|
1. "In concealment" amounts to saying in hiding or under cover. As a result,
departing in darkness and concealment more truly indicates the security the soul
speaks of in the first verse of this stanza. She received this security along
the way toward union with God through love by means of this dark contemplation.
"In darkness and concealment" is like saying that since the soul walked in
darkness in the way we mentioned, she was concealed and hidden from the devil,
and from his deceits and wiles.1
2. The reason the darkness of this contemplation frees and hides the soul from
the wiles of the devil is that the contemplation experienced here is infused
passively and secretly without the use of the exterior and interior faculties of
the sensory part of the soul. The soul's journey, consequently, is not only
hidden and freed from the obstacle these faculties in their natural weakness can
occasion, but also from the devil, who without these faculties of the sensory
part cannot reach the soul or know what is happening within it. Accordingly, the
more spiritual and interior the communication and the more removed it is from
the senses, the less the devil understands it.
3. It is very important to the soul's security that in its inner communion with
God its senses remain in darkness, without this communication, and that they do
not attain to it. First, so that there may be room for a more abundant spiritual
communication, without any hindrance to freedom of spirit from the weakness of
the sensory part. Second, so that, as we say, the soul might journey more
securely, since the devil cannot enter so far within it. Hence we can understand
spiritually those words of our Savior: Let not your left hand know what your
right hand is doing [Mt. 6:3]. This is like saying: Do not allow the left side,
the lower portion of your soul, to know or attain to what happens on the right
side, the superior and spiritual part of the soul; let this be a secret between
the spirit and God alone.
4. It is quite true that even though the devil is ignorant of the nature of
these very interior and secret spiritual communications, he frequently perceives
that one is receiving them because of the great quietude and silence some of
them cause in the sensory part. And since he is aware that he cannot impede them
in the depths of the soul, he does everything possible to excite and disturb the
sensory part, which he can affect with sufferings, horrors, and fears. He
intends by this agitation to disquiet the superior and spiritual part of the
soul in its reception and enjoyment of that good.
Yet when the communication of
such contemplation shines in the spirit alone and produces strength in it, the
devil's diligence in disturbing the soul is often of no avail. It receives
instead new benefits and a deeper, more secure peace. For what a wonderful thing
it is! In experiencing the troublesome presence of the enemy, the soul enters
more deeply into its inner depths without knowing how and without any efforts of
its own, and it is sharply aware of being placed in a certain refuge where it is
more hidden and withdrawn from the enemy. There the peace and joy that the devil
planned to undo increase. All that fear remains outside; and the soul exults in
a very clear consciousness of secure joy, in the quiet peace and delight of the
hidden Spouse that neither the world nor the devil can either give or take away.
The soul experiences the truth of the bride's exclamation in the Song of Songs:
Behold, sixty men surround the bed of Solomon, etc., because of the fears of the
night [Sg. 3:7-8]. She is aware of this strength and peace even though she
frequently feels that her flesh and bones outside are being tormented.
5. At other times, when the spiritual communication is not bestowed exclusively
on the spirit but on the senses too, the devil more easily disturbs and agitates
the spirit with these horrors by means of the senses. The torment and pain he
then causes is immense, and sometimes it is ineffable. For since it proceeds
nakedly from spirit to spirit, the horror the evil spirit causes within the good
spirit (in that of the soul), if he reaches the spiritual part, is unbearable.
The bride of the Song of Songs also speaks of this disturbance in telling of her
desire to descend to interior recollection and enjoy these goods: I went down
into the garden of nuts to see the apples of the valleys and if the vineyard was
in flower; I knew not; my soul was troubled by the chariots (by the carts and
roaring) of Aminadab (the devil) [Sg. 6:11-12].2
6. At other times, when the communications are accorded by means of the good
angels, the devil detects some of the favors God desires to grant the soul. God
ordinarily permits the adversary to recognize favors granted through the good
angels so this adversary may do what he can, in accord with the measure of
justice, to hinder them. Thus the devil cannot protest his rights, claiming that
he is not given the opportunity to conquer the soul, as was his complaint in the
story of Job [Jb. 1:9-11; 2:4-5]. He could do this if God did not allow a
certain parity between the two warriors (the good angel and the bad) in their
struggle for the soul. Hence the victory of either one will be more estimable,
and the soul, victorious and faithful in temptation, will receive a more
abundant reward.
7. We must note that this is why God permits the devil to deal with the soul in
the same measure and mode in which he himself conducts and deals with it. True
visions ordinarily come from the good angel, even if Christ is represented, for
he hardly ever appears in his own Person. If a person receives true visions from
the good angel, God permits the bad angel to represent false ones of the same
kind. Thus an incautious person can be deceived, as many have been. There is a
figure of this in Exodus where it says that all the true signs Moses worked were
seemingly worked by Pharaoh's magicians: If he produced frogs, they also did; if
he turned water into blood, they also did so [Ex. 7:11-12, 19-22; 8:6-7].
8. Not only does the devil imitate this kind of corporeal vision, but he also
simulates and interferes with spiritual communications coming from a good angel,
since he can discern them, as we said; and as Job said, omne sublime videt3 [Jb.
41:25], imitates and interferes with them. Yet he cannot imitate and form these
spiritual communications as he can those granted under some appearance or
figure, for these are without form and figure, and it is of the nature of the
spirit to be formless and figureless. He represents his frightful spirit to the
soul in order to attack it in the same way in which it receives the spiritual
communication, and to assail and destroy the spiritual with the spiritual. In
this case, when the good angel communicates spiritual contemplation, the soul
cannot enter the hiding place of this contemplation quickly enough to go
unnoticed by the devil. He then presents himself to it with some spiritual
horror and disturbance, at times very painful. Sometimes the soul can withdraw
speedily without giving this horror of the evil spirit an opportunity to make an
impression on it, and it recollects itself by the efficacious favor the good
angel then gives it.
9. At other times the devil prevails, and disturbance and horror seize upon it.
This terror is a greater suffering than any other torment in life. Since this
horrendous communication proceeds from spirit to spirit manifestly and somewhat
incorporeally, it surpasses all sensory pain. This spiritual suffering does not
last long, for if it did the soul would depart from the body on account of this
violent communication. Afterward the soul can recall this diabolic
communication; doing so is enough to cause great suffering.
10. All we have mentioned here takes place passively without one's doing or
undoing anything. Yet it should be understood that when the good angel allows
the devil the advantage of reaching the soul with this spiritual horror, he does
so that it may be purified and prepared, through this spiritual vigil, for some
great feast and spiritual favor that God, who never mortifies but to give life
or humbles but to exalt [1 Sam. 2:6-7], desires to give. This favor will be
granted a short time afterward, and the soul, in accord with the dark and
horrible purgation it suffered, will enjoy a wondrous and delightful spiritual
communication, at times ineffably sublime. The preceding horror of the evil
spirit greatly refines the soul so it can receive this good. These spiritual
visions belong more to the next life than to this, and each is a preparation for
the one following.
11. We have been speaking of God's visits by means of the good angel, in which
the soul does not walk in such complete darkness and concealment that the enemy
cannot somehow reach it. Yet when God visits the soul directly, this verse is
fully verified. In receiving spiritual favors from God, the soul is in total
darkness and concealment as far as the enemy is concerned.
The reason for this
concealment is that since His Majesty dwells substantially in that part of the
soul to which neither the angel nor the devil can gain access and thereby see
what is happening, the enemy cannot learn of the intimate and secret
communications there between the soul and God. Since the Lord grants these
communications directly, they are wholly divine and sovereign. They are all
substantial touches of divine union between God and the soul. In one of these
touches, since this is the highest degree of prayer, the soul receives greater
good than in all else.
12. These are the touches the soul began to ask for in the Song of Songs on
saying: Osculetur me osculo oris sui, etc.4 [Sg. 1:1]. Since a substantial touch
is wrought in such close intimacy with God, for which the soul longs with so
many yearnings, a person will esteem and covet a touch of the divinity more than
all God's other favors. After the bride in the Song had received many favors,
which she related there, she was unsatisfied and asked for these divine touches:
Who will give you to me, my brother, that I might find you alone, outside
nursing at the breasts of my mother so that with the mouth of my soul I might
kiss you and no one might despise me or attack me? [Sg. 8:1]. This passage
refers to the communication God gives to the soul by himself alone, outside and
exclusive of all creatures, for this is the meaning of the terms "alone" and
"outside nursing at the breasts." The breasts of the appetites and affections of
the sensory part are dried up when in freedom of spirit the soul enjoys these
blessings with intimate delight and peace, unhindered by the sensory part or the
devil (who opposes them through the senses). The devil, then, would not assail
the soul, because he would be unable to reach these blessings or come to
understand these divine touches of the loving substance of God in the substance
of the soul.
13. No one attains to this blessing except through an intimate nakedness,
purgation, and spiritual hiding from all that is of creatures. Accordingly, one
reaches this good in "darkness" (as we have explained at length and now repeat
in reference to this verse), "and concealment" (in which the hidden soul, as we
said, is confirmed in its union with God through love). The soul in its song
consequently exclaims: "In darkness and concealment."
14. When these favors are bestowed in concealment (only in the spirit, as we
said), a person is usually aware, without knowing how, that the superior and
spiritual part of the soul is withdrawn and alienated from the lower and sensory
part. This withdrawal makes one conscious of two parts so distinct that one
seemingly has no relation to the other and is far removed from it. And, indeed,
this is in a way true, for in the activity that is then entirely spiritual there
is no communication with the sensory part.
A person in this way becomes wholly spiritual, and in these hiding places
of unitive contemplation, and by their means, the passions and spiritual
appetites are to a great degree eliminated. Referring thus to the superior part,
the soul says in this last verse: my house being now all stilled.
|
