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"I wish you to know that every tear proceeds from the
heart, for there is no member of the body that will
satisfy the heart so much as the eye. If the heart is
in pain the eye manifests it.
"And if the pain be sensual the eye drops hearty
tears which engender death, because proceeding from
the heart, they are caused by a disordinate love
distinct from the love of Me; for such love, being
disordinate and an offense to Me, receives the meed
of mortal pain and tears. It is true that their guilt
and grief are more or less heavy, according to the
measure of their disordinate love. And these form
that first class, who have the tears of death, of
whom I have spoken to you, and will speak again.
"Now, begin to consider the tears which give the
commencement of life, the tears, that is, of those
who, knowing their guilt, set to weeping for fear of
the penalty they have incurred.
"These are both hearty and sensual tears, because
the soul, not having yet arrived at perfect hatred of
its guilt on account of the offense thereby done to
Me, abandons it with a hearty grief for the penalty
which follows the sin committed, while the eye weeps
in order to satisfy the grief of the heart.
"But the soul, exercising herself in virtue,
begins to lose her fear, knowing that fear alone is
not sufficient to give her eternal life, as I have
already told you when speaking of the second stage of
the soul. And so she proceeds, with love, to know
herself and My goodness in her, and begins to take
hope in My mercy in which her heart feels joy. Sorrow
for her grief, mingled with the joy of her hope in My
mercy, causes her eye to weep, which tears issue from
the very fountain of her heart.
"But, inasmuch as she has not yet arrived at great
perfection, she often drops sensual tears, and if you
ask Me why, I reply: Because the root of self-love is
not sensual love, for that has already been removed,
as has been said, but it is a spiritual love with
which the soul desires spiritual consolations or
loves some creature spiritually. (I have spoken to
you at length regarding the imperfections of such
souls.) Wherefore, when such a soul is deprived of
the thing she loves, that is, internal or external
consolation, the internal being the consolation
received from Me, the external being that which she
had from the creature, and when temptations and the
persecutions of men come on her, her heart is full of
grief.
"And, as soon as the eye feels the grief and
suffering of the heart, she begins to weep with a
tender and compassionate sorrow, pitying herself with
the spiritual compassion of self-love; for her
self-will is not yet crushed and destroyed in
everything, and in this way she lets fall sensual
tears -- tears, that is, of spiritual passion. But,
growing, and exercising herself in the light of
self-knowledge, she conceives displeasure at herself
and finally perfect self-hatred.
"From this she draws true knowledge of My goodness
with a fire of love, and she begins to unite herself
to Me, and to conform her will to Mine and so to feel
joy and compassion. Joy in herself through the
affection of love, and compassion for her neighbor,
as I told you in speaking of the third stage.
"Immediately her eye, wishing to satisfy the
heart, cries with hearty love for Me and for her
neighbor, grieving solely for My offense and her
neighbor's loss, and not for any penalty or loss due
to herself; for she does not think of herself, but
only of rendering glory and praise to My Name, and,
in an ecstasy of desire, she joyfully takes the food
prepared for her on the table of the Holy Cross, thus
conforming herself to the humble, patient, and
immaculate Lamb, My only-begotten Son, of whom I made
a Bridge, as I have said.
"Having thus sweetly traveled by that Bridge,
following the doctrine of My sweet Truth, enduring
with true and sweet patience every pain and trouble
which I have permitted to be inflicted upon her for
her salvation, having manfully received them all, not
choosing them according to her own tastes, but
accepting them according to Mine, and not only, as I
said, enduring them with patience, but sustaining
them with joy, she counts it glory to be persecuted
for My Name's sake in whatever she may have to
suffer. "Then the soul arrives at such delight and
tranquillity of mind that no tongue can tell it.
"Having crossed the river by means of the Eternal
Word, that is, by the doctrine of My only-begotten
Son, and, having fixed the eye of her intellect on
Me, the Sweet Supreme Truth, having seen the Truth,
knows it; and knowing it, loves it. Drawing her
affection after her intellect, she tastes My Eternal
Deity, and she knows and sees the Divine nature
united to your humanity.
"Then she reposes in Me, the Sea Pacific, and her
heart is united to Me in love, as I told you when
speaking of the fourth and unitive state. When she
thus feels Me, the Eternal Deity, her eyes let fall
tears of sweetness, tears indeed of milk, nourishing
the soul in true patience; an odoriferous ointment
are these tears, shedding odors of great sweetness.
"Oh, best beloved daughter, how glorious is that
soul who has indeed been able to pass from the stormy
ocean to Me, the Sea Pacific, and in that Sea, which
is Myself, the Supreme and Eternal Deity, to fill the
pitcher of her heart. And her eye, the conduit of her
heart, endeavors to satisfy her heart-pangs, and so
sheds tears. This is the last stage in which the soul
is blessed and sorrowful.
"Blessed she is through the union which she feels
herself to have with Me, tasting the divine love;
sorrowful through the offenses which she sees done to
My goodness and greatness, for she has seen and
tasted the bitterness of this in her self-knowledge,
by which self-knowledge, together with her knowledge
of Me, she arrived at the final stage.
"Yet this sorrow is no impediment to the unitive
state, which produces tears of great sweetness
through self-knowledge, gained in love of the
neighbor, in which exercise the soul discovers the
plaint of My divine mercy, and grief at the offenses
caused to her neighbor, weeping with those who weep,
and rejoicing with those who rejoice -- that is, who
live in My love. Over these the soul rejoices, seeing
glory and praise rendered Me by My servants, so that
the third kind of grief does not prevent the fourth,
that is, the final grief belonging to the unitive
state; they rather give savor to each other, for, had
not this last grief (in which the soul finds such
union with Me), developed from the grief belonging to
the third state of neighborly love, it would not be
perfect.
"Therefore it is necessary that the one should
flavor the other, else the soul would come to a state
of presumption, induced by the subtle breeze of love
of her own reputation, and would fall at once,
vomited from the heights to the depths. Therefore it
is necessary to bear with others and practice
continually love to one's neighbor, together with
true knowledge of oneself.
"In this way will she feel the fire of My love in
herself, because love of her neighbor is developed
out of love of Me -- that is, out of that learning
which the soul obtained by knowing herself and My
goodness in her. When, therefore, she sees herself to
be ineffably loved by Me, she loves every rational
creature with the self-same love with which she sees
herself to be loved.
"And, for this reason, the soul that knows Me
immediately expands to the love of her neighbor,
because she sees that I love that neighbor ineffably,
and so, herself, loves the object which she sees Me
to have loved still more. She further knows that she
can be of no use to Me and can in no way repay Me
that pure love with which she feels herself to be
loved by Me, and therefore endeavors to repay it
through the medium which I have given her, namely,
her neighbor, who is the medium through which you can
all serve Me.
"For, as I have said to you, you can perform all
virtues by means of your neighbor, I having given you
all creatures, in general and in particular,
according to the diverse graces each has received
from Me, to be ministered unto by you; you should
therefore love them with the same pure love with
which I have loved you. That pure love cannot be
returned directly to Me, because I have loved you
without being Myself loved, and without any
consideration of Myself whatsoever, for I loved you
without being loved by you -- before you existed; it
was, indeed, love that moved Me to create you to My
own image and similitude.
"This love you cannot repay to Me, but you can pay
it to My rational creature, loving your neighbor
without being loved by him and without consideration
of your own advantage, whether spiritual or temporal,
but loving him solely for the praise and glory of My
Name, because he has been loved by Me.
"Thus will you fulfill the commandment of the law,
to love Me above everything, and your neighbor as
yourselves.
"True indeed is it that this height cannot be
reached without passing through the second stage,
namely the second stage of union which becomes the
third (and final) stage. Nor can it be preserved when
it has been reached if the soul abandon the affection
from which it has been developed, the affection to
which the second class of tears belongs.
"It is therefore impossible to fulfill the law
given by Me, the Eternal God, without fulfilling that
of your neighbor, for these two laws are the feet of
your affection by which the precepts and counsels are
observed, which were given you, as I have told you,
by My Truth, Christ crucified.
"These two states united nourish your soul in
virtue, making her to grow in the perfection of
virtue and in the unitive state. Not that the other
state is changed because this further state has been
reached, for this further state does but increase the
riches of grace in new and various gifts and
admirable elevations of the mind, in the knowledge of
the truth, as I said to you, which, though it is
mortal, appears immortal because the soul's
perception of her own sensuality is mortified and her
will is dead through the union which she has attained
with Me.
"Oh, how sweet is the taste of this union to the
soul, for, in tasting it, she sees My secrets!
Wherefore she often receives the spirit of prophecy,
knowing the things of the future. This is the effect
of My Goodness, but the humble soul should despise
such things, not indeed in so far as they are given
her by My love, but in so far as she desires them by
reason of her appetite for consolation, considering
herself unworthy of peace and quiet of mind, in order
to nourish virtue within her soul.
"In such a case let her not remain in the second
stage, but return to the valley of self-knowledge. I
give her this light, My grace permitting, so that she
may ever grow in virtue. For the soul is never so
perfect in this life that she cannot attain to a
higher perfection of love. My only-begotten Son, your
Captain, was the only One who could increase in no
perfection, because He was one thing with Me, and I
with Him, wherefore His soul was blessed through
union with the Divine nature.
"But do you, His pilgrim-members, be ever ready to
grow in greater perfection, not indeed to another
stage, for as I have said, you have now reached the
last, but to that further grade of perfection in the
last stage, which may please you by means of My
Grace."
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