Chapter VI
Of the harm it may do spiritual people not to know when to resist the spirit. Of the soul's desire for Communion, and the delusions there may be in this. Contains matters important to those who are in charge of these Convents.
I have long and carefully tried to find out whence proceeds a sort of great absorption in thought which I have observed in certain people to whom the Lord gives great sweetness in prayer, and who do not neglect to prepare themselves for receiving His graces. I am not speaking now of a soul's being suspended and enraptured by His Majesty, for I have elsewhere spoken of this at some length: and of such things as this there is really nothing to be said, because we ourselves can do nothing, even if we do our utmost to resist, if it is a real rapture. It is to be observed that in this case the force which deprives us of all power over ourselves lasts but a short time. But it often happens that a prayer of quiet begins, as it were a spiritual slumber, which absorbs the soul in such wise that, if we do not know what ought to be done in this case, we may waste much time and, by our own fault, spend our strength and gain little.
I wish I knew how to explain myself on this point, but it is so difficult that I do not know whether I shall succeed: but I know very well that if the souls who have been in this delusion are willing to believe me, they will understand me. I know of some, and very virtuous souls too, who have been seven or eight hours in this state, and think it all to have been a rapture: and any other religious exercise has laid such hold upon them that they have yielded themselves to it immediately, thinking they must not resist the Lord; and so little by little they might die or turn silly, if they got no help.
"What I know about the matter is that, when the Lord begins to bestow joys on the soul, we being by nature so fond of delights, it gives itself up to that pleasure so entirely as not to be willing to move or lose it on any account; for it really is a greater pleasure than any worldly pleasures. This takes place sometimes in a soul by nature weak, or whose mind — or rather, imagination — is not lively but of a sort which, when it has once laid hold on something, dwells on it without distraction (as is the case with many people who, when they begin to think of something, not necessarily of God, remain absorbed and, as it were, gazing at something without knowing what they are gazing at — a sort of people slow by nature, who, from inattention, forget what they were going to say). And so it is when they are thinking of God, agreeably to their own disposition or nature or weakness. Or suppose they are given to melancholia, they will entertain a thousand pleasing delusions.
Of a melancholic humour I will say a little by and bye. But even without that, what I have described takes place, and even in the case of people who are worn with penance: when, as I have said, love begins to afford them a sensible pleasure, they let themselves be carried away by it overmuch, as I have said. To my mind, it would be a much better loving if they did not let themselves go on mooning: for they could very well resist it at this point in their prayer. For just as in bodily weakness we experience a faintness which does not allow of our speaking or moving, so it is here, if we do not resist; for if our natural temperament is weak, the vehemence of the spirit lays hold on it and overcomes it.
I may be asked, What is the difference between this and rapture; for to all appearance it is the same? So it is, in appearance; but not in reality: for rapture or the union of all the powers of the soul lasts but a short time, as I say; and leaves behind it great effects, interior light, and many other benefits; and the understanding does not work at all, but it is the Lord Who is working in the will. In the present case it is very different: for although the body is made captive, the will and memory and understanding are not, but their operation is irregular, and if by chance they alight on some subject, there they will stop and stay.
I see no advantage in this physical weakness — for it is nothing else — except that it comes from a good beginning: it would be better to employ the time profitably than to be so long half asleep. More can be gained by one act, or by often arousing the will to love God, than by letting it remain passive. Therefore I would advise Prioresses to do their utmost diligence to stop these long drowsinesses: for all they do, in my opinion, is to blunt the faculties and the understanding so that they cannot perform the soul's bidding, and therefore deprive her of the benefits which they ordinarily reap when they are taking care to please the Lord. If the Prioresses see that it comes from weakness, they should put a stop to their fasts and disciplines — I mean, such as are not of obligation — and the time may come when they will be able to give them all up with a good conscience — and they should set them tasks which will take off their minds from themselves.
And even if Sisters are not subject to these swoonings, yet if their mind is too much engrossed, even with deep matters of prayer, it must necessarily happen that they often are not mistresses of themselves. In particular, if they have received some unusual grace from the Lord or seen some vision, they will be always thinking they are seeing it, when that is not the case, but it was only once they saw it. Anyone who finds herself going on in this dreamy torpor for long must try to change the current of her thoughts; for so long as she is occupied with things Divine there is no harm in this: but let her thoughts be first of one thing, then of another, just as they employ themselves in her own affairs. And God is as well pleased with our thinking sometimes of His creatures and of His creative power, as with our thinking on the Creator Himself.
Oh wretched misery of man, which is such through sin that even in what is good we require rule and measure lest we bring ruin on our health so as to lose the fruition of our good!
And indeed many of us, and especially those of weak head or imagination, need self-knowledge; and it is more to our Lord's service, and very necessary. So if anyone sees that, when her thoughts are fixed on some mystery of the Passion, or the glory of heaven, or any such thing, she goes on for a long time without being able, even if she wishes it, to turn them on anything else, or leave off being immersed in this, let her realise that she must divert them as best she may, or the time will come when she will realise the harm of it, and that its origin was what I have said — great weakness either of the physical frame, or else of the mind, which is much worse. For just as a lunatic, if he gets anything fixed in his mind, is not master of himself, and cannot distract himself, nor think of anything else, nor can any reasoning influence him, because he is not master of his reason; so it may happen in this case, although it is a pleasurable madness.
Oh what harm may such an one do himself if he has a melancholic temperament! I can see no good whatever in it. For the soul has a capacity for delighting in God Himself. If, then, it is not for one of the reasons I have given above, why should the soul, since God is infinite, be chained to only one of His mysteries or attributes, when there are so many for us to dwell upon? And the more things of God we meditate on, the more of His greatnesses we come to see. I do not say that in one hour or even in one day we should meditate on many subjects, for this would probably mean that we should not get the good of any of them. As these questions are very nice, I would not have you misunderstand, or think I am saying what it has never entered into my head to say. I am sure that it is so important to understand this chapter rightly, that although it gives me trouble to write, I do not grudge it. And I hope that anyone who does not understand it at the first reading will not grudge reading it over and over, especially Prioresses and Novice mistresses who have to guide Sisters in their methods of prayer. For if they are not careful at the beginning, they will find how long it takes to set right such weaknesses as these.
If I were to narrate the many instances of this evil which have come to my knowledge, it would be seen what cause there is for my making so much of it. I will only relate one; and from this the rest can be gathered. There were in one of our monasteries a choir nun and a lay Sister. Both were highly advanced in prayer, together with mortification and humility and other virtues. The Lord shewed Himself very gracious to them, and revealed to them His perfections. Above all, they were so detached and so engrossed in His love that, though we watched them closely, we saw no trace of failure to correspond— as our weakness can — to the graces which our Lord bestowed upon them. I have said so much of their goodness in order that those who do not possess it may be the more in fear.
They began to have great impetuous longings for our Lord, which they could not control. They thought these longings were satisfied when they made their Communion: and so they prevailed with their confessors to let them communicate frequently. Thereby their pain came to increase so greatly that they thought they would die if they were not given their Communion daily. Their confessors seeing such souls with such great longings thought — although one of them was very spiritually minded — that that was the right remedy for their suffering. It did not stop here: for the tension came to such a pitch in one of them that they had to give her her Communion early in the morning to keep her alive, according to her own view. And they were not people who would feign, nor would they have told a lie for anything in the world.
I was not there at the time, and the Prioress wrote to tell me what was going on. She said she could do nothing with them; and that such and such people said that, as there was nothing else to be done, they should be relieved in this way. By the Lord's will, I understood the matter at once: but for all that, I said nothing until I could go to them, for fear I might be mistaken; and it would not have been right to oppose the confessor's approval of it, until I could give him my reasons. He was so humble that when I went there and spoke to him, he believed me at once. The other was not so spiritual, nothing indeed to compare with him; and there was no means of persuading him: but I cared little for that, because I was not under the same obligation in regard to him. I began to talk to the two Sisters, giving them many and, to my mind, sufficient reasons to make them see that it was a mere fancy to think they would die without this relief. But they had it so firmly fixed in their minds that nothing in the way of reasoning sufficed or could suffice to move them. I soon saw it was useless: so I told them that I had the same longings as they, and that I would abstain from Communion so that they might believe that they also need not communicate except when all the Sisters did: that we would all three die together; for I thought that would be much better than that a custom of that kind should take root in our houses, where there were Sisters who loved God quite as much as they did, and would desire to do just as they did.
The harm which their custom had already done them had come to such a pitch — and the devil must have had a hand in it — that when they did go without making their Communion, they really seemed as if they would die. I shewed great severity: for the more I saw that they did not — because they thought they could not — accept submissively what obedience required of them, the more clearly I saw it was a temptation. They got through that day with great difficulty, the next with rather less; and thus it went on lessening: so that, even when I made my Communion (because I was ordered to do so; for, seeing them so weak, I would not have done it) they endured it very well. By and bye they and all the nuns saw that it was a temptation. And a good thing it was that it was set right in time: for shortly after, there arose in that house, not by the Sisters' fault, difficulties with the ecclesiastical superiors — of which I may perhaps speak hereafter — and they would have been displeased with such a custom and would not have allowed it.
Oh how many instances of this kind I could give! I will give only one more. It was not in one of our monasteries, but in a Cistercian. There was a nun, quite as good as those of whom I have spoken. Through many disciplines and fasts, she came to be so weak that, every time she made her Communion or whenever there was an occasion to inflame her devotion, she used to fall on the ground, and there to remain for eight or nine hours, in what she and everyone else thought to be a trance. This happened so often that I believe great harm would have come of it, if it had not been stopped. The fame of these trances spread about all the neighbourhood. I myself was sorry to hear of it, because it pleased the Lord that I understood what it really was, and I was afraid of what might come of it. The nun's confessor was like a father to me, and he came to tell me the story. I told him what I thought: that it was waste of time; that it could not possibly be a trance, but was only weakness; and that he should make her give up the fasts and disciplines, and should cause her thoughts to be distracted. She obediently did as he bid her: and after a little while, as she gained strength, there was no shadow of a trance. While if it had really been a trance, there would have heen no stopping it until it was God's will that it should cease; because the force of the spirit is so great that our own strength cannot cope with it. Also, as I have said, a trance leaves behind it great fruit in the soul; while this other experience leaves no more than if it had never taken place, but only fatigue in the body.
Then let us learn from this to hold in suspicion anything which so overcomes us that we see it does not leave our reason free; and remember that we shall never gain liberty of spirit by such means. For one of the properties of this liberty is the being able to think about all kinds of things and find God in them. Anything but this is bondage of spirit: and, let alone the harm it does to the body, it binds the soul so that it cannot grow. It is as when people on a journey come to a bog or quagmire which they cannot pass. So, in a way, is it with the soul; which, to advance through this, would have not only to walk, but to fly. Oh when they say or think they are engrossed with God, and cannot help it because they are so rapt, and can by no means divert their thoughts — and this is a common experience — let them consider what I repeat again. There is no need for fear if this state lasts for only one day, or four, or a week; for it is no wonder that a weak nature should remain in a maze for so long: but if it persists beyond this, it must be stopped. What is good in all this is that there is no sinful guilt in it, nor loss of merit; but it has the disadvantages which I have mentioned, and many besides.
In the matter of Communions, it is very serious if a soul, because of its love, is not submissive to the confessor and the Prioress in this matter: if, although it feels its loneliness, it is not enough to make it go to them. In this matter, as in others, the Sisters must be continually mortified, and must be made to understand that it is better to give up their own will than to take their own pleasure. Our self-love also may be mingled in this. It has been so with me: for at one time it often happened that when I had made my Communion, even while the Host must still have been whole, if I saw others communicating, I wished I had not done so in order that I might communicate again. At the beginning I did not think I need attend to this. But when it happened so often, I afterwards came to reflect, and saw that it was more for my own satisfaction than for the love of God: because when we go to Communion, we usually feel a certain emotion and sweetness; and this was what drew me. Because if it had been in order to have God within my soul, I had Him already; if to obey what is commanded us in regard to Communion, I had done so already; if to receive the graces which are given to us in the Blessed Sacrament, I had already received them. In short, I came to see clearly that there was nothing in it but the desire of experiencing that sensible sweetness over again.
This reminds me that in a place where I lived, where there was one of our monasteries, I knew a woman who was a great servant of God, according to popular estimation, and so she must have been. She had no confessor in particular, and she made her Communion daily, going for it sometimes to one church, sometimes to another. I noticed that; and I would rather have seen her obeying one confessor than making so many Communions. She lived alone, and, as it seemed to me, did what she pleased: only that, as she was a good woman, all she pleased was good. I spoke to her about it more than once, but she paid no attention, and justly so, because she was much better than I am. However, I thought I was not mistaken in this. The saintly Brother Peter of Alcantara came to the place, and I got him to talk to her, and I was not satisfied with the direction he gave her. But that might have been because, wretched that we are, we are never thoroughly satisfied with any but those who go on in the same way as we do: for I believe that that woman did more penance and served our Lord more in one year than I in many. After a time she fell into a mortal sickness — this is what I am coming to — and she took pains to get mass said daily in her house and to receive the Blessed Sacrament. As her sickness proved to be protracted, a certain ecclesiastic, a great servant of God, who had often said the mass, at last thought it was not right that she should communicate daily in her house. It must have been the devil who suggested this; for that day happened to be her last, on which she died. When she saw mass over and herself left without the Lord, she was so angry and went into such a passion with the priest that he came, greatly scandalized, to tell me about it. I was very unhappy about it; for even now I do not know whether she was ever reconciled. I believe she died immediately.
From this I came to understand the harm of doing our own will in anything, especially in so great a thing as this. For anyone who so often approaches to the Lord ought to be so alive to her own unworthiness that she would not do it on her own judgement, but would let the obedience of following direction supply what is lacking in our fitness to approach so great a Lord — a lack which must always be great. This good woman had an opportunity of greatly humbling herself, and it might have done more for her than that Communion, if she had thought that the priest was not in fault, but that the Lord, seeing how wretched and unworthy she was to receive Him in so poor a lodging, had thus ordered it. Thus did a certain person1 whose wise confessors often kept her from her Communion, because her rule was to make it often2. Although she felt this very keenly, she, on the other hand, desired God's glory more than her own; and so did nothing but praise Him for awakening her confessor's watchfulness over her, so that His Majesty should not enter so wretched a lodging. And by the help of such considerations she obeyed with great peace in her soul, although with a loving and tender pain. But not for all the whole world would she have gone against what was bidden her.
Believe me, the love of God — I mean, what seems to us love, but it is not — which stirs our passions in such wise that we commit any sin, or that the peace of our soul is troubled, and it is so full of feeling as to be inaccessible to reason — this sort of affection is plainly self-seeking. And the devil will not be asleep, but will attack us when he thinks it will do us the most harm, as he did to this woman. Indeed it frightened me terribly, not that I believe it sufficed to hinder her salvation, for God's goodness is great, but the temptation came at a very bad time.
I have spoken of it here that the Prioresses may take warning, and that the Sisters may fear- and consider and examine themselves on their motives in approaching to receive so great a gift. If it is to please God, they know already that He is better pleased with obedience than sacrifice. Then if this is so and I gain more, why should I be troubled? I do not mean that a humble sorrow would be wrong: for not all have attained to the perfection of feeling none, only because they are doing what they understand to be more to God's pleasure. For it is plain that none will be felt if the will is entirely detached from all selfish likings: but on the contrary, the soul will greatly rejoice because it has an opportunity of pleasing the Lord by so costly a sacrifice; and it will humble itself and will abide as well satisfied with communicating spiritually. But as in the beginnings — and even more at the last — these strong desires of drawing near to the Lord are a gift from Him, some emotion and pain may well be permitted to souls when they are deprived of Communion, although they should abide in peace and should draw from it matter for acts of humility. I say, in the beginnings, because this is the most important, for the Sisters are not so strong in the other points of perfection of which I have spoken.
But if there should be with this desire any strong feeling or anger or temptation to think wrongly of the Superior or the confessor, believe me that it is a manifest temptation. And if anyone should make up her mind to communicate in spite of her confessor's telling her not, I should be sorry to have the gain she would get by it: for in such matters we are not to be our own judges. He who holds the keys for binding and loosing is to be judge. May it please the Lord to give us light to be wise in matters so important: and may we never lack His help, that we may not turn His gifts into occasions of displeasing Him.
Footnotes
Chapter 7 of 32