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Moist and liquid things easily receive the figures
and limits which may be given them, because they have
no firmness or solidity which stops or limits them in
themselves. Put liquid into a vessel, and you will
see it remain bounded within the limits of the
vessel, and according as this is round or square the
liquid will be the same, having no other limit or
shape than that of the vessel which contains it.
The soul is not so by nature, for she has her
proper shapes and limits: she takes her shape from
her habits and inclinations, her limits from her
will; and when she is fixed upon her own inclinations
and wills, we say she is hard, that is, self-willed,
obstinate. I will take away, says God, the stony
heart out of your flesh, and will give you a heart of
flesh.(1)
To change the form of stones, iron, or wood, the
axe, hammer and fire are required. We call that a
heart of iron, or wood, or stone, which does not
easily receive the divine impressions, but lives in
its own will, amidst the inclinations which accompany
our depraved nature. On the contrary, a gentle,
pliable and tractable heart, is termed a melting and
liquefied heart. My heart, said David, speaking in
the person of our Saviour upon the cross, is become
like wax melting in the midst of my bowels!(2)
Cleopatra, that infamous Queen of Egypt, striving to
outvie Mark Antony in all the excesses and
dissolutions of his banquets, at the end of a feast
which she made in her turn, called for a vial of fine
vinegar, and dropped into it one of the pearls which
she wore in her ears, valued at two hundred and fifty
thousand crowns, which being dissolved, melted and
liquefied, she swallowed it, and would further have
buried, in the sink of her vile stomach, the pearl
which she wore in her other ear, if Lucius Plautus
had not prevented her.
Our Saviour's heart, the true oriental pearl,
singularly unique and priceless, thrown into the
midst of a sea of incomparable bitternesses in the
day of his passion, melted in itself, dissolved,
liquefied, gave way and flowed out in pain, under the
press of so many mortal anguishes; but love, stronger
than death, mollifies, softens and melts hearts far
more quickly than all the other passions.
My heart, said the holy spouse, melted when he
spoke.(3) And what does melted mean save that it was
no longer contained within itself, but had flowed out
towards its divine lover? God ordered that Moses
should speak to the rock, and that it should produce
waters: no marvel then if he himself melted the heart
of his spouse when he spoke to her in his sweetness.
Balm is so thick by nature that it is not fluid or
liquid, and the longer it is kept the thicker it
grows, and in the end grows hard, becoming red and
transparent: yet heat dissolves it and makes it
fluid. Love had made the beloved fluid and flowing,
whence the spouse calls him oil poured out; and now
she tells us that she herself is all melted with
love. My soul, said she, melted when he spoke. The
love of her spouse was in her heart and breast as a
strong new wine which cannot be contained in the tun;
for it overflowed on every side; and, because the
soul follows its love, after the spouse had said: Thy
breasts are better than wine, smelling sweet of the
best ointments, she adds: Thy name is as oil poured
out.(4)
And as the beloved had poured out his love and his
soul into the heart of the spouse, so the spouse
reciprocally pours her soul into the heart of her
beloved; and as we see a honeycomb touched with the
sun's ardent rays goes out of itself, and forsakes
its form, to flow out towards that side where the
rays touch it, so the soul of this lover flowed out
towards where the voice of her beloved was heard,
going out of herself and passing the limits of her
natural being, to follow him that spoke unto her.
But how does this sacred outflowing of the soul
into its wellbeloved take place? An extreme
complacency of the lover in the thing beloved begets
a certain spiritual powerlessness, which makes the
soul feel herself no longer able to remain in
herself. Wherefore, as melted balm, that no longer
has firmness or solidity, she lets herself pass and
flow into what she loves: she does not spring out of
herself as by a sudden leap, nor does she cling as by
a joining and union, but gently glides as a fluid and
liquid thing, into the divinity whom she loves.
And as we see that the clouds, thickened by the
south wind, melting and turning to rain, cannot
contain themselves, but fall and flow downwards, and
mix themselves so entirely with the earth which they
moisten that they become one thing with it, so the
soul which, though loving, remained as yet in
herself, goes out by this sacred outflowing and holy
liquefaction, and quits herself, not only to be
united to the well-beloved, but to be entirely
mingled with and steeped in him.
You see then clearly, Theotimus, that the outflowing
of a soul into her God is a true ecstasy, by which
the soul quite transcends the limits of her natural
form of existence (maintien) being wholly mingled
with, absorbed and engulfed in, her God. Hence it
happens that such as attain to these holy excesses of
heavenly love, afterwards, being come to themselves,
find nothing on the earth that can content them, and
living in an extreme annihilation of themselves,
remain much weakened in all that belongs to the
senses, and have perpetually in their hearts the
maxim of the Blessed Mother (S.) Teresa: "What is not
God is to me nothing."
And it seems that such was the loving passion of
that great friend of the well-beloved, who said: I
live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me,(5) and: Our
life is hid with Christ in God.(6) For tell me, I
pray you, Theotimus, if a drop of common water,
thrown into an ocean of some priceless essence, were
alive, and could speak and declare its condition,
would it not cry out with great joy: O mortals! I
live indeed, but I live not myself, but this ocean
lives in me, and my life is hidden in this abyss?
The soul that has flowed out into God dies not,
for how can she die by being swallowed up in life?
But she lives without living in herself, because, as
the stars without losing their light still do not
shine in the presence of the sun, but the sun shines
in them and they are hidden in the light of the sun,
so the soul, without losing her life, lives not
herself when mingled with God, but God lives in her.
Such, I think, were the feelings of the great
Blessed (SS.) Philip Neri and Francis Xavier, when,
overwhelmed with heavenly consolations, they
petitioned God to withdraw himself for a space from
them, since his will was that their life should a
little longer appear unto the world; which could not
be while it was wholly hidden and absorbed in God.
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