The Living Flame of Love

IT is not without some unwillingness that, at the requests of others, I enter upon the explanation of the four stanzas because they relate to matters so interior and spiritual as to baffle the powers of language. The spiritual transcends the sensual, and he speaks but indifferently of the mind of the spirit who has not a spiritual mind himself. I have, therefore, in consideration of my own defects, put off this matter until now. But now that our Lord seems in some way to have opened to me the way of knowledge herein, and to have given me some fervour of spirit, I have resolved to enter on the subject. I know too well that of myself I can say nothing to the purpose on any subject, how much less then on a matter of such depth and substance as this! What is mine here will be nothing but defects and errors, and I therefore submit the whole to the better judgment and discretion of our Holy Mother the Catholic Roman Church, under whose guidance no one goeth astray. And now having said this, I will venture, in reliance on the Holy Writings, to give utterance to what I may have learned, observing at the same time, that all I say falls far short of that which passes in this intimate union of the soul with God.

2. There is nothing strange in the fact that God bestows favours so great and so wonderful upon those souls whom He is pleased to comfort. For if we consider that it is God Himself as God, and with infinite love and goodness, Who bestows them; and this being the case, they will not seem unreasonable, for He hath said Himself that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost will come to him that loves Him, and will dwell in him.^[2:*] And this is accomplished in making such an one live and abide in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, in the life of God, as it shall be explained in the stanzas that follow.

3. In the former stanzas I spoke of the highest degree of perfection to which it is possible to attain in this life, transformation in God;^[2:†] yet these, the explanation of which I now propose to undertake, speak of that love still more perfect and complete in the same state of transformation. For though it is true that the former and the present stanzas refer to one and the same state of transformation, and that no soul can pass beyond it as such, still with time and habits of devotion, the soul is more perfected and grounded in it. Thus, when a log of wood is set on fire, and when it is transformed into fire and united with it, the longer it burns and the hotter the fire, the more it glows until sparks and flames are emitted from it.

4. So too the soul—and this is the subject of these stanzas—when transformed, and glowing interiorly in the fire of love, is not only united with the divine fire, but becomes a living flame, and itself conscious of it. The soul speaks of this with an intimate delicious sweetness of love, burning in its own flame, dwelling upon the various marvellous effects wrought within it. These effects I now proceed to describe, following the same method; that is, I shall first transcribe the four stanzas, then each separately, and finally each line by itself as I explain them.

[2:*] St. John xiv. 23.

[2:†] See Spiritual Canticle, Stanza xxvi. 4, 14; xxxviii. 2; xxxix. 20.