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Stanza XIX

Note

THE soul in this state is become so great an enemy of the lower part, and its operations, that it would have God communicate nothing to it when He communicates with the higher. If He will communicate with the lower, it must be in a slight degree, or the soul, because of its natural weakness, will be unable to endure it without fainting, and consequently the spirit cannot rejoice in peace, because it is then troubled. ' For/ as the wise man says, ' the body that is corrupted burdeneth the soul.'1 And as the soul longs for the highest and noblest converse with God, which is im possible in the company of the sensual part, it begs of God to deal with it without the intervention of the senses. That sublime vision of St. Paul in the third heaven, wherein, he says, he saw God, but yet knew not whether he was in the body or out of the body, must have been, be it what it may, independent of the body: for if the body had any share in it, he must have known it, and the vision could not have been what it was, seeing that he ' heard secret words which it is not lawful for a man to speak.2 The soul, there fore, knowing well that graces so great cannot be received in a vessel so mean, and longing to receive them out of the body, — or at least without it, addresses the Bride groom in the words that follow:

Hide Thyself, O my Beloved!
Turn Thy face to the mountains.
Do not speak,
But regard the companions
Of her who is travelling amidst strange islands.

HERE the bride presents four petitions to the Bride groom. She prays that He would be pleased to converse with her most interiorly in the secret chamber of the soul. The second, that He would invest and inform her faculties with the glory and excellence of His Divinity. The third, that He would converse with her so profoundly as to surpass all knowledge and expression, and in such a way that the exterior and sensual part may not perceive it. The fourth, that He would love the many virtues and graces which He has implanted in her, adorned with which she is ascending upwards to God in the highest knowledge of the Divinity, and in transports of love most strange and singular, surpassing those of ordinary experience.

' Hide Thyself, O my Beloved! '

  1. ' O my Bridegroom, most beloved, hide Thyself in the inmost depths of my soul, communicating Thyself to it in secret, and manifesting Thy hidden wonders which no mortal eyes may see.

' Turn Thy face to the mountains/

  1. The face of God is His divinity. The mountains are the powers of the soul, memory, understanding, and will. Thus the meaning of these words is: Enlighten my understanding with Thy Divinity, and give it the divine intelligence, fill my will with divine love, and my memory with divine possession of glory. The bride here prays for all that may be prayed for; for she is not content with that knowledge of God once granted to Moses3 — the knowledge of Him by His works — for she prays to see the face of God, which is the essential communication of His Divinity to the soul, without any intervening medium, by a certain knowledge thereof in the Divinity. This is something beyond sense, and divested of accidents, inasmuch as it is the contact of pure substances — that is, of the soul and the Divinity.

' Do not speak.'

  1. That is, do not speak as before, when Thy con verse with me was known to the outward senses, for it was once such as to be comprehended by them; it was not so profound but they could fathom it. Now let Thy converse with me be so deep and so substantial, and so interior, as to be above the reach of the senses; for the substance of the spirit is incommunicable to sense, and the communication made through the senses, especially in this life, cannot be purely spiritual, because the senses are not capable of it. The soul, therefore, longing for that substantial and essential communication of God, of which sense cannot be cognizant, prays the Bridegroom not to speak: that is to say, let the deep secret of the spiritual union be such as to escape the notice of the senses, like the secret which St. Paul heard, and which it is not lawful for a man to speak.4

' But regard the companions.'

  1. The regard of God is love and grace. The com panions here are the many virtues of the soul, its gifts, perfections, and other spiritual graces with which God has endowed it; pledges, tokens, and presents of its betrothal. Thus the meaning of the words seems to be this: ' Turn Thou Thy face to the interior of my soul, O my Beloved; be enamoured of the treasures which Thou hast laid up there, so that, enamoured of them, Thou mayest hide Thyself among them and there dwell; for in truth, though they are Thine, they are mine also, because Thou hast given them/

' Of her who travels amidst strange islands.'

  1. That is, ' Of my soul tending towards Thee through strange knowledge of Thee, by strange ways ' — strange to sense and to the ordinary perceptions of nature. It is as if the bride said, by way of constraining Him to yield: ' Seeing that my soul is tending towards Thee through knowledge which is spiritual, strange, unknown to sense, do Thou also communicate Thyself to it so interiorly and so profoundly that the senses may not observe it.'

Footnotes

  1. Wisd. ix. 15. ↩

  2. 2 Cor. xii. 2-4. ↩

  3. Exod. xxxiii. 23, ↩

  4. 2 Cor. xii. 4. ↩

Chapter 21 of 41