Letter Lvi

On humility of heart and ravishments.

We ought not to desire extraordinary things, as, for instance, that God should do to us as to St. Catherine of Sienna, taking away our heart, and in its place putting his precious own; but we must wish that our poor hearts should henceforth live only under the obedience of the heart of this Saviour; this will be quite imitation enough of St. Catherine in this point: thus shall we be meek, humble and charitable. And since the heart of our Lord has no more affectionate * Gen. xii. 1.

law than meekness, humility and charity, we must keep quite strong in us these dear virtues — sweetness towards our neighbour and very amiable humility towards God. True sanctity consists in the love of God, and not in foolishnesses of imaginations, of ravishments, which feed self-love, but starve obedience and humility: to wish to play the extatic is an abuse. But let us come to the exercise of true and veritable meekness and submission, renunciation of self, pliancy of heart, love of abjection, condescension to the desires of others; it is this which is the true and most love-able extasy of the servants of God.

When we see a person who in prayer has ravishments by which he goes out from and mounts above himself in God, and yet has no extasies in his life, that is, leads not a life lifted up and united to God by abnegation of worldly concupiscences, and mortification of natural will and inclinations, by an interior meekness, simplicity, humility, and above all by a continual charity — then we may believe that all these ravishments are very doubtful and perilous; they are ravishments proper to make men wonder, but not to sanctify them. For what good does a soul get from being ravished unto God by prayer, if in its conversation and life it is ravished away by earthly, low, and natural affections? To be above self in prayer, and below self in life and operation; to be an angel in prayer and a beast in intercourse with men, this is to go lame on both legs; it is to swear by God and by Melchom; and to sum up, it is a true sign that such ravishments and such extasies are only amusements and deceits of the evil spirit.

Blessed are they who live a superhuman, extatic life, raised above themselves, though not ravished above themselves in prayer! Many saints are in heaven who were never in extasy or ravishment of contemplation; for of how many martyrs and great saints does history tell us that they have never had in prayer any other privilege than devotion and fervour! But there was never a saint but has had the extasy of life and operation, overcoming himself and his natural inclinations. In fact, there have been seen in our age several persons who thought themselves, and every one thought with them, very often divinely ravished in extasy; and at last it was discovered that really it was only diabolical illusions and amusements.