Of the way in which GOD
manifests Himself to the soul who loves Him.
"Do you know how I manifest Myself to the soul
who loves Me in truth, and follows the doctrine of My sweet and amorous Word?
In many is My virtue manifested in the soul in proportion to her desire, but I
make three special manifestations. The first manifestation of My virtue, that
is to say, of My love and charity in the soul, is made through the Word of My
Son, and shown in the Blood, which He spilled with such fire of love. Now this
charity is manifested in two ways; first, in general, to ordinary people, that
is to those who live in the ordinary grace of God. It is manifested to them by
the many and diverse benefits which they receive from Me. The second mode of
manifestation, which is developed from the first, is peculiar to those who have
become My friends in the way mentioned above, and is known through a sentiment
of the soul, by which they taste, know, prove, and feel it. This second
manifestation, however, is in men themselves; they manifesting Me, through the
affection of their love. For though I am no Acceptor of creatures, I am an
Acceptor of holy desires, and Myself in the soul in that precise degree of
perfection which she seeks in Me. Sometimes I manifest Myself (and this is also
a part of the second manifestation) by endowing men with the spirit of
prophecy, showing them the things of the future. This I do in many and diverse
ways, according as I see need in the soul herself and in other creatures. At
other times the third manifestation takes place. I then form in the mind the
presence of the Truth, My only- begotten Son, in many ways, according to the
will and the desire of the soul. Sometimes she seeks Me in prayer, wishing to
know My power, and I satisfy her by causing her to taste and see My virtue.
Sometimes she seeks Me in the wisdom of My Son, and I satisfy her by placing
His wisdom before the eye of her intellect, sometimes in the clemency of the
Holy Spirit and then My Goodness causes her to taste the fire of Divine
charity, and to conceive the true and royal virtues, which are founded on the
pure love of her neighbor."
Why Christ did not say "I will manifest My Father," but
"I will manifest myself."
"You see now how truly My Word spoke, when He said: 'He who loves
Me shall be one thing with Me.' Because, by following His doctrine with the
affection of love, you are united with Him, and, being united with Him, you are
united with Me, because We are one thing together. And so it is that I manifest
Myself to you, because We are one and the same thing together. Wherefore if My
Truth said, 'I will manifest Myself to you,' He said the truth, because, in
manifesting Himself, He manifested Me, and, in manifesting Me, He manifested
Himself. But why did He not say, 'I will manifest My Father to you'? For three
reasons in particular. First, because He wished to show that He and I are not
separate from each other, on which account He also made the following reply to
S. Philip, when he said to Him, 'Show us the Father, and it is enough for us.'
My Word said, 'Who sees Me sees the Father, and who sees the Father sees Me.'
This He said because He was one thing with Me, and that which He had, He had from
Me, I having nothing from Him; wherefore, again, He said to Judas, 'My doctrine
is not Mine, but My Father's who sent Me,' because My Son proceeds from Me, not
I from Him, though I with Him and He with Me are but one thing. For this reason
He did not say 'I will manifest the Father,' but 'I will manifest Myself,'
being one thing with the Father. The second reason was because, in manifesting
Himself to you, He did not present to you anything He had not received from Me,
the Father. These words, then, mean, the Father has manifested Himself to Me,
because I am one thing with Him, and I will manifest to you, by means of
Myself, Me and Him. The third reason was, because I, being invisible, could not
be seen by you, until you should be separated from your bodies. Then, indeed,
will you see Me, your GOD, and My Son, the Word, face to face. From now until
after the general Resurrection, when your humanity will be conformed with the
humanity of the Eternal Word, according to what I told you in the treatise of the
Resurrection, you can see Me, with the eye of the intellect alone, for, as I
am, you cannot see Me now. Wherefore I veiled the Divine nature with your
humanity, so that you might see Me through that medium. I, the Invisible, made
Myself, as it were, visible by sending you the Word, My Son, veiled in the
flesh of your humanity. He manifested Me to you. Therefore it was that He did
not say 'I will manifest the Father to you,' but rather, 'I will manifest
Myself to you,' as if He should say, 'According as My Father manifests himself
to Me, will I manifest myself to you, for in this manifestation of Himself, He
manifests Me.' Now therefore you understand why He did not say 'I will manifest
the Father to you.' Both, because such a vision is impossible for you, while
yet in the mortal body, and because He is one thing with Me."
How the soul, after having
mounted the first step of the Bridge, should proceed to mount the second.
"You have now seen how excellent is the state
of him who has attained to the love of a friend; climbing with the foot of
affection, he has reached the secret of the Heart, which is the second of the
three steps figured in the Body of My Son. I have told you what was meant by
the three powers of the soul, and now I will show you how they signify the
three states, through which the soul passes. Before treating of the third
state, I wish to show you how a man becomes a friend and how, from a friend, he
grows into a son, attaining to filial love, and how a man may know if he has
become a friend. And first of how a man arrives at being a friend. In the
beginning, a man serves Me imperfectly through servile fear, but, by exercise
and perseverance, he arrives at the love of delight, finding his own delight
and profit in Me. This is a necessary stage, by which he must pass, who would
attain to perfect love, to the love that is of friend and son. I call filial
love perfect, because thereby, a man receives his inheritance from Me, the
Eternal Father, and because a son's love includes that of a friend, which is
why I told you that a friend grows into a son. What means does he take to
arrive thereat? I will tell you. Every perfection and every virtue proceeds
from charity, and charity is nourished by humility, which results from the
knowledge and holy hatred of self, that is, sensuality. To arrive thereat, a
man must persevere, and remain in the cellar of self-knowledge in which he will
learn My mercy, in the Blood of My only-begotten Son, drawing to Himself, with
this love, My divine charity, exercising himself in the extirpation of his
perverse self-will, both spiritual and temporal, hiding himself in his own
house, as did Peter, who, after the sin of denying My Son, began to weep. Yet
his lamentations were imperfect and remained so, until after the forty days,
that is until after the Ascension. But when My Truth returned to Me, in His
humanity, Peter and the others concealed themselves in the house, awaiting the
coming of the Holy Spirit, which My Truth had promised them. They remained
barred in from fear, because the soul always fears until she arrives at true
love. But when they had persevered in fasting and in humble and continual
prayer, until they had received the abundance of the Holy Spirit, they lost
their fear, and followed and preached Christ crucified. So also the soul, who
wishes to arrive at this perfection, after she has risen from the guilt of
mortal sin, recognizing it for what it is, begins to weep from fear of the
penalty, whence she rises to the consideration of My mercy, in which contemplation,
she finds her own pleasure and profit. This is an imperfect state, and I, in
order to develop perfection in the soul, after the forty days, that is after
these two states, withdraw Myself from time to time, not in grace but in
feeling. My Truth showed you this when He said to the disciples 'I will go and
will return to you.'
"Everything that He said was said primarily,
and in particular, to the disciples, but referred in general to the whole
present and future, to those, that is to say, who should come after. He said 'I
will go and will return to you;' and so it was, for, when the Holy Spirit
returned upon the disciples, He also returned, as I told you above, for the
Holy Spirit did not return alone, but came with My power, and the wisdom of the
Son, who is one thing with Me, and with His own clemency, which proceeds from
Me the Father, and from the Son. Now, as I told you, in order to raise the soul
from imperfection, I withdraw Myself from her sentiment, depriving her of
former consolations. When she was in the guilt of mortal sin, she had separated
herself from Me, and I deprived her of grace through her own guilt, because
that guilt had barred the door of her desires. Wherefore the sun of grace did
not shine, not through its own defect, but through the defect of the creature,
who bars the door of desire. When she knows herself and her darkness, she opens
the window and vomits her filth, by holy confession. Then I, having returned to
the soul by grace, withdraw Myself from her by sentiment, which I do in order
to humiliate her, and cause her to seek Me in truth, and to prove her in the
light of faith, so that she come to prudence. Then, if she love Me without
thought of self, and with lively faith and with hatred of her own sensuality,
she rejoices in the time of trouble, deeming herself unworthy of peace and
quietness of mind. Now comes the second of the three things of which I told
you, that is to say: how the soul arrives at perfection, and what she does when
she is perfect. This is what she does. Though she perceives that I have
withdrawn Myself, she does not, on that account, look back, but perseveres with
humility in her exercises, remaining barred in the house of self-knowledge,
and, continuing to dwell therein, awaits, with lively faith, the coming of the
Holy Spirit, that is of Me, who am the fire of charity. How does she await me?
Not in idleness, but in watching and continued prayer, and not only with
physical, but also with intellectual watching, that is, with the eye of her
mind alert, and, watching with the light of faith, she extirpates, with hatred,
the wandering thoughts of her heart, looking for the affection of My charity,
and knowing that I desire nothing but her sanctification, which is certified to
her in the Blood of My Son. As long as her eye thus watches, illumined by the
knowledge of Me and of herself, she continues to pray with the prayer of holy
desire, which is a continued prayer, and also with actual prayer, which she
practices at the appointed times, according to the orders of Holy Church. This
is what the soul does in order to rise from imperfection and arrive at
perfection, and it is to this end, namely that she may arrive at perfection,
that I withdraw from her, not by grace but by sentiment. Once more do I leave
her, so that she may see and know her defects, so that, feeling herself
deprived of consolation and afflicted by pain, she may recognize her own
weakness, and learn how incapable she is of stability or perseverance, thus
cutting down to the very root of spiritual self-love, for this should be the
end and purpose of all her self-knowledge, to rise above herself, mounting the
throne of conscience, and not permitting the sentiment of imperfect love to
turn again in its death-struggle, but, with correction and reproof, digging up
the root of self-love, with the knife of self- hatred and the love of
virtue."
How an imperfect lover of GOD
loves his neighbor also imperfectly, and of the signs of this imperfect love.
"And I would have you know that just as every
imperfection and perfection is acquired from Me, so is it manifested by means
of the neighbor. And simple souls, who often love creatures with spiritual
love, know this well, for, if they have received My love sincerely without any
self-regarding considerations, they satisfy the thirst of their love for their
neighbor equally sincerely. If a man carry away the vessel which he has filled
at the fountain and then drink of it, the vessel becomes empty, but if he keep
his vessel standing in the fountain, while he drinks, it always remains full.
So the love of the neighbor, whether spiritual or temporal, should be drunk in
Me, without any self-regarding considerations. I require that you should love
Me with the same love with which I love you. This indeed you cannot do, because
I loved you without being loved. All the love which you have for Me you owe to
Me, so that it is not of grace that you love Me, but because you ought to do
so. While I love you of grace, and not because I owe you My love. Therefore to
Me, in person, you cannot repay the love which I require of you, and I have
placed you in the midst of your fellows, that you may do to them that which you
cannot do to Me, that is to say, that you may love your neighbor of free grace,
without expecting any return from him, and what you do to him, I count as done
to Me, which My Truth showed forth when He said to Paul, My persecutor --
'Saul, Saul, why persecute you Me?' This He said, judging that Paul persecuted
Him in His faithful. This love must be sincere, because it is with the same
love with which you love Me, that you must love your neighbor. Do you know how
the imperfection of spiritual love for the creature is shown? It is shown when
the lover feels pain if it appear to him that the object of his love does not
satisfy or return his love, or when he sees the beloved one's conversation
turned aside from him, or himself deprived of consolation, or another loved
more than he. In these and in many other ways can it be seen that his
neighborly love is still imperfect, and that, though his love was originally
drawn from Me, the Fountain of all love, he took the vessel out of the water,
in order to drink from it. It is because his love for Me is still imperfect,
that his neighborly love is so weak, and because the root of self-love has not
been properly dug out. Wherefore I often permit such a love to exist, so that
the soul may in this way come to the knowledge of her own imperfection, and for
the same reason do I withdraw myself from the soul by sentiment, that she may
be thus led to enclose herself in the house of self-knowledge, where is
acquired every perfection. After which I return into her with more light and
with more knowledge of My Truth, in proportion to the degree in which she
refers to grace the power of slaying her own will. And she never ceases to
cultivate the vine of her soul, and to root out the thorns of evil thoughts,
replacing them with the stones of virtues, cemented together in the Blood of
Christ crucified, which she has found on her journey across the Bridge of
Christ, My only- begotten Son. For I told you, if you remember, that upon the
Bridge, that is, upon the doctrine of My Truth, were built up the stones, based
upon the virtue of His Blood, for it is in virtue of this Blood that the
virtues give life."
No comments:
Post a Comment