The Living Flame of Love

^15. Love unites the soul with God, and the greater its love the deeper does it enter into God, and the more is it centered in Him. According to this way of speaking we may say, that as the degrees of love, so are the centres which the soul finds in God. These are the many mansions of the Father’s house.^[12:*] Thus, a soul which has but one degree of love is already in God, Who is its centre: for one degree of love is sufficient for our abiding in Him in the state of grace. If we have two degrees of love we shall then have found another centre, more interiorly in God; and if we have three we shall have reached another and more interior centre still.

16. But if the soul shall have attained to the highest degree of love, the love of God will then wound it in its inmost depth or centre and the soul will be transformed and enlightened in the highest degree in its substance, faculties, and strength, until it shall become most like unto God. The soul in this state may be compared to crystal, lucid and pure; the greater the light thrown upon it, the more luminous it becomes by the concentration thereof, until at last it seems to be all light and undistinguishable from it; it being then so illumined, and to the utmost extent, that it seems to be one with the light itself.

17. The flame wounds the soul in its inmost depth; that is, it wounds it when it touches the very depths of its substance, power and force. This expression implies that abundance of joy and bliss, which is the greater and the more tender, the more vehemently and substantially the soul is transformed and centred in God. It greatly surpasses that which occurs in the ordinary union of love, for it is in proportion to the greater heat of the fire of love which now emits the living flame. The soul which has the fruition only of the ordinary union of love may be compared, in a certain sense, to the 'fire' of God which is in Sion, that is in the Church Militant; while the soul which has the fruition of glory so sweet may be compared to 'His furnace in Jerusalem,'^[13:*] which means the vision of peace.

18. The soul in the burning furnace is in a more peaceful, glorious, and tender union, the more the flame of the furnace transcends the fire of ordinary love. Thus the soul, feeling that the living flame ministers to it all good—divine love brings all blessings with it—cries out: 'O living flame of love, that woundest tenderly.' The cry of the soul is: O kindling burning love, how tenderly dost thou make me glorious by thy loving movements in my greatest power and strength, giving me a divine intelligence according to the capacity of my understanding, and communicating love according to the utmost freedom of my will; that is, thou hast elevated to the greatest height, by the divine intelligence, the powers of my understanding in the most intense fervour and substantial union of my will. This ineffable effect then takes place when this flame of fire rushes upwards in the soul. The divine wisdom absorbs the soul—which is now purified and most clean—profoundly and sublimely in itself; for 'wisdom reacheth everywhere by reason of her purity.'^[14:*] It is in this absorption of wisdom that the Holy Ghost effects those glorious quiverings of His flame of which I am speaking. And as the flame is so sweet, the soul says: 'As Thou art no longer grievous.'

‘As Thou art no longer grievous.’

19. Thou dost not afflict, nor vex, nor weary me as before. This flame, when the soul was in the state of spiritual purgation, that is, when it was entering that of contemplation, was not so friendly and sweet as it is now in the state of union. In order to explain this we must dwell a little on this point. For before the divine fire enters into the soul and unites itself to it in its inmost depth by the complete and perfect purgation and purity thereof, the flame, which is the Holy Ghost, wounds it, destroys and consumes the imperfections of its evil habits. This is the work of the Holy Ghost, Who thereby disposes the soul for its divine union and a substantial transformation in God by love. For the flame which afterwards unites itself to the soul, glorifying it, is the very same which before assailed and purified it; just as the fire which ultimately penetrates the substance of the fuel is the very same which in the beginning darted its flames around it, playing about it, and depriving it of its ugliness until it prepared it with its heat for its own entrance into it, and transformation of it into itself.

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

[13:*] Is. xxxi. 9.

[14:*] Wisd. vii. 24.