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There is another kind of rapture, or flight of the
spirit, as I call it, which, though substantially the
same, is felt within the soul[24] in a very different
way. Sometimes the soul becomes conscious of such
rapid motion that the spirit seems to be transported
with a speed which, especially at first, fills it
with fear, for which reason I told you that great
courage is necessary for anyone in whom God is to
work these favours, together with faith and
confidence and great resignation, so that Our Lord
may do with the soul as He wills.
Do you suppose it causes but little perturbation
to a person in complete possession of his senses when
he experiences these transports of the soul? We have
even read in some authors that the body is
transported as well as the soul, without knowing
whither it is going, or who is bearing it away, or
how, for when this sudden motion begins the soul has
no certainty that it is caused by God.
Can any means of resisting this be found? None
whatever: on the contrary, resistance only makes
matters worse. This I know from a certain person who
said that God's will seems to be to show the soul
that, since it has so often and so unconditionally
placed itself in His hands, and has offered itself to
Him with such complete willingness, it must realize
that it is no longer its own mistress, and so the
violence with which it is transported becomes
markedly greater. This person, therefore, decided to
offer no more resistance than a straw does when it is
lifted up by amber (if you have ever observed this)
and to commit herself into the hands of Him Who is so
powerful, seeing that it is but to make a virtue of
necessity. And, speaking of straw, it is a fact that
a powerful man cannot bear away a straw more easily
than this great and powerful Giant of ours can bear
away the spirit.
I think that basin of water, of which we spoke in (I
believe) the fourth Mansion (but I do not remember
exactly where),[25] was being filled at that stage
gently and quietly -- I mean without any movement.
But now this great God, Who controls the sources of
the waters and forbids the sea to move beyond its
bounds, has loosed the sources whence water has been
coming into this basin; and with tremendous force
there rises up so powerful a wave that this little
ship -- our soul -- is lifted up on high. And if a
ship can do nothing, and neither the pilot nor any of
the crew has any power over it, when the waves make a
furious assault upon it and toss it about at their
will, even less able is the interior part of the soul
to stop where it likes, while its senses and
faculties can do no more than has been commanded
them: the exterior senses, however, are quite
unaffected by this.
Really, sisters, the mere writing of this makes me
astounded when I reflect how the great power of this
great King and Emperor manifests itself here. What,
then, must be the feelings of anyone who experiences
it? For my own part I believe that, if His Majesty
were to reveal Himself to those who journey through
the world to their perdition as He does to these
souls, they would not dare -- out of very fear,
though not perhaps out of love -- to offend Him. Oh,
how great, then, are the obligations attending souls
who have been warned in so sublime a way to strive
with all their might so as not to offend this Lord!
For His sake, sisters, I beseech you, to whom His
Majesty has granted these favours or others like
them, not merely to receive them and then grow
careless, but to remember that anyone who owes much
has much to pay.[26]
This is another reason why the soul needs great
courage, for the thought is one which makes it very
fearful, and, did Our Lord not give it courage, it
would continually be in great affliction. When it
reflects what His Majesty is doing with it, and then
turns to reflect upon itself, it realizes what a
little it is doing towards the fulfilment of its
obligations and how feeble is that little which it
does do and how full of faults and failures. If it
does any good action, rather than remember how
imperfect this action is, it thinks best to try to
forget it, to keep nothing in mind but its sins, and
to throw itself upon the mercy of God; and, since it
has nothing with which to pay, it craves the
compassion and mercy which He has always shown to
sinners.
He may perhaps answer it as He answered someone who
was very much distressed about this, and was looking
at a crucifix and thinking that she had never had
anything to offer God or to give up for His sake. The
Crucified Himself comforted her by saying that He was
giving her all the pains and trials which He had
suffered in His Passion, so that she should have them
for her own to offer to His Father.[27] That soul, as
I have understood from her, was so much comforted and
enriched by this experience that she cannot forget
it, and, whenever she feels miserable, she remembers
it and it comforts and encourages her. There are
several other remarks on this subject which I might
add; for, as I have had to do with many saintly and
prayerful people, I know of a number of such cases,
but I do not want you to think that it is to myself
that I am referring, so I pass them over.
This incident which I have described seems to me a
very apt one for helping you to understand how glad
Our Lord is when we get to know ourselves and keep
trying all the time to realize our poverty and
wretchedness, and to reflect that we possess nothing
that we have not been given. Therefore, my sisters,
courage is necessary for this and for many other
things that happen to a soul which the Lord has
brought to this state; and, to my thinking, if the
soul is humble, more courage is necessary for this
last state than for any other. May the Lord, of His
own bounty, grant us humility.
Turning now to this sudden transport of the spirit,
it may be said to be of such a kind that the soul
really seems to have left the body; on the other
hand, it is clear that the person is not dead, though
for a few moments he cannot even himself be sure if
the soul is in the body or no. He feels as if he has
been in another world, very different from this in
which we live, and has been shown a fresh light
there, so much unlike any to be found in this life
that, if he had been imagining it, and similar
things, all his life long, it would have been
impossible for him to obtain any idea of them.
In a single instant he is taught so many things
all at once that if he were to labour for years on
end in trying to fit them all into his imagination
and thought, he could not succeed with a thousandth
part of them. This is not an intellectual, but an
imaginary vision, which is seen with the eyes of the
soul very much more clearly than we can ordinarily
see things with the eyes of the body; and some of the
revelations are communicated to it without words. If,
for examples he sees any of the saints, he knows them
as well as if he had spent a long time in their
company.
Sometimes, in addition to the things which he sees
with the eyes of the soul, in intellectual vision,
others are revealed to him -- in particular, a host
of angels, with their Lord; and, though he sees
nothing with the eyes of the body or with the eyes of
the soul, he is shown the things I am describing and
many others which are indescribable, by means of an
admirable kind of knowledge. Anyone who has
experience of this, and possesses more ability than
I, will perhaps know how to express it; to me it
seems extremely difficult. If the soul is in the body
or not while all this is happening I cannot say; I
would not myself swear that the soul is in the body,
nor that the body is bereft of the soul.
I have often thought that if the sun can remain in
the heavens and yet its rays are so strong that
without its moving thence they can none the less
reach us here, it must be possible for the soul and
the spirit, which are as much the same thing as are
the sun and its rays, to remain where they are, and
yet, through the power of the heat that comes to them
from the true Sun of Justice, for some higher part of
them to rise above itself.
Really, I hardly know what I am saying; but it is
a fact that, as quickly as a bullet leaves a gun when
the trigger is pulled, there begins within the soul a
flight (I know no other name to give it) which,
though no sound is made, is so clearly a movement
that it cannot possibly be due to fancy. When the
soul, as far as it can understand, is right outside
itself, great things are revealed to it; and, when it
returns to itself, it finds that it has reaped very
great advantages and it has such contempt for earthly
things that, in comparison with those it has seen,
they seem like dirt to it.
Thenceforward to live on earth is a great
affliction to it, and, if it sees any of the things
which used to give it pleasure, it no longer cares
for them. Just as tokens of the nature of the
Promised Land were brought back by those whom the
Israelites sent on there,[28] so in this case the
Lord's wish seems to have been to show the soul
something of the country to which it is to travel, so
that it may suffer the trials of this trying
road,[29] knowing whither it must travel in order to
obtain its rest. Although you may think that a thing
which passes so quickly cannot be of great profit,
the help which it gives the soul is so great that
only the person familiar with it can understand its
worth.
Clearly, then, this is no work of the devil; such an
experience could not possibly proceed from the
imagination, and the devil could never reveal things
which produce such results in the soul and leave it
with such peace and tranquillity and with so many
benefits. There are three things in particular which
it enjoys to a very high degree. The first is
knowledge of the greatness of God: the more we see of
this, the more deeply we are conscious of it. The
second is self-knowledge and humility at
realizing how a thing like the soul, so base by
comparison with One Who is the Creator of such
greatness, has dared to offend Him and dares to raise
its eyes to Him. The third is a supreme
contempt for earthly things, save those which can be
employed in the service of so great a God.
These are the jewels which the Spouse is beginning to
give to His bride, and so precious are they that she
will not fail to keep them with the greatest care.
These meetings[30] with the Spouse remain so deeply
engraven in the memory that I think it is impossible
for the soul to forget them until it is enjoying them
for ever; if it did so, it would suffer the greatest
harm. But the Spouse Who gives them to the soul has
power also to give it grace not to lose them.
Returning now to the soul's need of courage, I ask
you: Does it seem to you such a trifling thing after
all? For the soul really feels that it is leaving the
body when it sees the senses leaving it and has no
idea why they are going. So He Who gives everything
else must needs give courage too. You will say that
this fear of the soul's is well rewarded; so too say
I. May He Who can give so much be for ever praised.
And may it please His Majesty to grant us to be
worthy to serve Him. Amen.
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