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Let us now come to consider who the souls are that
enter the second Mansions and what they do there. I
want to say very little to you about this, because
elsewhere I have written of it at length,[40] and it
will be impossible for me to avoid repeating a great
deal of this, because I cannot remember anything of
what I said. If it could be arranged[41] in a
different form, I am quite sure you would not mind,
as we are never tired of books that treat of this,
numerous though they are.
This chapter has to do with those who have already
begun to practise prayer and who realize the
importance of not remaining in the first Mansions,
but who often are not yet resolute enough to leave
those Mansions, and will not avoid occasions of sin,
which is a very perilous condition. But it is a very
great mercy that they should contrive to escape from
the snakes and other poisonous creatures, if only for
short periods and should realize that it is good to
flee from them.
In some ways, these souls have a much harder time
than those in the first Mansions; but they are in
less peril, for they seem now to understand their
position and there is great hope that they will get
farther into the castle still. I say they have a
harder time because the souls in the first Mansions
are, as it were, not only dumb, but can hear nothing,
and so it is not such a trial to them to be unable to
speak; the others, who can hear and not speak, would
find the trial much harder to bear. But that is no
reason for envying those who do not hear, for after
all it is a great thing to be able to understand what
is said to one.
These souls, then, can understand the Lord when He
calls them; for, as they gradually get nearer to the
place where His Majesty dwells, He becomes a very
good Neighbour to them. And such are His mercy and
goodness that, even when we are engaged in our
worldly pastimes and businesses and pleasures and
hagglings, when we are falling into sins and rising
from them again (because these creatures are at once
so venomous and so active and it is so dangerous for
us to be among them that it will be a miracle if we
escape stumbling over them and falling) -- in spite
of all that, this Lord of ours is so anxious that we
should desire Him and strive after His companionship
that He calls us ceaselessly, time after time, to
approach Him; and this voice of His is so sweet that
the poor soul is consumed with grief at being unable
to do His bidding immediately, and thus, as I say, it
suffers more than if it could not hear Him.
I do not mean by this that He speaks to us and calls
us in the precise way which I shall describe later;
His appeals come through the conversations of good
people, or from sermons, or through the reading of
good books; and there are many other ways, of which
you have heard, in which God calls us. Or they come
through sicknesses and trials, or by means of truths
which God teaches us at times when we are engaged in
prayer; however feeble such prayers may be God values
them highly.
You must not despise this first favour, sisters,
nor be disconsolate, even though you have not
responded immediately to the Lord's call; for His
Majesty is quite prepared to wait for many days, and
even years, especially when He sees we are
persevering and have good desires. This is the most
necessary thing here; if we have this we cannot fail
to gain greatly. Nevertheless, the assault which the
devils now make upon the soul, in all kinds of ways,
is terrible; and the soul suffers more than in the
preceding Mansions; for there it was deaf and dumb,
or at least it could hear very little, and so it
offered less resistance, like one who to a great
extent has lost hope of gaining the victory.
Here the understanding is keener and the faculties
are more alert, while the clash of arms and the noise
of cannon are so loud that the soul cannot help
hearing them. For here the devils once more show the
soul these vipers -- that is, the things of the world
-- and they pretend that earthly pleasures are almost
eternal: they remind the soul of the esteem in which
it is held in the world, of its friends and
relatives, of the way in which its health will be
endangered by penances (which the soul always wants
to do when it first enters this Mansion) and of
impediments of a thousand other kinds.
Oh, Jesus! What confusion the devils bring about in
the poor soul, and how distressed it is, not knowing
if it ought to proceed farther or return to the room
where it was before! On the other hand, reason tells
the soul how mistaken it is in thinking that all
these earthly things are of the slightest value by
comparison with what it is seeking, faith instructs
it in what it must do to find satisfaction; memory
shows it how all these things come to an end, and
reminds it that those who have derived so much
enjoyment from the things which it has seen have
died.
Sometimes they have died suddenly and been quickly
forgotten by all: people whom we once knew to be very
prosperous are now beneath the ground, and we trample
upon their graves, and often, as we pass them, we
reflect that their bodies are seething with worms --
of these and many other things the soul is reminded
by memory.
The will inclines to love One in Whom it has seen
so many acts and signs of love, some of which it
would like to return. In particular, the will shows
the soul how this true Lover never leaves it, but
goes with it everywhere and gives it life and being.
Then the understanding comes forward and makes the
soul realize that, for however many years it may
live, it can never hope to have a better friend, for
the world is full of falsehood and these pleasures
which the devil pictures to it are accompanied by
trials and cares and annoyances; and tells it to be
certain that outside this castle it will find neither
security nor peace: let it refrain from visiting one
house after another when its own house is full of
good things, if it will only enjoy them.
How fortunate it is to be able to find all that it
needs, as it were, at home, especially when it has a
Host Who will put all good things into its
possession, unless, like the Prodigal Son, it desires
to go astray and eat the food of the swine![42]
It is reflections of this kind which vanquish devils.
But, oh, my God and Lord, how everything is ruined by
the vain habits we fall into and the way everyone
else follows them! So dead is our faith that we
desire what we see more than what faith tells us
about -- though what we actually see is that people
who pursue these visible things meet with nothing but
ill fortune. All this is the work of these poisonous
creatures which we have been describing. For, if a
man is bitten by a viper, his whole body is poisoned
and swells up; and so it is in this case, and yet we
take no care of ourselves. Obviously a great deal of
attention will be necessary if we are to be cured and
only the great mercy of God will preserve us from
death.
The soul will certainly suffer great trials at
this time, especially if the devil sees that its
character and habits are such that it is ready to
make further progress: all the powers of hell will
combine to drive it back again.
Ah, my Lord! It is here that we have need of Thine
aid, without which we can do nothing. Of Thy mercy,
allow not this soul to be deluded and led astray when
its journey is but begun. Give it light so that it
may see how all its welfare consists in this and may
flee from evil companionship. It is a very great
thing for a person to associate with others who are
walking in the right way: to mix, not only with those
whom he sees in the rooms where he himself is, but
with those whom he knows to have entered the rooms
nearer the centre, for they will be of great help to
him and he can get into such close touch with them
that they will take him with them.
Let him have a fixed determination not to allow
himself to be beaten, for, if the devil sees that he
has firmly resolved to lose his life and his peace
and everything that he can offer him rather than to
return to the first room, he will very soon cease
troubling him. Let him play the man and not be like
those who went down on their knees in order to drink
when they went to battle -- I forget with whom[43] --
but let him be resolute, for he is going forth to
fight with all the devils and there are no better
weapons than the Cross.
There is one thing so important that, although I have
said it on other occasions,[44] I will repeat it once
more here: it is that at the beginning one must not
think of such things as spiritual favours, for that
is a very poor way of starting to build such a large
and beautiful edifice. If it is begun upon sand, it
will all collapse:[45] souls which build like that
will never be free from annoyances and temptations.
For it is not in these Mansions, but in those which
are farther on, that it rains manna; once there, the
soul has all that it desires, because it desires only
what is the will of God.
It is a curious thing: here we are, meeting with
hindrances and suffering from imperfections by the
thousand, with our virtues so young that they have
not yet learned how to walk -- in fact, they have
only just been born: God grant that they have even
been born at all! -- and yet we are not ashamed to be
wanting consolations in prayer and to be complaining
about periods of aridity.
This must not be true of you, sisters: embrace the
Cross which your Spouse bore upon His shoulders and
realize that this Cross is yours to carry too: let
her who is capable of the greatest suffering suffer
most for Him and she will have the most perfect
freedom. All other things are of quite secondary
importance: if the Lord should grant them to you,
give Him heartfelt thanks.
You may think that you will be full of determination
to resist outward trials if God will only grant you
inward favours. His Majesty knows best what is
suitable for us; it is not for us to advise Him what
to give us, for He can rightly reply that we know not
what we ask.[46] All that the beginner in prayer has
to do -- and you must not forget this, for it is very
important -- is to labour and be resolute and prepare
himself with all possible diligence to bring his will
into conformity with the will of God.
As I shall say later, you may be quite sure that
this comprises the very greatest perfection which can
be attained on the spiritual road. The more perfectly
a person practises it, the more he will receive of
the Lord and the greater the progress he will make on
this road; do not think we have to use strange jargon
or dabble in things of which we have no knowledge or
understanding, our entire welfare is to be found in
what I have described. If we go astray at the very
beginning and want the Lord to do our will and to
lead us just as our fancy dictates, how can this
building possibly have a firm foundation?
Let us see that we do as much as in us lies and
avoid these venomous reptiles, for often it is the
Lord's will that we should be persecuted and
afflicted by evil thoughts, which we cannot cast out,
and also by aridities; and sometimes He even allows
these reptiles to bite us, so that we may learn
better how to be on our guard in the future and see
if we are really grieved at having offended Him.
If, then, you sometimes fail, do not lose heart, or
cease striving to make progress, for even out of your
fall God will bring good, just as a man selling an
antidote will drink poison before he takes it in
order to prove its power. If nothing else could show
us what wretched creatures we are and what harm we do
to ourselves by dissipating our desires, this war
which goes on within us would be sufficient to do so
and to lead us back to recollection. Can any evil be
greater than the evil which we find in our own house?
What hope can we have of being able to rest in other
people's homes[47] if we cannot rest in our own? For
none of our friends and relatives are as near to us
as our faculties, with which we have always to live,
whether we like it or not, and yet our faculties seem
to be making war upon us, as if they were resentful
of the war made upon them by our vices. "Peace,
peace," said the Lord, my sisters, and many a time He
spoke words of peace to His Apostles.[48] Believe me,
unless we have peace, and strive for peace in our own
home, we shall not find it in the homes of others.
Let this war now cease.
By the blood which Christ shed for us, I beg this
of those who have not begun to enter within
themselves; and those who have begun to do so must
not allow such warfare to turn them back. They must
realize that to fall a second time is worse than to
fall once. They can see that it will lead them to
ruin: let them place their trust, not in themselves,
but in the mercy of God, and they will see how His
Majesty can lead them on from one group of Mansions
to another and set them on safe ground where these
beasts cannot harass or hurt them, for He will place
the beasts in their power and laugh them to scorn;
and then they themselves -- even in this life, I mean
-- will enjoy many more good things than they could
ever desire.
As I said first of all, I have already written to you
about how you ought to behave when you have to suffer
these disturbances with which the devil torments
you;[49] and about how recollection cannot be begun
by making strenuous efforts, but must come gently,
after which you will be able to practise it for
longer periods at a time. So I will say no more about
this now, except that it is very important for you to
consult people of experience; for otherwise you will
imagine that you are doing yourselves great harm by
pursuing your necessary occupations. But, provided we
do not abandon our prayer, the Lord will turn
everything we do to our profit, even though we may
find no one to teach us. There is no remedy for this
evil of which we have been speaking except to start
again at the beginning; otherwise the soul will keep
on losing a little more every day -- please God that
it may come to realize this.
Some of you might suppose that, if it is such a bad
thing to turn back, it would have been better never
to have begun, but to have remained outside the
castle. I told you, however, at the outset, and the
Lord Himself says this, that he who goes into danger
shall perish in it,[50] and that the door by which we
can enter this castle is prayer. It is absurd to
think that we can enter Heaven without first entering
our own souls -- without getting to know ourselves,
and reflecting upon the wretchedness of our nature
and what we owe to God, and continually imploring His
mercy. The Lord Himself says: "No one will ascend to
My Father, but by Me"[51] (I am not sure if those are
the exact words, but I think they are)[52] and "He
that sees Me sees My Father."[53]
Well, if we never look at Him or think of what we
owe Him, and of the death which He suffered for our
sakes, I do not see how we can get to know Him or do
good works in His service. For what can be the value
of faith without works, or of works which are not
united with the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ? And
what but such thoughts can arouse us to love this
Lord? May it please His Majesty to grant us to
understand how much we cost Him, that the servant is
not greater than his Lord,[54] that we must needs
work if we would enjoy His glory, and that for that
reason we must perforce pray, lest we enter
continually into temptation.[55]
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