Discourse IV: The Fourth Hindrance and Its Remedy

Fourth Impediment: Bodily Labour

THE soul which arrives at the degrees described very often finds itself with a body tired and worn, whence it happens that if God invites her to new considerations and higher degrees she is in perplexity: she would greatly like to go further, but the labour terrifies her; and if the Beloved call her again, she rises to go to prayer, but still with a resistance of the sensible part which deprives her of pleasure, and causes that she can scarcely think that God is with her; and as happens to those who are extremely tired, she falls asleep while watching:

I sleep, and my heart watcheth: Then turning herself towards her Beloved Who is knocking at her heart:

The voice of my beloved knocking.

And excites her to open to Him, and to recommence her prayer:

Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled:

And with a fourth degree of prayer meditate a little on My Passion. Thou wilt find that I have My head full of the heavenly dew of My blood, and My hair steeped in blood from the nocturnal pricking of the thorns:

For my head is full of dew, and my locks of the drops of the night.

The soul would willingly obey, but her lassitude makes her desire a little repose; which makes her say:

I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them?

Most sweet Jesus, in spite of this resistance, You cease not still to be instant upon entering, and as with the hand of a stronger inspiration, He seems to desire Himself to take away, without co-operation, the bolt of the sensible part which forms an impediment to Him, and to enter by the keyhole of the heart:

My beloved put his hand through the keyhole, At this mighty calling the soul is stirred:

And my bowels were moved at his touch. And resolves that she must open to her Beloved and begin meditation anew:

I arose up to open to my beloved: But on the other hand, she feels such great

24 ffigsttcai Explanation of tfye Canticles sorrow for not having opened at the first knock, that she overturns the vase of myrrh, that is, she fills herself full of penitence, pouring out her tears over the very bolt, that is, making her sorrow reach as far as to the sensible part:

My hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers were full of the choicest myrrh.

By means of this sorrow it happens that although the soul, in spite of the corporal and sensible part, opens to her Lord:

I opened the bolt of my door to my beloved:

Still, on account of this repugnance, she finds so little relish in prayer, that she thinks God is not with her:

But he had turned aside, and was gone. Whence, remembering that she had been so earnestly called, and been so slothful, she is broken-hearted and consumed with sorrow:

My soul melted when he spoke: She tries to find relish in the first degree of contemplation by means of sensible things; but her trouble does not permit her to find any there:

I sought him, and found him not: I called, and he did not answer me. She passes to the second degree of spiritual and angelic things:

The keepers that go about the city found me: But when she compares their promptness with her sluggishness, she remains transpierced with sorrow:

They struck me: and wounded me: What is worst, if she enters into the third degree, and considers herself in her relation to God, she excites the same resistance which is displeasing her in herself, and it seems to her that her face is too ugly in comparison with that of the angels, and that they as it were take from her all her lustre:

The keepers of the walls took away my mantle * from me.

So that wherever she is she finds great diffi culties excited by this fourth impediment of corporal labours.

REMEDY FOR THE FOURTH IMPEDIMENT: SPIRITUAL CONFERENCES AND CONVERSATIONS f

Vocal prayer or rather spiritual desires serve as remedies for the tedium of labour. So one sees that he who by illness has lost relish and appetite, changing his meat recovers them, and that in contemplative congregations, spiritual colloquies are intermingled with prayers. The soul then, disgusted by the labour of prayer, should address herself to spiritual persons and beg them to help her to find her Beloved:

I adjure you, 0 daughters of Jerusalem,

• Pallium; our version has veil.

t In the old French edition of 1643 tne t^6 is " Colloques et desirs spirituels " [Ed.].

26 JHgsticai (Explanation of tlje Canticles if you find my beloved, that you tell him that I languish with love (for Him). And they, knowing her needs, will draw her on to describe the qualities of the Beloved:

What manner of one is thy beloved of the beloved, 0 thou most beautiful among women? What manner of one is thy beloved of the beloved, that thou hast so adjured us?

Then she proposes Jesus Christ so exactly according to nature, that it is not possible to represent Him better. He is God, the brightness of the same light, but made man in order to be able to buy us back by the purple of His blood:

My beloved is white and ruddy, chosen out of thousands:

And as man He is so singular that He can be recognised among a thousand:

Chosen out of thousands.

Because chanty, the chief of virtues, may be said to be of gold in Him, that is, precious:

His head is as the finest gold; And the graces and benefits which like in numerable tresses grow from it are the first fruits of palm-trees: and black as ravens: they are the effects of the victory which He gained on the tree of the cross, as worthy of admiration as black is in a horse:

His locks as branches of palm trees black as a raven. He is like a white dove, which has in itself tscourse 27 all the gifts of the Holy Spirit represented by the eyes:

His eyes as doves upon brooks of water, which are washed in milk,

The Holy Spirit, called in another sense a river, not by measure but with all plenitude, is given to her:

And sit beside the plentiful streams. Wherefore, if you contemplate these examples, like cheeks full of striking beauty in the sight of all, odorous as vases full of aromatic perfumes, they will make themselves smelt on every side:

His cheeks are as beds of aroinatical spices set by the perfumers.

His doctrine seems to be precious myrrh, like lilies from His holy lips:

His lips are as lilies, dropping choice myrrh.

His miracles are such that from His hands hyacinths seem to flow and fall abundantly.

His hands are golden rings * full of hyacinths.

In everything, whether interior or exterior, this Beloved is admirable: His heart is of ivory enriched with precious stones, His deliberations are simple but prudent:

His belly as of ivory, set with sapphires. His executions are full of strength but having discretion:

His legs as pillars of marble, that are set upon bases of gold.

• Fomatiles; our version has turned.

28 JHjrjstical (Explanation of tfje Canticles and to finish here, He is all most dear, He is all most lovely:

His form as of Libanus, excellent as the cedars.

Fourth Degree; Consideration of our God in Himself but as Man

Whilst the soul discourses of God in His humanity, sweetness returns to it, and it is forced to cry out: Ah! —

His throat most sweet, and he is all lovely: such is my beloved, and he is my friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. And if the persons she is with would persist and say to her:

Whither is thy beloved gone, 0 thou most beautiful among women? Whither is thy beloved turned aside, and we will seek him with thee?

She will no longer listen to them: but recog nising that although her troubles had made her think that her Beloved had withdrawn far from her, yet still He had not gone, but on the contrary had always stayed with her as in His garden, or as in a cabinet of perfumes; — and drawing from this the greatest occasion of merit, she can say that He has culled from her most sweet smelling lilies:

My beloved is gone down into his garden, to the bed of arouiatical spices, to feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies.

IBtscourse £F 29

And on this account, since she knows that He has been always with her and is still so at present, she says:

I to my beloved, and my beloved to me, who feedeth among the lilies. She has no further need of anything save to converse with Him, saying: 0 Lord! when shall I please You by my beauty, sweetness, grace, strength, innocence, devotion and discretion? when will You say to me:

Thou art beautiful, 0 my love, sweet and comely as Jerusalem: terrible as an army set in array.

Already, Lord, You have shown me, by a thou sand signs that my glances have wounded You, that is, that my intentions are not displeasing to You:

Turn away thy eyes from me, for they have made me go out of myself.* That my hair, that is, my desire, is pure and simple:

Thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from Galaad.

That my senses, as flocks, have been carefully guarded:

Thy teeth as a flock of sheep, which come up from the washing, all with twins, and there is none barren among them.

And that the powers of my concupiscible part, desiring good and fleeing evil without dissimula-

• Avolare; our version has, made me flee away.

30 juristical Explanation of tlje Canticles tion, like two rose-tinctured cheeks are dear and agreeable to you:

Thy cheeks are as the bark of a pome granate, besides what is hidden within thee.

But, 0 God, says the soul, You have already praised me for almost all these parts; I should now desire to make progress, and to surpass in devotion many other souls who are devout or who think they are so, and to make You able to say to me:

There are threescore queens, and four score concubines, and young maidens without number. One is my dove, What shall I say? — perhaps my desires aspire too high! — but I would desire that You should be able to say to me — " my perfect one "!

My perfect one is but one.

I would have in my nature, which is my mother, some rarity, and that it should be said of me:

She is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her. And further, I would have one able to say:

The daughters saw her, and declared her most blessed: the queens and concubines, and they praised her.

For her innocence while her origin is in the night of sin:

Who is she that cometh forth (in devotion) like the morning rising, fair as the moon (with prudence and good election), bright as the sun, (and finally in her in-

Discourse F 31 vincible force) terrible as an army set in array?

But besides this the soul adds: Where have You been, my Lord? It seemed to me that You had left me, when trouble and fatigue permitted me to feel no satisfaction. I have been, says He, in thee who art My garden, and I have been there with more profit to thee than I should have been if from the beginning I had given thee sweetness, furnishing thee an occasion of merit, whence I have drawn from My garden a greater fruit of merit:

I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the fruits of the valleys, and to look if the vineyard had flourished, and the pomegranates budded.

Blessed then be You, O Lord, answers the soul, because in this way making me believe You were absent, You have given me an occasion of 'merit, and have made me make more way in a short time than by the coaches of princes: and because I knew not that You were with me, I can say:

I knew not: my soul troubled me for the chariots of Aininadab.