Part 9 (1/2)
ON SENSIBLE LOVE
FROM inwardness is born a sensible love which penetrates the heart of man and the highest faculties of the soul. This love and delight none can experience who has not inwardness. Sensible love is the desire and appet.i.te for G.o.d as for an eternal good in which all is contained. Sensible love renounces all the creatures, not as needs but as pleasures. Interior love feels itself touched from above by the eternal love which it must practise eternally Interior love willingly renounces and despises everything, in order to obtain that which it loves.
ON DEVOTION
FROM this sensible love is born devotion to G.o.d and His glory. For none can have a hungry devotion in his heart, unless he possesses the sensible love of G.o.d. Devotion excites and stimulates a man internally and externally to the service of G.o.d. It makes the body and soul abound in glory and merit in the eyes of G.o.d and men. G.o.d exacts devotion in all that we do. It purges the body and soul from all that might hold us back; it shows us the true path to blessedness.
ON GRAt.i.tUDE
FROM fervent devotion is born grat.i.tude, for none can thank or praise G.o.d perfectly if he is not fervent and pious. We should thank G.o.d for everything here below, that we may be able to thank Him eternally above. Those who praise not G.o.d here, will be mute eternally. To praise G.o.d is the most joyous and delicious employment of the loving heart. There is no limit to the praises of G.o.d, for therein is our salvation, and we shall praise Him eternally.
Now hear a comparison, by which you may understand the exercise of grat.i.tude. When the summer approaches and the sun mounts, it attracts the moisture of the earth along the stems and branches of the trees, whence come green leaves, flowers, and fruit. Even so when Christ, the eternal sun, rises in our hearts, He sends His light and heat upon our desires, and draws the heart away from all the manifold things of earth, creating unity and inwardness, and makes the heart grow and become green by interior love, and makes loving devotion flourish, and makes us bear the fruits of grat.i.tude and love, and preserves these fruits eternally in the humble pain of our inability to praise and serve Him enough.
Here ends the first of the four chief kinds ot interior exercises, which adorn the lower part of a man.
HOW TO INCREASE INWARDNESS BY HUMILITY
BUT in thus comparing to the splendour and power of the sun the modes in which Jesus Christ comes, we shall find in the sun another virtue or influence which makes the fruit more early ripe and more abundant.
When the sun rises to a very great height, and enters the sign of the Twins--that is to say, into a double thing, but of the same nature, in the middle of the month of May, the sun has a double power over the flowers, herbs, and all that grows upon the earth. If at that time the planets which rule nature are well ordered according to the season of the year, the sun s.h.i.+nes brightly on the earth, and attracts the moisture in the atmosphere. Hence are born dew and rain, and the fruits of the ground increase and multiply.
Even so when Christ, that bright sun, rises in our heart above all other things, and when the requirements of material nature, which are contrary to the spirit, are well regulated according to reason, when we possess the virtues as I have said above, and when, lastly, we offer and restore to G.o.d, by the ardour of charity, and with grat.i.tude and love, the delight and peace which we find in the virtues, from all these are born, at times, a gentle rain of new internal consolations, and a celestial dew of divine sweetness. This dew and rain make all the virtues increase and multiply day by day, if we put no hindrance in their way. This is a new and special operation, and a new coming of Christ into the loving heart.
ON PURE SATISFACTION OF THE HEART
FROM this sweetness is born satisfaction of heart, and of all the bodily faculties, so that a man imagines that he is inwardly embraced in the divine bands of love. This pleasure and consolation is greater and more delicious to body and soul than all the pleasures granted on earth, even if a man could enjoy them to the full. In this pleasure G.o.d sinks into the heart by means of His gifts with such a profusion of delights, consolations, and joys, that the heart overflows internally.
ON THE OBSTACLES WHICH WE ENCOUNTER IN THIS STATE
THIS coming, or kind of coming, is granted to beginners, when they turn from the world, when their conversion is complete, and they abandon all the consolations of earth to live for G.o.d only; nevertheless they are still weak, and need milk and not strong meat, such as great temptations and the hiding of G.o.d's face. At this season frost and fog often injure them, for they are in the middle of the May of the interior life. The frost is to wish to be something, or to imagine that we are something, or to be somewhat attached to ourselves, or to believe that we have deserved consolations and are worthy of them. The fog is the wish to rest upon internal consolations and pains. This obscures the atmosphere of reason, and the ilowers, which were about to unfold and bloom and bear fruits, shut up again. This is why we lose the knowledge of truth, and nevertheless we sometimes keep certain false sweetnesses granted by the enemy, which at the last lead men astray.
HOW ONE OUGHT TO BEHAVE IN THIS CASE
I WISH to give you here a brief comparison, that you may not go astray, and that you may be able to behave wisely in this case.
Observe the wise bee, and imitate her. She dwells in unity, in the midst of the a.s.sembly of her kind, and she goes forth, not during a storm, but when the weather is calm and bright, and the sun s.h.i.+nes; and she flies towards every flower where she may find sweetness. She rests not on any flower, neither for its beauty nor for its sweetness, but draws out from the cups of the flowers their sweetness and clearness--that is to say, the honey and wax, and she brings them back to the unity which is formed of the a.s.sembly of all the bees, that the honey and wax may be put to good use.
The expanded heart on which Christ, the eternal sun, s.h.i.+nes, grows and blooms under His rays, and from it flow all the interior forces in joy and sweetness.
Now the wise man will act like the bee, and will try to settle, with affection, intelligence, and prudence, on all the gifts and all the sweetness that he has experienced, and on all the good that G.o.d has done to him. He will not rest on any flower of the gifts, but laden with grat.i.tude and praise he will fly back towards the unity where he wishes to dwell, and to rest with G.o.d eternally.
ON THE THIRD MODE OF THE SPIRITUAL COMING OF CHRIST
WHEN the sun in heaven reaches its highest point, in the sign of the Crab--that is to say, when it can go no higher, but must begin to go backwards, then the greatest heat of the year begins. The sun attracts the moisture, the earth dries, and the fruits ripen. In the same way, when Christ, the divine sun, arises above the highest summit of our heart--that is to say, above all His gifts, consolations and sweetnesses, and if we do not rest in any of these, however sweet, but return always with humble praises to the source from which these gifts flow, Christ stops and remains lifted up above the summit of our heart, and desires to attract all our powers to Himself.
This invitation is an irradiation of Christ, the eternal sun, and causes in the heart a joy and pleasure so great that the heart cannot close again after such an expansion, without pain. A man is wounded internally and feels the smart of love. To be wounded by love is the sweetest sensation and the most grievous pain that can be experienced. To be wounded by love is a sure sign that we shall be cured. This spiritual wound does us good and harm at the same time.
ON THE FOURTH KIND OF THE SPIRITUAL COMING OF CHRIST
NOW I wish to speak of the fourth kind of coming of Jesus Christ, which exalts and perfects the man in his interior exercises, according to the lower part of his being. But having compared all the interior comings to the s.h.i.+ning of the sun, we will continue to speak, while following the course of the seasons, of the other effects and works of the sun.
When the sun begins to descend the sky, it enters the sign of the Virgin, so called because this period of the year becomes barren like a virgin. The glorious virgin Mary, mother of Christ, full of joys and rich in all the virtues, ascended to heaven at this season.