The Living Flame of Love

^20. The soul suffers greatly in this spiritual exercise, and endures grievous afflictions of spirit which occasionally overflow into the senses; for then the flame is felt to be grievous, for in this state of purgation the flame does not burn brightly but is darksome, and if it gives forth any light at all it is only to show to the soul and make it feel all its miseries and defects; neither is it sweet but painful, and if it kindles a fire of love that fire causes torments and uneasiness; it does not bring delight but aridity, for although God in His kindness may send the soul some comfort to strengthen and animate it He makes it pay, both before and after, with sufferings and trials. It is not a refreshing and peaceful fire, but a consuming and searching one that makes the soul faint away and grieve at the sight of Self; not a glorious brightness, for it embitters the soul and makes it miserable, owing to the spiritual light it throws on Self, for, as Jeremias says, God 'hath sent fire into my bones'^[16:*] or, in the words of David 'Thou hast tried me by fire.'^[16:†] Thus, at this juncture, the soul suffers in the understanding from deep darkness, in the will from aridity and conflict, and in the memory from the consciousness of its miseries—for the eye of the spiritual understanding is clear—and in its very substance the soul suffers from poverty and dereliction. Dry and cold, yea, at times, even hot, nothing gives it relief, nor has it a single good thought to console it and to help it to lift up the heart to God, for this flame has made it 'grievous,' even as Job said when he found himself in this plight: 'Thou art changed to be cruel toward me.'^[16:‡] Suffering all these things together the soul undergoes, as it were, its Purgatory, for all happiness being taken away the torture is hardly inferior to the torments of Purgatory. I should scarcely know how to describe this ‘grievousness,’ and what the soul feels and bears in it were it not for these telling words of Jeremias: ‘I am the man that see my poverty by the rod of His indignation; He hath led me, and brought me into darkness and not into light. Only against me He hath turned, and turned again His hand all the day. My skin and my flesh He hath made old, He hath broken my bones. He hath built round about me, and He hath encompassed me with gall and labour. He hath set me in dark places, as those that are dead for ever. He hath built against me round about, that I may not get out: He hath made my fetters heavy.’^[17:*] Jeremias says a great deal more besides this in the same place; for this is the remedy and medicine chosen by God to restore health to the soul after its many infirmities, the cure being of a necessity commensurate to the disease. Here then, the heart is ‘laid upon coals to drive away all kind of devils;’^[17:†] here, too, all its maladies are brought to light, and openly exhibited before the eyes, and thus they are cured. Whatever may have been hidden within its depths now becomes visible and palpable to the soul by the glare and heat of that fire, for previously nothing could be seen. When the flame acts upon a log of wood steam and smoke are seen to issue in evidence of humidity and frigidity which were unsuspected beforehand. Thus the soul, near this flame, sees and feels clearly its miseries, because, O wonder! there arise within it contraries at variance with each other, yet seated side by side, making war against each other on the battlefield of the soul, and striving, as the philosophers say, to expel each other so as to reign uppermost in the soul. The virtues and properties of God, being in the highest degree perfect, arise and make war within the soul, on the habits and properties of man which are in the highest degree imperfect. For since this flame gives forth a dazzling light it penetrates the darkness of the soul which, in its way, is profound in the extreme; the soul now feels its natural darkness oppose the supernatural light, without feeling the supernatural light itself, for ‘the darkness does not comprehend it.’^[18:*] Rather, it feels its natural darkness only in so far as it is penetrated by light, for no soul can see its own darkness except by the side of the Divine light until, the darkness being dissipated, itself becomes illumined and sees the light, the eye being now made clear and strong. For an intense light is to a weak sight, or an eye that is not wholly clear, nothing but darkness, because the excess of light destroys the power of seeing. For this reason the flame was ‘grievous’ to the eye of the understanding, for, being at once loving and tender, it lovingly and tenderly penetrates the will which, by its nature, is arid and hard. And as hardness is discovered when contrasted with tenderness, and aridity when compared with love, so the will comes to a knowledge of its own hardness and aridity when contrasted with God, though it does not feel the love and tenderness of the flame, for hardness and aridity cannot comprehend their contraries, until, being expelled by these, the love and tenderness of God reign supreme in the will, for two contraries cannot co-exist in one subject. Similarly, the soul perceives its own smallness in comparison with the immensity of the flame, and suffers great uneasiness until the flame, acting on it, dilates it. Thus, the latter has proved 'grievous' to the will also, for the sweet nourishment of love is insipid to a palate not yet weaned from other affections. Finally, the soul, which of itself is exceedingly poor, having nothing whatever, nor the means of procuring any satisfaction, gains a knowledge of its poverty, misery and malice by contrasting them with the riches, goodness and delights possessed by this flame, for malice does not comprehend goodness, nor poverty riches, etc., until the flame succeeds in purifying the soul, and, while transforming it, enriches, glorifies, and delights it too. In this manner the flame was at first 'grievous' to the soul, which suffers severely in its substance and powers from the uneasiness and anguish caused by the war of contraries within its ailing frame. Here, God Who is all perfection, there the habits of imperfection of the soul; cauterising it with a Divine fire He extirpates them and leaves a well-prepared soil upon which He may enter with His gentle, peaceful and glorious love, as does a flame when it gets hold of wood.

So powerful a purgation is the lot of but few souls, namely of those whom He intends to lift by contemplation to some degree of union; the more sublime that degree, the fiercer the purification. When He resolves to snatch a soul from the common way of natural operations and to lead it to the spiritual life, from meditation to contemplation—which is heavenly rather than earthly life—and to communicate Himself by the union of love, He begins by making Himself known to the spirit, as yet impure and imperfect and full of evil habits. Each one suffers in proportion to his imperfections. This purgation is sometimes as fierce in its way as that of Purgatory, for the one is meant to dispose the soul for a perfect union even here below, while the other is to enable it to see God hereafter. I shall say nothing here of the intention of this cleansing, the degrees of its intensity, its operation in the will, the understanding and the memory, in the substance of the soul, in all its powers, or in the sensitive part alone, nor how it may be ascertained whether it is this or that, at what time or at which precise point of the spiritual journey it begins, as all this has nothing to do with my present purpose; moreover, I have fully discussed it in my treatise on the Dark Night in the Ascent of Mount Carmel.^[21:*] It is enough for us to know that God, Who seeks to enter the soul by union and transformation of love, is He who previously assailed the soul, purifying it with the light and heat of His divine flame, just as it is the same fire that first disposes the wood for combustion and afterwards consumes it. Thus, the same which now is sweet, being seated within the soul, was at first ‘grievous’ while assailing it from without.

21. The meaning of the whole is as follows: Thou art now not only not darkness as before, but the divine light of my understanding wherewith I behold Thee: not only dost Thou abstain from causing me to faint in my weakness, but Thou art become the strength of my will, wherein I can love and enjoy Thee, being wholly transformed by divine love. Thou art no longer grief and affliction, but rather my glory, my delight, and my liberty, seeing that the words of the Canticle may be said of me, ‘Who is this that cometh up from the desert flowing with delights leaning upon her Beloved,'^[22:*] scattering love on this side and on that? 'Perfect Thy work, if it be Thy will.'

'Perfect Thy work, if it be Thy will.'

22. That is, do Thou perfect the spiritual marriage in the beatific vision. Though it is true that the soul is the more resigned the more it is transformed, when it has attained to a state so high as this, for it knows nothing and seeks nothing with a view to itself,^[22:†] but only in and for the Beloved—for Charity seeks nothing but the good and glory of the Beloved—still because it lives in hope, and hope implies a want, it groans deeply—though sweetly and joyfully—because it has not fully attained to the perfect adoption of the sons of God, in which, being perfected in glory, all its desires will be satisfied. However intimate the soul’s union may be with God, it will never be satisfied here below till His ‘glory shall appear;’^[22:‡] especially because it has already tasted, by anticipation, of its sweetness.

[16:*] Lament. i. 13.

[16:†] Ps. xvi. 3.

[16:‡] Job xxx. 21.

[17:*] Lament. iii. 1–7.

[17:†] Tobias vi. 8.

[18:*] St. John i. 5.

[21:*] Dark Night of the Soul: Book II. The former editions, and all the translations, say ‘in the treatise of the Dark Night and in that of the Ascent of Mount Carmel,’ as if the Saint had spoken on this subject in both works. The manuscripts make the matter clear, for St. John considered the Dark Night as part of the Ascent.

[22:*] Cant. viii. 5.

[22:†] 1 Cor. xiii. 5.

[22:‡] Ps. xvi. 15.