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1. At the time of the aridities of this sensory night, God makes the exchange we
mentioned1 by withdrawing the soul from the life of the senses and placing it in
that of spirit - that is, he brings it from meditation to contemplation - where
the soul no longer has the power to work or meditate with its faculties on the
things of God. Spiritual persons suffer considerable affliction in this night,
owing not so much to the aridities they undergo as to their fear of having gone
astray. Since they do not find any support or satisfaction in good things, they
believe there will be no more spiritual blessings for them and that God has
abandoned them. They then grow weary and strive, as was their custom, to
concentrate their faculties with some satisfaction on a subject of meditation,
and they think that if they do not do this and do not feel that they are at
work, they are doing nothing. This effort of theirs is accompanied by an
interior reluctance and repugnance on the part of the soul, for it would be
pleased to dwell in that quietude and idleness without working with the
faculties.
They consequently impair God's work and do not profit by their own.
In searching for spirit, they lose the spirit that was the source of their tranquility and peace. They are like someone who turns from what has already
been done in order to do it again, or like one who leaves a city only to
re-enter it, or they are like a hunter who abandons the prey in order to go
hunting again. It is useless, then, for the soul to try to meditate because it
will no longer profit by this exercise.
2. If there is no one to understand these persons, they either turn back and
abandon the road or lose courage, or at least they hinder their own progress
because of their excessive diligence in treading the path of discursive
meditation. They fatigue and overwork themselves, thinking that they are failing
because of their negligence or sins. Meditation is now useless for them because
God is conducting them along another road, which is contemplation and is very
different from the first, for the one road belongs to discursive meditation and
the other is beyond the range of the imagination and discursive reflection.
3. Those who are in this situation should feel comforted; they ought to
persevere patiently and not be afflicted. Let them trust in God who does not
fail those who seek him with a simple and righteous heart; nor will he fail to
impart what is needful for the way until getting them to the clear and pure
light of love. God will give them this light by means of that other night, the
night of spirit, if they merit that he place them in it.
4. The attitude necessary in the night of sense is to pay no attention to
discursive meditation since this is not the time for it. They should allow the
soul to remain in rest and quietude even though it may seem obvious to them that
they are doing nothing and wasting time, and even though they think this
disinclination to think about anything is due to their laxity. Through patience
and perseverance in prayer, they will be doing a great deal without activity on
their part. All that is required of them here is freedom of soul, that they
liberate themselves from the impediment and fatigue of ideas and thoughts, and
care not about thinking and meditating. They must be content simply with a
loving and peaceful attentiveness to God, and live without the concern, without
the effort, and without the desire to taste or feel him. All these desires
disquiet the soul and distract it from the peaceful, quiet, and sweet idleness
of the contemplation that is being communicated to it.
5. And even though more scruples come to the fore concerning the loss of time
and the advantages of doing something else, since it cannot do anything or think
of anything in prayer, the soul should endure them peacefully, as though going
to prayer means remaining in ease and freedom of spirit. If individuals were to
desire to do something themselves with their interior faculties, they would
hinder and lose the goods that God engraves on their souls through that peace
and idleness. If a model for the painting or retouching of a portrait should
move because of a desire to do something, the artist would be unable to finish
and the work would be spoiled. Similarly, any operation, affection, or thought a
soul might cling to when it wants to abide in interior peace and idleness would
cause distraction and disquietude, and make it feel sensory dryness and
emptiness. The more a person seeks some support in knowledge and affection the
more the soul will feel the lack of these, for this support cannot be supplied
through these sensory means.
6. Accordingly, such persons should not mind if the operations of their
faculties are being lost to them; they should desire rather that this be done
quickly so they may be no obstacle to the operation of the infused contemplation
God is bestowing, so they may receive it with more peaceful plenitude and make
room in the spirit for the enkindling and burning of the love that this dark and
secret contemplation bears and communicates to the soul. For contemplation is
nothing else than a secret and peaceful and loving inflow of God, which, if not
hampered, fires the soul in the spirit of love, as is brought out in the
following verse:2
Fired with love's urgent longings
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