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You must not take it, sisters, that the effects which
I have described as occurring in these souls are
invariably present all the time; it is for this
reason that, whenever I have remembered to do so, I
have referred to them as being present "habitually".
Sometimes Our Lord leaves such souls to their own
nature, and when that happens, all the poisonous
things in the environs and mansions of this castle
seem to come together to avenge themselves on them
for the time during which they have not been able to
have them in their power.
It is true that this lasts only for a short time --
for a single day, or a little longer, at the most --
and in the course of the ensuing turmoil, which as a
rule is the result of some chance happening, it
becomes clear what the soul is gaining from the good
Companion Who is with it. For the Lord gives it great
determination, so that it will on no account turn
aside from His service and from its own good
resolutions. On the contrary, these resolutions seem
to increase, and so the soul will not make the
slightest move which may deflect it from its resolve.
This, as I say, happens rarely, but Our Lord's will
is for the soul not to forget what it is -- for one
reason, so that it may always be humble; for another,
so that it may the better realize what it owes to His
Majesty and what a great favour it is receiving, and
may praise Him.
Do not, of course, for one moment imagine that,
because these souls have such vehement desires and
are so determined not to commit a single imperfection
for anything in the world, they do not in fact commit
many imperfections, and even sins. Not intentionally,
it is true, for the Lord will give such persons very
special aid as to this: I am referring to venial
sins, for from mortal sins, as far as they know, they
are free, though they are not completely proof
against them; and the thought that they may commit
some without knowing it will cause them no small
agony.
It also distresses them to see so many souls being
lost; and, although on the one hand they have great
hopes of not being among them, yet, when they
remember some whom the Scriptures describe as having
been favoured of the Lord -- like Solomon, who
enjoyed such converse with His Majesty[245] -- they
cannot, as I have said, but be afraid. And let
whichever of you feels surest of herself fear most,
for, says David, "Blessed is the man that feareth
God."[246] May His Majesty always protect us; let us
beseech Him to do so, that we may not offend Him;
this is the greatest security that we can have. May
He be for ever praised. Amen.
It will be a good thing, sisters, if I tell you why
it is that the Lord grants so many favours in this
world. Although you will have learned this from the
effects they produce, if you have observed them, I
will speak about it further here, so that none of you
shall think that He does it simply to give these
souls pleasure. That would be to make a great error.
For His Majesty can do nothing greater for us than
grant us a life which is an imitation of that lived
by His Beloved Son. I feel certain, therefore, that
these favours are given us to strengthen our
weakness, as I have sometimes said here, so that we
may be able to imitate Him in His great sufferings.
We always find that those who walked closest to
Christ Our Lord were those who had to bear the
greatest trials. Consider the trials suffered by His
glorious Mother and by the glorious Apostles. How do
you suppose Saint Paul could endure such terrible
trials? We can see in his life the effects of genuine
visions and of contemplation coming from Our Lord and
not from human imagination or from the deceit of the
devil. Do you imagine that he shut himself up with
his visions so as to enjoy those Divine favours and
pursue no other occupation? You know very well that,
so far as we can learn, he took not a day's rest, nor
can he have rested by night, since it was then that
he had to earn his living[247]
I am very fond of the story of how, when Saint Peter
was fleeing from prison, Our Lord appeared to him and
told him to go back to Rome and be crucified. We
never recite the Office on his festival, in which
this story is found, without my deriving a special
consolation from it.[248] How did Saint Peter feel
after receiving this favour from the Lord? And what
did he do? He went straight to his death; and the
Lord showed him no small mercy in providing someone
to kill him.
Oh, my sisters, how little one should think about
resting, and how little one should care about honours,
and how far one ought to be from wishing to be
esteemed in the very least if the Lord makes His
special abode in the soul. For if the soul is much
with Him, as it is right it should be, it will very
seldom think of itself; its whole thought will be
concentrated upon finding ways to please Him and upon
showing Him how it loves Him. This, my daughters, is
the aim of prayer: this is the purpose of the
Spiritual Marriage, of which are born good works and
good works alone.
Such works, as I have told you, are the sign of every
genuine favour and of everything else that comes from
God. It will profit me a little if I am alone and
deeply recollected, and make acts of love to Our Lord
and plan and promise to work wonders in His service,
and then, as soon as I leave my retreat and some
occasion presents itself, I do just the opposite.
I was wrong when I said it will profit me little, for
anyone who is with God must profit greatly, and,
although after making these resolutions we may be too
weak to carry them out, His Majesty will sometimes
grant us grace to do so, even at great cost to
ourselves, as often happens. For, when He sees a very
timorous soul, He sends it, much against its own
will, some very sore trial the bearing of which does
it a great deal of good; and later, when the soul
becomes aware of this, it loses its fear and offers
itself to Him the more readily.
What I meant was that the profit is small by
comparison with the far greater profit which comes
from conformity between our deeds on the one hand and
our resolutions and the words we use on the other.
Anyone who cannot achieve everything at once must
progress little by little. If she wishes to find help
in prayer, she must learn to subdue her own will and
in these little nooks of ours there will be very many
occasions when you can do this.
Reflect carefully on this, for it is so important
that I can hardly lay too much stress on it. Fix your
eyes on the Crucified and nothing else will be of
much importance to you. If His Majesty revealed His
love to us by doing and suffering such amazing
things, how can you expect to please Him by words
alone? Do you know when people really become
spiritual? It is when they become the slaves of God
and are branded with His sign, which is the sign of
the Cross, in token that they have given Him their
freedom. Then He can sell them as slaves to the whole
world, as He Himself was sold, and if He does this He
will be doing them no wrong but showing them no
slight favour.
Unless they resolve to do this, they need not expect
to make great progress. For the foundation of this
whole edifice, as I have said, is humility, and, if
you have not true humility, the Lord will not wish it
to reach any great height: in fact, it is for your
own good that it should not; if it did, it would fall
to the ground. Therefore, sisters, if you wish to lay
good foundations, each of you must try to be the
least of all, and the slave of God, and must seek a
way and means to please and serve all your
companions. If you do that, it will be of more value
to you than to them and your foundation will be so
firmly laid that your Castle will not fall.
I repeat that if you have this in view you must not
build upon foundations of prayer and contemplation
alone, for, unless you strive after the virtues and
practise them, you will never grow to be more than
dwarfs. God grant that nothing worse than this may
happen -- for, as you know, anyone who fails to go
forward begins to go back, and love, I believe, can
never be content to stay for long where it is.
You may think that I am speaking about beginners, and
that later on one may rest: but, as I have already
told you, the only repose that these souls enjoy is
of an interior kind; of outward repose they get less
and less, and they have no wish to get more. What is
the purpose, do you suppose, of these inspirations --
or, more correctly, of these aspirations -- which I
have described, and of these messages which are sent
by the soul from its innermost centre to the folk
outside the Castle and to the Mansions which are
outside that in which it is itself dwelling? Is it to
send them to sleep? No, no, no.
The soul, where it now is, is fighting harder to keep
the faculties and senses and every thing to do with
the body from being idle than it did when it suffered
with them. For it did not then understand what great
gain can be derived from trials, which may indeed
have been means whereby God has brought it to this
state, nor did it realize how the companionship which
it now enjoys would give it much greater strength
than it ever had before. For if, as David says, with
the holy we shall be holy,[249] it cannot be doubted
that, if we are made one with the Strong, we shall
gain strength through the most sovereign union of
spirit with Spirit, and we shall appreciate the
strength of the saints which enabled them to suffer
and die.
It is quite certain that, with the strength it has
gained, the soul comes to the help of all who are in
the Castle, and, indeed, succours the body itself.
Often the body appears to feel nothing, but the
strength derived from the vigour gained by the soul
after it has drunk of the wine from this cellar,
where its Spouse has brought it and which He will not
allow it to leave, overflows into the weak body, just
as on the earthly plane the food which is introduced
into the stomach gives strength to the head and to
the whole body.
In this life, then, the soul has a very bad time,
for, however much it accomplishes, it is strong
enough inwardly to attempt much more and this causes
such strife within it that nothing it can do seems to
it of any importance. This must be the reason for the
great penances done by many saints, especially by the
glorious Magdalen, who had been brought up in such
luxury all her life long; there was also that hunger
for the honour of his God suffered by our father
Elias;[250] and the zeal of Saint Dominic and Saint
Francis for bringing souls to God, so that He might
be praised. I assure you that, forgetful as they were
of themselves, they must have endured no little
suffering.
This, my sisters, I should like us to strive to
attain: we should desire and engage in prayer, not
for our enjoyment, but for the sake of acquiring this
strength which fits us for service. Let us not try to
walk along an untrodden path, or at the best we shall
waste our time: it would certainly be a novel idea to
think of receiving these favours from God through any
other means than those used by Him and by all His
saints. Let us not even consider such a thing:
believe me, Martha and Mary must work together when
they offer the Lord lodging, and must have Him ever
with them, and they must not entertain Him badly and
give Him nothing to eat. And how can Mary give Him
anything, seated as she is at His feet, unless her
sister helps her? His food consists in our bringing
Him souls, in every possible way, so that they may be
saved and may praise Him for ever.
You will reply to me by making two observations. The
first, that Mary was said to have chosen the better
part[251] -- and she had already done the work of
Martha and shown her love for the Lord by washing His
feet and wiping them with her hair.[252] And do you
think it would be a trifling mortification to a woman
in her position to go through those streets --
perhaps alone, for her fervour was such that she
cared nothing how she went -- to enter a house that
she had never entered before and then to have to put
up with uncharitable talk from the Pharisee[253] and
from very many other people, all of which she was
forced to endure?
What a sight it must have been in the town to see
such a woman as she had been making this change in
her life! Such wicked people as we know the Jews to
have been would only need to see that she was
friendly with the Lord, Whom they so bitterly hated,
to call to mind the life which she had lived and to
realize that she now wanted to become holy, for she
would of course at once have changed her style of
dress and everything else.
Think how we gossip about people far less notorious
than she and then imagine what she must have
suffered. I assure you, sisters, that that better
part came to her only after sore trials and great
mortification -- even to see her Master so much hated
must have been an intolerable trial to her. And how
many such trials did she not endure later, after the
Lord's death! I think myself that the reason she was
not granted martyrdom was that she had already
undergone it through witnessing the Lord's
death.[254] The later years of her life, too, during
which she was absent from Him, would have been years
of terrible torment; so she was not always enjoying
the delights of contemplation at the Lord's feet.
The other thing you may say is that you are unable to
lead souls to God, and have no means of doing so;
that you would gladly do this, but, being unable to
teach and preach like the Apostles, you do not know
how. That is an objection which I have often answered
in writing, though I am not sure if I have done so in
discussing this Castle. But, as it is a thing which I
think must occur to you, in view of the desires which
the Lord implants in you, I will not omit to speak of
it here.
I told you elsewhere that the devil sometimes puts
ambitious desires into our hearts, so that, instead
of setting our hand to the work which lies nearest to
us, and thus serving Our Lord in ways within our
power, we may rest content with having desired the
impossible. Apart from praying for people, by which
you can do a great deal for them, do not try to help
everybody, but limit yourselves to your own
companions; your work will then be all the more
effective because you have the greater obligation to
do it.
Do you imagine it is a small advantage that you
should have so much humility and mortification, and
should be the servants of all and show such great
charity towards all, and such fervent love for the
Lord that it resembles a fire kindling all their
souls, while you constantly awaken their zeal by your
other virtues? This would indeed be a great service
to the Lord and one very pleasing to Him. By your
doing things which you really can do, His Majesty
will know that you would like to do many more, and
thus He will reward you exactly as if you had won
many souls for Him.
"But we shall not be converting anyone," you will
say, "for all our sisters are good already." What has
that to do with it? If they become still better,
their praises will be more pleasing to the Lord, and
their prayers of greater value to their neighbours.
In a word, my sisters, I will end by saying that we
must not build towers without foundations, and that
the Lord does not look so much at the magnitude of
anything we do as at the love with which we do it. If
we accomplish what we can, His Majesty will see to it
that we become able to do more each day.
We must not begin by growing weary; but during the
whole of this short life, which for any one of you
may be shorter than you think, we must offer the Lord
whatever interior and exterior sacrifice we are able
to give Him, and His Majesty will unite it with that
which He offered to the Father for us upon the Cross,
so that it may have the value won for it by our will,
even though our actions in themselves may be trivial.
May it please His Majesty, my sisters and daughters,
to bring us all to meet where we may praise Him and
to give me grace to do some of the things of which I
have told you, through the merits of His Son, Who
liveth and reigneth for ever, Amen. As I say this to
you I am full of shame and by the same Lord I beg you
not to forget this poor miserable creature in your
prayers.
JHS.
Although when I began to write what I have set down
here it was with great reluctance, as I said at the
beginning, I am very glad I did so now that it is
finished, and I think my labour has been well spent,
though I confess it has cost me very little. And
considering how strictly you are cloistered, my
sisters, how few opportunities you have of recreation
and how insufficient in number are your houses, I
think it will be a great consolation for you, in some
of your convents, to take your delight in this
Interior Castle, for you can enter it and walk about
in it at any time without asking leave from your
superiors.
It is true that, however strong you may think
yourselves, you cannot enter all the Mansions by your
own efforts: the Lord of the Castle Himself must
admit you to them. So, if you meet with any
resistance, I advise you not to make any effort to
get in, for if you do you will displease Him so much
that He will never admit you. He is a great Lover of
humility. If you consider yourselves unworthy of
entering even the third Mansions, He will more
quickly give you the will to reach the fifth, and
thenceforward you may serve Him by going to these
Mansions again and again, till He brings you into the
Mansion which He reserves as His own and which you
will never leave, except when you are called away by
the prioress, whose wishes this great Lord is pleased
that you should observe as if they were His own. And
even if, at her command, you are often outside these
Mansions, He will always keep the door open against
your return. Once you have been shown how to enjoy
this Castle, you will find rest in everything, even
in the things which most try you, and you will
cherish a hope of returning to it which nobody can
take from you.
Although I have spoken here only of seven Mansions,
yet in each there are comprised many more, both above
and below and around, with lovely gardens and
fountains[255] and things so delectable that you will
want to lose yourselves in praise of the great God
Who created it in His image and likeness. If you find
anything good in this book which helps you to learn
to know Him better, you can be quite sure that it is
His Majesty Who has said it, and if you find anything
bad, that it has been said by me.
By the earnest desire that I have to be of some use
in helping you to serve this my God and Lord, I beg
you, in my own name, whenever you read this, to give
great praise to His Majesty and beg Him to multiply
His Church and to give light to the Lutherans and to
pardon my sins and set me free from Purgatory, where
perhaps, by the mercy of God,[256] I shall be when
this is given you to read, if, after being revised by
learned men, it is ever published. And if there is
any error in it, that is due to my lack of
understanding, for in all things I submit to what is
held by the Holy Roman Catholic Church, in which I
live, and protest and promise that I will both live
and die. Praised and blessed for ever be God our
Lord. Amen, Amen.
The writing of this was finished in the convent of
Saint Jos�ph of Avila, in the year one thousand five
hundred and seventy seven, on the vigil of Saint
Andrew, to the glory of God, Who liveth and reigneth
for ever and ever. Amen.
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