The Living Flame of Love

^12. The soul therefore may be said to resemble the air which is burning within the flame and transformed in fire, for the flame is nothing else but air inflamed. The flickerings of the flame are not those of air only or of fire only, but of air and fire together; and the fire causes the air which is within to burn. It is thus that the soul with its powers is illumined in the splendours of God. The movements of the flame, that is its vibrations and its flickerings, are not the work of the soul only, transformed in the fire of the Holy Ghost, nor of the Holy Ghost only, but of the soul and of the Holy Ghost together Who moves the soul as the fire moves the air that is burning.

13. Thus, then, these movements of God and of the soul together are as it were the acts of God by which He renders the soul glorious. For these vibrations and movements are the 'playing' and the joyous feasts of the Holy Ghost in the soul, spoken of before,^[64:*] in which He seems to be on the point of admitting it into everlasting life. And thus these movements and quiverings of the flame are as it were goads applied to the soul, furthering its translation into His perfect glory now that it is really entered into Him. So with fire: all movements and vibrations which it makes in the air burning within it, are efforts to ascend to its proper sphere, and that as quickly as possible, but they are all fruitless because the air itself is within its own sphere.

14. In the same way the movements of the Holy Ghost, though full of fire and most effectual to absorb the soul in great bliss, do not accomplish their work until the time is come when it is to sally forth from the sphere of the air of this mortal life and reach the centre of the spirit, the perfect life in Christ. These visions of the glory of God, to which the soul is now admitted, are more continuous than they used to be, more perfect and more stable; but in the life to come they will be most perfect, unchanging, and uninterrupted. There, too, the soul will see clearly how that God, though here appearing to move within it, yet in Himself moves not at all, as the fire moves not in its sphere. These splendours are inestimable graces and favours which God bestows upon the soul. They are called also overshadowings, and are, in my opinion, the greatest and the highest graces which can be bestowed in this life in the way of transformation.

15. Now overshadowing is the throwing of a shadow; and to throw one’s shadow over another signifies protection and favour, for when the shadow of one touches us, it is a sign that he whose shadow it is stands by us to favour and protect us. Thus it was said to the Virgin, ‘The power of the Most High shall overshadow thee,’^[66:*] for the Holy Ghost was about to approach her so closely as to ‘come upon’ her. The shadow of every object partakes of the nature and proportions of it, for if the object be dense, the shadow will be dense and dark; if it be light and clear, so will be the shadow, as we see in the case of wood or crystal: the former being dense, throws a dark shadow, and the latter being clear, throws a shadow that is light. In spiritual things, too, death is the privation of all things, so the shadow of death will be darkness, which in a manner deprives us of all things. Thus, too, speaks the Psalmist, saying, ‘sitting in darkness and the shadow of death,’^[66:†] whether the spiritual darkness of spiritual death, or the bodily darkness of bodily death.

16. The shadow of life is light, if divine, a divine light, and if the shadow be human, the light is natural, and so the shadow of beauty will be as another beauty according to the nature and properties of that beauty of which it is the shadow. The shadow of strength will be as another strength, in measure and proportion. The shadow of wisdom will be another wisdom, or rather, beauty, strength, and wisdom themselves will be in the shadow, wherein is traced the form and property, the shadow whereof is there.

17. This, then, being so, what must be the shadow of the Holy Ghost, the shadow of all His power, might, and attributes, when He is so near the soul? He touches the soul not with His shadow only, for He unites Himself to it, feeling and tasting with it the form and attributes of God in the shadow of God: that is, feeling and tasting the property of divine power in the shadow of omnipotence: feeling and tasting the divine wisdom in the shadow of the divine wisdom: and finally, tasting the glory of God in the shadow of glory, which begets the knowledge and the taste of the property and form of the glory of God. All this takes place in clear and luminous shadows, because the attributes and powers of God are lamps, which, being resplendent and luminous in their own nature, throw forth shadows resplendent and luminous, and a multitude of them in one sole essence.

18. O what a vision for the soul when it shall experience the power of that which Ezechiel saw: 'the likeness of four living creatures,' and the 'wheel with four faces,' the appearance 'like that of burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps;'^[67:*] when it shall behold that wheel, the wisdom of God, full of eyes within and without, that is the marvellous knowledge of wisdom; when it shall hear the noise of their wings as they pass, a noise 'like the noise of an army,' that is of many things at once which the soul learns by one sole sound of God's passing before it; and finally, when it shall hear the beating of the wings, which is like the 'noise of many waters, as it were the voice of the Most High God,'^[68:*] which signifies the rushing of the divine waters, the overflowing of which on the descent of the Holy Ghost envelopes the soul in a flame of love. Here the soul rejoices in the glory of God, under the protection of His shadow, for the prophet adds: 'This was the vision of the likeness of the glory of our Lord.'^[68:†] O the height to which this blessed soul is raised! O how exalted! O how it marvels at the visions it has within the limits of the faith! Who can describe them? O how it is profoundly immersed in these waters of the divine splendours where the everlasting Father is pouring forth the irrigating streams with a bounteous hand, for these streams penetrate soul and body.

19. O wonder! the lamps of the divine attributes, though one in substance, are still distinct, each burning as the other, one being substantially the other. O abyss of delights, and the more abundant, the more their riches are gathered together in infinite simplicity and unity. There each one is so recognised and felt as not to hinder the feeling and recognition of the other; yea, rather everything in Thee is light which does not impede anything; and by reason of Thy pureness, O divine Wisdom, many things are known in Thee in one, for Thou art the treasury of the everlasting Father, 'the brightness of eternal light, the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of His goodness,'^[69:*] 'in the splendours.'

'The deep caverns of sense.'

20. The caverns are the powers of the soul, memory, understanding, and will, and their depth is commensurate with their capacity for great good, because nothing less than the infinite can fill them. What they suffer when they are empty, shows in some measure the greatness of their delight when they are full of God; for contraries are known by contraries. In the first place, it is to be remembered that these caverns are not conscious of their extreme emptiness when they are not purified and cleansed from all affection for created things. In this life every trifle that enters them is enough to perplex them, to render them insensible to their loss, and unable to recognise the infinite good which is wanting, or their own capacity for it. It is assuredly a most wonderful thing how, notwithstanding their capacity for infinite good, a mere trifle perplexes them, so that they cannot become the recipients of that for which they are intended, till they are completely emptied.

21. But when they are empty and cleansed, the hunger, the thirst, and the anxiety of the spiritual sense become intolerable, for as the appetite of these caverns is large, so their suffering is great, because the food which they need is great, namely, God. This feeling of pain, so deep, usually occurs towards the close of the illumination and the purgation of the soul, previous to the state of perfect union, during which it is satisfied. For when the spiritual appetite is empty, pure from every creature and from every affection thereto, and when the natural temper is lost and the soul attempered to the divine, and the emptied appetite is well disposed—the divine communication in the union with God being still withheld—the pain of this emptiness and thirst is greater than that of death, especially then when certain glimpses of the divine ray are visible, but not communicated. Souls in this state suffer from impatient love, and they cannot endure it long without either receiving that which they desire, or dying.^[70:*]

22. As to the first cavern, which is the understanding, its emptiness is the thirst after God. So great is this thirst, that the Psalmist compares it to that of the hart, for he knew of none greater, saying, 'As the hart desireth the fountains of waters: so doth my soul desire Thee, O God.'^[71:*] This thirst is a thirst for the waters of the divine Wisdom, the object of the understanding. The second cavern is the will, and the emptiness thereof is a hunger so great after God, that the soul faints away, as the Psalmist saith, 'My soul longeth and fainteth for the courts of our Lord.'^[71:†] This hunger is for the perfection of love, the object of the soul's desires. The third cavern is the memory, and the emptiness thereof is the soul's melting away and languishing for the possession of God: 'I will be mindful and remember,' saith Jeremias, 'and my soul shall languish within me: these things I shall think over in my heart, therefore will I hope.'^[71:‡]

[64:*] Stanza I., 10 (line 2).

[66:*] St. Luke i. 35.

[66:†] Ps. cvi. 10.

[67:*] Ezech. i. 5, 13, 15.

[68:*] Ezech. i. 24.

[68:†] Ib. ii. 1.

[69:*] Wisd. vii. 26.

[70:*] See Spirit. Cant., Stanza vii. 3.

[71:*] Ps. xli. 2.

[71:†] Ib. lxxxiii. 3.

[71:‡] Lam. iii. 20, 21.