The Living Flame of Love

THE bride of Christ, now feeling herself to be all on fire in the divine union, and that rivers of living waters are flowing from her belly, as Christ our Lord said^[4:*] they would flow from the like souls, believes that, as she is transformed in God with such vehemence and so intimately possessed by Him, so richly adorned with gifts and graces, she is near unto bliss, and that a slender veil only separates her from it. Seeing, too, that this sweet flame of love burning within her, each time it touches her makes her as it were glorious with foretaste of glory, so much so that whenever it absorbs and assails her, it seems to be admitting her to everlasting life, and to rend the veil of her mortality, she addresses herself, with a great longing, to the flame, which is the Holy Ghost, and prays Him to destroy her mortal life in this sweet encounter, and bestow upon her in reality what He seems about to give, namely, perfect glory, crying: 'O living flame of love.'

'O living flame of love.'

2. In order to express the fervour and reverence with which the soul is speaking in these four stanzas, it begins them with 'O' and 'How,' which are significant of great earnestness, and whenever uttered show that something passes within that is deeper than the tongue can tell. 'O' is the cry of strong desire, and of earnest supplication, in the way of persuasion. The soul employs in it both senses here, for it magnifies and intimates its great desire, calling upon love to end its mortal life.

3. This flame of love is the Spirit of the Bridegroom, the Holy Ghost, of whose presence within itself the soul is conscious, not only as fire which consumes it, and transforms it in sweet love, but as a fire burning within it, sending forth a flame which bathes it in glory and recreates it with the refreshment of everlasting life. The work of the Holy Ghost in a soul transformed in His love is this: His interior action within it is to kindle it and set it on fire; this is the burning of love, in union with which the will loves most deeply, being now one by love with that flame of fire. And thus the soul’s acts of love are most precious, and even one of them more meritorious than many elicited not in the state of transformation. The transformation in love differs from the flame of love as a habit differs from an act, or as the glowing fuel from the flames it emits, the flames being the effect of the fire which is there burning.

4. Hence then we may say of the soul which is transformed in love, that its ordinary state is that of the fuel in the midst of the fire; that the acts of such a soul are the flames which rise up out of the fire of love, vehement in proportion to the intensity of the fire of union, and to the rapture and absorption of the will in the flame of the Holy Ghost; rising like the angel who ascended to God in the flame which consumed the holocaust of Manue.^[6:*] And as the soul, in its present condition, cannot elicit these acts without a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, all these acts must be divine, in so far as the soul is under the special influence of God. Hence then it seems to the soul, as often as the flame breaks forth, causing it to love sweetly with a heavenly disposition, that its life everlasting is begun, and that its acts are divine in God.

5. This is the language in which God addresses purified and stainless souls, namely, words of fire. 'Thy word,' saith the Psalmist, 'is a vehement fire.'^[7:*] And in Jeremias we read, 'are not My words as a fire? saith our Lord.'^[7:†] His 'words,' we learn from Himself, 'are spirit and life;'^[7:‡] the power and efficacy of which are felt by such souls as have ears to hear; pure souls full of love. But those souls whose palate is not healthy, whose desire is after other things, cannot perceive the spirit and life of His words. And therefore the more wonderful the words of the Son of God, the more insipid they are to some who hear them, because of the impurity in which they live.

6. Thus, when He announced the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, a doctrine full of sweetness and of love, 'many of His disciples went back.'^[7:§] If such persons as these have no taste for the words of God which He speaks inwardly to them, it is not to be supposed that all others are like them. St. Peter loved the words of Christ, for he replied, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.'^[8:*] The woman of Samaria forgot the water, and 'left her waterpot'^[8:†] at the well, because of the sweetness of the words of God.

7. And now when the soul has drawn so near unto God as to be transformed in the flame of love, when the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are in communion with it, is it anything incredible to say that it has a foretaste—though not perfectly, because this life admits not of it—of everlasting life in this fire of the Holy Ghost? This is the reason why this flame is said to be a living flame, not because it is not always living, but because its effect is to make the soul live spiritually in God, and to be conscious of such a life, as it is written, My heart and my flesh have rejoiced toward the living God.’^[8:‡] The Psalmist makes use of the word 'living,' not because it was necessary, for God is ever-living, but to show that the body and the spirit had a lively feeling of God; that is the rejoicing in the living God. Thus in this flame, the soul has so vivid a sense of God and a perception of Him so sweet and delicious, that it cries out: 'O living flame of love!'

'That woundest tenderly.'

8. That is, Thou touchest me tenderly in Thy love. For when this flame of divine life wounds the soul with the gentle languishing for the life of God, it wounds it with so much endearing tenderness, and softens it so that it melts away in love. The words of the bride in the Canticle are now fulfilled in the soul. 'My soul melted when He spoke.'^[9:*] This is the effect in the soul when God speaks.

9. But how can we say that it wounds the soul, when there is nothing to wound, seeing that it is all consumed in the fire of love? It is certainly marvellous; for as fire is never idle, but in continual movement, flashing in one direction, then in another, so love, the function of which is to wound, so as to cause love and joy, when it exists in the soul as a living flame, darts forth its most tender flames of love, causing wounds, exerting joyously all the arts and wiles of love as in the palace of its wedding feast. So Assuerus exhibited his riches, and the glory of his power at 'the wedding and marriage of Esther;'^[9:†] and so is wrought in the soul what is read in the Proverbs: I 'was delighted every day... playing in the world, and My delights were to be with the children of men,'^[9:‡] that is to give Myself to them. This wounding, therefore, which is the 'playing' of divine wisdom, is the flames of those tender touches which touch the soul continually, touches of the fire of love which is never idle. And of these flashings of the fire it is said that they wound the soul in its inmost substance.

'My soul in its inmost depth.'

10. The feast of the Holy Ghost is celebrated in the substance of the soul, which is inaccessible to the devil, the world, and the flesh; and therefore the more interior the feast, the more secure, substantial, and delicious is it. For the more interior it is, the purer it is; and the greater the purity, the greater the abundance, frequency, and universality of God's communication of Himself; and thus the joy of the soul and spirit is so much the greater, for it is God Himself Who is the author of all this, and the soul doeth nothing of itself, in the sense I shall immediately explain.

11. And inasmuch as the soul cannot work naturally here, nor make any efforts of its own otherwise than through the bodily senses and by their help—of which it is in this case completely free, and from which it is most detached—the work of the soul is solely to receive what God communicates, Who alone in the depths of the soul, without the help of the senses, can influence and direct it, and operate within it. Thus, then, all the movements of such a soul are divine, and though of God, still they are the soul's, because God effects them within it, itself willing them and assenting to them.

12. The expression, 'inmost depth,' implies other depths of the soul less profound, and it is necessary to consider this. In the first place the soul, regarded as spirit, has neither height nor depth of greater or less degree in its own nature, as bodies have, which have bulk. The soul has no parts, neither is there any difference between its interior and exterior, for it is uniform; it has no depths of greater or less profundity, nor can one part of it be more enlightened than another, as is the case with physical bodies, for the whole of it is enlightened uniformly at once.

13. Setting aside this signification of depth, material and measureable, we say that the inmost depth of the soul is there where its being, power, and the force of its action and movement penetrate and cannot go further. Thus fire, or a stone, tend by their natural force to the centre of their sphere, and cannot go beyond it, or help resting there, unless some obstacle intervene. Accordingly, when a stone lies on the ground it is said to be within its centre, because within the sphere of its active motion, which is the element of earth, but not in the inmost depth of that centre, the middle of the earth, because it has still power and force to descend thither, provided all that hinders it be taken away. So when it shall have reached the centre of the earth, and is incapable of further motion of its own, we say of it that it is then in its inmost or deepest centre.

14. The centre of the soul is God. When the soul shall have reached Him, according to its essence, and according to the power of its operations, it will then have attained to its ultimate and deepest centre in God. This will be when the soul shall love Him, comprehend Him, and enjoy Him with all its strength. When, however, the soul has not attained to this state, though it be in God, Who is the centre of it by grace and communion with Him, still if it can move further and is not satisfied, though in the centre, it is not in the deepest centre, because there is still room for it to advance.

[4:*] St. John vii. 38.

[6:*] Judg. xiii. 20.

[7:*] Ps. cxviii. 140.

[7:†] Jerem. xxiii. 29.

[7:‡] St. John vi. 64.

[7:§] Ib. vi. 67.

[8:*] St. John. vi. 69.

[8:†] Ib. iv. 28.

[8:‡] Ps. lxxxiii. 3.

[9:*] Cant. v. 6.

[9:†] Esth. ii. 18.

[9:‡] Prov. viii. 30, 31.