secret and hidden from the very one who receives it,
imparts to the soul, together with the dryness and emptiness it produces in the
senses, an inclination to remain alone and in quietude. And the soul will be
unable to dwell on any particular thought, nor will it have the desire to do so.
If those in whom this occurs know how to remain quiet, without care or
solicitude about any interior or exterior work, they will soon in that unconcern
and idleness delicately experience the interior nourishment. This refection is
so delicate that usually if the soul desires or tries to experience it, it
cannot do so. For, as I say, this contemplation is active while the soul is in
idleness and unconcern. It is like air that escapes when one tries to grasp it
in one's hand.
7. In this sense we can interpret what the Spouse said to the bride in the Song
of Songs: Turn your eyes from me, because they make me fly away [Sg. 6:4]. God
conducts the soul along so different a path, and so puts it in this state, that
a desire to work with the faculties would hinder rather than help his work;
whereas in the beginning of the spiritual life everything was quite the
contrary.
The reason is that now in this state of contemplation, when the soul
leaves discursive meditation and enters the state of proficients, it is God who
works in it. He therefore binds the interior faculties and leaves no support in
the intellect, nor satisfaction in the will, nor remembrance in the memory. At
this time a person's own efforts are of no avail, but are an obstacle to the
interior peace and work God is producing in the spirit through that dryness of
sense. Since this peace is something spiritual and delicate, its fruit is quiet,
delicate, solitary, satisfying, and peaceful, and far removed from all the other
gratifications of beginners, which are very palpable and sensory. This is the
peace that David says God speaks in the soul in order to make it spiritual [Ps.
85:8]. The third sign follows from this one.
8. The third sign for the discernment of this purgation of the senses is the
powerlessness, in spite of one's efforts, to meditate and make use of the
imagination, the interior sense, as was one's previous custom. At this time God
does not communicate himself through the senses as he did before, by means of
the discursive analysis and synthesis of ideas, but begins to communicate
himself through pure spirit by an act of simple contemplation in which there is
no discursive succession of thought. The exterior and interior senses of the
lower part of the soul cannot attain to this contemplation. As a result the
imaginative power and phantasy can no longer rest in any consideration or find
support in it.2
9. From the third sign it can be deduced that this dissatisfaction of the
faculties is not the fruit of any bad humor. If it were, people would be able
with a little care to return to their former exercises and find support for
their faculties when that humor passed away, for it is by its nature changeable.
In the purgation of the appetite this return is not possible, because on
entering it the powerlessness to meditate always continues. It is true, though,
that at times in the beginning the purgation of some souls is not continuous in
such a way that they are always deprived of sensory satisfaction and the ability
to meditate. Perhaps, because of their weakness, they cannot be weaned all at
once. Nevertheless, if they are to advance, they will ever enter further into
the purgation and leave further behind their work of the senses. Those who do
not walk the road of contemplation act very differently. This night of the
aridity of the senses is not so continuous in them, for sometimes they
experience the aridities and at other times not, and sometimes they can meditate
and at other times they cannot. God places them in this night solely to exercise
and humble them, and reform their appetite lest in their spiritual life they
foster a harmful attraction toward sweetness. But he does not do so in order to
lead them to the life of the spirit, which is contemplation. For God does not
bring to contemplation all those who purposely exercise themselves in the way of
the spirit, nor even half. Why? He best knows. As a result he never completely
weans their senses from the breasts of considerations and discursive
meditations, except for some short periods and at certain seasons, as we said.
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