Karen Armstrong / Visions of God   syf. 19-49 alıntılar

The Music of  God
Nothing can satisfy the human soul but God, because it has a capacity that only God can fill. That is why the people who love this world are never satisfied. The peace enjoyed by those who love Christ is a consequence of the fact that their hearts are fixed with yearning and consideration of the love of God, and they contemplate him as they sing with ardent love.

This peace experienced by the spirit is very sweet. A divine and dulcet melody comes down to fill it with joy. The mind is ravished with this sublime and effortless music and it sings the joys of everlasting love. The praise of God and the Blessed Virgin, in -whom he glories more than he can tell us, resounds from his lips once more. There is nothing odd about this, for the heart of the singer that pours out this praise is ablaze with fire from heaven. And he is transformed into the likeness of him who is all sweet song and he is drunk with his lovely passion for the taste of heavenly things. He rejoices in the warmth of his love. People who are dead through and through cannot understand this at all and an outsider cannot imagine how a man in a corruptible mortal body can experience anything so sweet and delectable. But it even astonishes the person who receives this gift, and he can only rejoice at the indescribable goodness of God who gives liberally and is slow to scold.⁴ It is from God that this experience comes. Moreover, once he has experienced this immense gift — and it is truly immense and beyond the ken of those who are dead in their sins — he is never happy without it but is always pining

with love. Meanwhile, he remains constantly on guard and sings and meditates on his love and his Beloved. If he is alone, he is even more absorbed in his song.

But actually somebody -who has received this experience once finds that it never -wholly departs from him afterward beecause a trace of that passion, song, or sweetness remains behind, even if all three things are not present to the same degree at the same time. They are all there, nevertheless, unless this person is overwhelmed by a serious illness, is stricken -with a heart attack, shattered by severe hunger and thirst, or paralyzed -with cold, heat, or by a journey. So it is better for somebody who -wants to sing his love for God and rejoice fervently in this song to live alone. But he should find a happy mean between excessive abstinence and luxury. Pro­vided that he does not realize what he is doing and has the good intention of keeping his body alive, it is better for him to take more than he needs rather than become weak because of excessive fasting and so too ill and physically frail to sing. But it is certain that somebody -who has been chosen for this vocation is never overcome by the wiles of the devil, whether he eats or abstains, because somebody -who really loves Christ is instructed by Christ himself and does not waste time whether he has too much or too little food. He will merit far more by singing happily, praying, contemplating, reading, meditating, and by eating sensibly too than if, -without any discretion, he was always fasting and eating only bread and herbs during his prayer and study. That is -why I myself have eaten and drunk things that are regarded as delicacies — not because I love these things but to enable my body to keep going in the service of God and in the joy of Jesus Christ. It was better that I conformed my lifestyle with that of the people I was living with, rather than imagine that I possessed a virtue that I didn't and so caused men to praise me exces­sively when I really didn't deserve much praise at all. I have left people, however, not because they fed me badly but because our lifestyles were not compatible or for some other sensible reason. But I dare to say with the blessed Job: "Fools despised me when I left them and they turned against me."⁵ Nevertheless, people •who say that I refused to stay in a place where I was not fed on delicacies will blush -when they meet me face-to-face. For it is better to see what I scorn rather than to long for something that I do not appreciate.

Fasting is extremely effective in repressing the carnal desires of the flesh and in gaining mastery over an uncontrol­lable, chaotic mind. But the false and fleshly desires of fallen man are practically extinct in a person who has reached the heights of contemplation with joy and burning love. A man who gives himself over to contemplation has sentenced all evil desires to death because his inner self has been transformed into a glory and to a model that is quite different. He does not live m himself anymore: it is Christ •who lives in him.⁶ Hence he is absorbed by this love and is overcome by his longing for God. He almost faints away because of its sweetness and can scarcely live because of this love. This is the soul that says: "Tell my beloved that I am pining away with love."⁷ I am longing to die, yearning to be annihilated, burning to pass into a new existence. Look, I am dying of love! Come down, Lord! Come, my Beloved, and soothe my longing! Look! I am in love, I sing, I burn! I am ablaze within! Have mercy on my pitiable state and give orders for me to come into your pres­ence !

He who possesses this joy here below and glories in it during his lifetime has been inspired by the Holy Spirit. He cannot wander into a false path. He is safe and free to do whatever he likes. No mere mortal can give him such good advice as that which he has within him from the eternal God. Other people who want to give him advice will undoubtedly make mistakes because they do not understand all this. But even if he really wants to submit to their advice, he himself will not go astray because God will not allow it. God holds him firmly in his will so that he never goes beyond it. Of such people it is said: "The spiritual man judges all things and is himself judged by no man."⁸

But nobody should take it upon himself to assume that he is himself such a man, just because he has wholly renounced the world, is meticulous in his pursuit of the solitary light, and has reached the heights of contemplation. This grace, indeed, is not granted to all contemplatives but only rarely and to very few people -who have reached the supreme haven of body and soul and who are set apart simply for the task of loving God. It is difficult to find such people because they are rare birds: they are cherished, sought out, and loved by God and men, and even the angels are delighted when they leave this world because they are more suited to the company of angels. There are, on the other hand, many people who offer their prayers to God with great devotion and sweetness and who are able to taste the delightful experiences of contemplation in their prayer and meditation, but they do not advance any further and remain in this peaceful state.

Lord God, have mercy on me, my infancy was silly, my boyhood pointless, and my adolescence impure. But now, Lord Jesus, my heart has been set on fire with holy love and my disposition has changed so that my soul no longer wants any contact -with those bitter things that had onnce been my food and seemed sweet to me. My enthusiasms now are such that I hate nothing but sin, fear only to offend God, and find no )oy in anything but God. My only grief is sin, my only love is God, my only hope is in him. Nothing makes me sad but wrongdoing, nothing pleases me but Christ. But in fact there was a time when I was quite properly rebuked by three women. One rebuked me because in my zeal to correct women's insane enthusiasm for extravagant and voluptuous dress, I gazed too closely at their numerous orna­ments. She said it was not right for me to notice whether they were wearing horned headdresses or not. I thought that she had reprimanded me quite correctly, and she made me blush.

The second rebuked me because I spoke of her huge breasts as if I liked them: "What business of yours is it if they are big or little?" she said. Again, she was quite right. The third jokily took me to task when I made as if to touch her a bit rudely — perhaps I had already touched her — saying, "That's enough, brother!" It was as though she had said: "Playing around with women doesn't suit your office as a hermit." She also made me feel embarrassed, quite rightly. I should have controlled myself rather than behaved like that. When I came to myself, I thanked God for teaching me that their repri­mands were correct and for showing me a more agreeable path than the one I had known before so that I could respond more wholeheartedly to the grace of Christ. In future I am not going to put myself in the wrong with women.

A fourth woman -whom I knew rather well did not repri­mand me so much as speak to me with contempt: "You're only a pretty face and a lovely voice: you haven't actually done anything." So I think it is better to do without them, whatever their specialty is, than to fall into the hands of women. They don't know how to preserve a happy mean: it's either love or contempt! But these things did not happen to me because I was after anything improper, but because I was attending to their salvation. In fact they -were the people from whom I had received my food for a while!

Solitary Life

When adolescence arrived during my unfortunate child­hood, the grace of my Creator was also with me. He curbed the lusts of my body and transformed these into a longing for spiritual intercourse. He raised my soul up from the pits and translated it to the heights so that I yearned for the delights of heaven more than I had ever enjoyed carnal embraces or the depravities of the world. The way this happened, if I intended to publish it, forces me to preach the solitary life. For the Spirit breathed into me and intended me to pursue this life and to love what it set out to do. From that moment, despite my weaknesses, I tried to put this insight into practice.

I still lived apart from people who were successful in this world, however. I accepted their food and I listened to the flattery, which can drag the most doughty warriors from the heights down to hell itself. But when I put all this aside in order to pursue the one thing necessary, my soul was caught up in the love of my Creator. I yearned to enjoy the sweetness of eternity and I set my soul to the discipline of loving Christ, and she has received this gift from her Beloved so that now it is solitude that attracts her most, together with all those other consolations that misguided men dismiss as nothing.

In fact I became accustomed to look for quiet, even though I went from one place to another. For it doesn't hurt a hermit to leave his cell for a good reason, nor to return to it again if that seems the right thing to do. Some of the holy fathers used to do this and were criticized for it — though not by good people. For evil people said evil things and would have translated these into evil actions if the fathers had stayed in the same place, for that is the way that such people behave. In the same way, take people who speak from an overflowing heart and there you find the poison of asps! I know that the more people have raged against me with their crazy slanders, the more progress I have made in the spiritual life. The worst detractors I have had have been people whom I once consid­ered to be faithful friends. But I did not give up the things that were proving to be helpful to my soul because of their accusa­tions, but I pressed on -with my effort and always found that God looked after me. I recalled that scripture that said: "Let them curse you, but you should bless,"⁹ etc. And in due course I was granted an increase in spiritual joy.

From the beginning of the conversion of my life and mind to the time when the gate of heaven opened and God's face was unveiled so that I could gaze upon the things above with the eye of my soul and see the way it could find the Beloved and cling to him incessantly, three years less three or four months passed. But when the gate had opened, it was another year before I actually felt the warmth of eternal love. I was sitting in a certain chapel, delighting in the sweetness of prayer and meditation, when I suddenly felt within myself an unusual but pleasant warmth. At first 1 did not know where it came from, but I soon realized that it did not come from one of God's creatures but from the Creator himself, because it was a more ardent and pleasurable feeling than I had ever experi­enced before. But it was half a year and three months later before a perceptible and inexpressibly sweet and glowing heat passed through my belly together with an infusion and appre­hension of heavenly spiritual sound that belonged to the song of eternal praise and to the sweetness of a melody inaccessible to normal hearing. This sound cannot be known or heard by anybody but the one -who receives it, and he has to keep himself pure and separate from the world.

While I was sitting in the same chapel and was chanting the night psalms before supper to the best of my ability, I heard above me a resonant psalmody or singing. I -was strain­ing toward heaven in my pprayer with a concentrated desire, when I gradually sensed in some indescribable way a choir of singers and I could hear within myself a similar heavenly harmony, which was utterly delightful and which lingered in my mind. Then suddenly my thoughts were transformed into song, my meditation became an ode, and my own prayers and psalmody reverberated with the same heavenly sound. Because of the abundant sweetness within me, I immediately began to sing when before I had only spoken, but I sang in a hidden way and only for the ears of my Creator. The people who saw me had no notion that this was happening, because if they had found out they would have given me too much honor and I should then have lost a part of this lovely flower of devotion and fallen into desolation. In the meantime I was astonished that I should have been rapt in such joy while still in exile and that God had given me gifts that I had not even realized I could ask for and that I thought could only be given to a very holy person in this life. For this reason I believe that such gifts are not bestowed as a reward but are given freely to whomsoever Christ chooses. But I still don't think that anybody will receive them unless he has a special devotion to the Name of Jesus and reveres it so much that he never lets it pass from his mind, except when he goes to sleep. Anyone who receives this latter grace will, I am sure, achieve the other also.

Four years and three months passed from the beginning of my conversion to the moment when, with God's help, I managed to reach the highest degree of the love of Christ. When I had attained this height I filled the air with the praise of God and with joyful singing. And after these first occasions, this blessed state has endured with me and will continue to the end. Indeed, after death it will be still more perfect because though this joyous love and fervent charity begin here below, they are gloriously consummated in the Kingdom of Heaven. But someone who has passed through this stage during this life enjoys no little advantage, but he does not advance to a higher degree. No, indeed, because he has, as it were, been strengthened in grace and is at peace, as far as a mortal man can be. Thank God for this: I long to praise him -without ceasing. He has comforted me when I was in distress, in my troubles and when I was being persecuted, and he has given me the confidence to expect an eternal crown during periods of prosperity and success.

So, Jesus, I want to be free to praise you incessantly. This is my joy. When I was nothing and a mere pitiable wretch you found me worthy and allowed me to mingle with those sweet ministers from whom the beautiful and heavenly melo­dies flow. I will thank you and rejoice tirelessly because you have made me one of those souls who make music with a pure conscience. Such a soul is burning with endless love. He is aglow, transfigured. He burns with fire and indeed he seems to expand because of the intensity of his desire. Surely virtue that is beautiful, true, lovable and faultless blooms in the presence of my Creator. His song fills his whole being: its joyous melody makes his burden easier to carry and it brightens his toil.

There are many marvelous and great gifts here on earth, but none of them can be compared to this one, which strengthens our hope in that unseen life within the loving soul. It consoles him with its sweetness when he sits in prayer and it snatches him up to the highest peak of contemplation and to the sound of the angels' songs of praise.

So, brothers, you see that I have told you how I came to the fire of love not to make you praise me but so that you might glorify God from whom I have received all the good I possess. I intended that you, who understand that "everything under the sun is vanity,"¹⁰ should be inspired to imitate me instead of pouring scorn upon me.  

Love of God and Neighbor

If you appreciate beauty, you must realize that this qual­ity will cause you to be loved by the Highest Beauty of all, provided that you keep your love undefiled, for the love of him alone. For all physical beauty is corruptible, frail, and contemptible. It passes away so quickly and deceives all those who love it. Virtue in this life consists in this: that we should cleave to the truth and refuse to be separated from it, once -we have despised the world and trampled vanity underfoot. All the visible things that people desire here below are empty, but the things that we cannot see belong to heaven and they will endure forever. Every true Christian shows that he has been chosen by God in this way: he reckons the things of this world as nothing; he knows that only his longing for divine gifts will enrich him, and from these he receives the hidden and sweet music of love. Nobody ever gets to know this music by means of earthly love, because while a man wallows in carnal lust he has, he is, alas, far removed from any taste of spiritual plea­sure. But, as one might expect, the shining soul "who is wholly intent on the love of the Eternal and follows Christ tirelessly is usually overflowing with sweetness, according to the capacity of his heart. It sings its joyful song, even in this fleshly life, as though it were already living with the angels.

So provided that our heart is pure and perfect, whatever delights it is God himself. Indeed, as long as we love ourselves and all the other creatures who are worthy of God's love simply for his sake, what else are we in love with but God? For when we love God with all our heart and mind, we are certainly loving our neighbors and all other lovable things at the same time. And this is as it should be. So if we enter God's presence and pour out our hearts in love of him, binding ourselves to God and clinging to him, what other love is possible to us?

For in the love of God is the love of our neighbor. It follows, therefore, that just as a person who loves God finds it impossible not to love man, so too someone who truly loves Christ can be proved to love only God in him. And so we give back to God, the source of all love, everything that inspires our love and all that we love. For he -who demands that everybody must be devoted to him, also wants every emotion and impulse of our minds to be intent on him. Indeed, some­body who is really in love with God feels that there is nothing in his heart but God alone, and if he feels that there is nothing else there, he truly has nothing else. He loves all the things he has for God's sake and only loves the things that God wants him to love. It follows that he has no love for anything but God and so all his love Li God.

Indeed, the love of such a person is true love, because he conforms himself to his creator, who made everything for his own sake, and therefore God also loves everything for God's sake! When the love of eternity has really been kindled in our souls, all worldly triviality, all the lusts of our flesh seem the vilest dung. And for as long as a mind that is completely dedicated to piety seeks only the good pleasure of the Creator, it wondrously bursts into flame with the ardor of love. Little by little it makes progress and glows -with spiritual gifts. No longer is it stumbling down the broad, slippery road that leads to death, but it has been lifted up to the contemplative life with a fire from heaven and marches stoutly, climbing higher and higher.

In this vale of tears, nobody is going to become perfect in the contemplative life all at once. First, a man's heart has to be set entirely ablaze with the torch of eternal love, so that he feels it burning with heavenly love and realizes that his con­science has melted •with a honeyed sweetness. It is not surpris­ing that when a man first becomes a true contemplative, that is, when he tastes this sweetness and actually feels this warmth, he nearly dies with a love that is more than he can bear. He is held tight in the embrace of eternal love, as though it was physical, because with ceaseless contemplation he is striving with his •whole heart to climb to see that infinite light. Eventually such a man will not allow his soul a comfort that does not come from God. He is pining with love for him and strains and pants for the end of this present life, crying anx­iously with the psalmist: "When shall I come and appear before the face of God?"¹¹

This is the perfection of love. But once this state has been attained, can it ever be lost? That is a proper question to ask. For as long as a man has the ability to sin, it is possible for him to lose charity. But to be incapable of sin is not the condition of those of us who are still on the road, but only of those who have reached their homeland. So however perfect a man becomes in this life, he still has it in him to commit even a mortal sin. For, as everybody can vouch, the appetite for sin is never entirely extinguished in our traveler. Somebody who never felt any temptation whatever -would obviously belong more to our heavenly homeland than to this life, because he would be faultless if he was unable to sin. I myself have no idea whether there is any such person living in the flesh because — and here I speak only for myself—"the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and though I delight in the law of God according to the inner man,"¹² I still do not know whether my love is strong enough to quench all lust completely.

Sex and the Love of God

Nothing should be loved apart from the good it possesses or is thought to possess, whether this is real or apparent. That is why people who love physical beauty or worldly riches as ends in themselves are deceived. For in visible objects that we can touch there is never the pleasure that appears to be on the surface, nor the glory that they seem to represent, nor the tame that people want to acquire.

No spiritual neglect is more damnable than when a man gazes at a woman to lust after her. For once this glance has set him on fire, in no time at all he will start thinking about the lady he has seen and this awakens lust in the heart and ruins the interior man. At once he is enveloped in the smoke of a noxious fire, which prevents him from seeing the sentence of the presiding Judge. For the soul is cut off from the sight of heavenly things by an impure and malignant love and is bound to show the signs of its damnation outwardly. It identi­fies its well-being with the consummation of this unclean desire it has conceived, and so immediately sorrow is born in this vile lust. Lust gives birth to sin because the more a man is fooled by the great peril that threatens his soul—which he tries not to see — the more quickly he falls into filthy plea­sures. He never gives a thought to the judgment of God. As soon as he begins to entertain these thoughts of carnal plea­sure, he takes no notice of the miserable abyss into which he is plunging. God has judged that somebody who has freely chosen to set God at naught and falls into mortal sin will be damned in the next world (this time, against his will!). That is what God has decreed. In the world to come, such a man will not be able to save himself from the sting of Hell because during this life he abandoned himself to crime and sin at every opportunity. He did not want to abandon them; he did not even begin to do so.

Because various men and women are duly appointed to sing the praises of God in church and to inspire devotion in the congregation, I have often been asked why I don't -want to sing like the others, becausse people often see me at High Mass. They thought I was on the -wrong track and argued that everybody ought to sing aloud to their Creator and make music that everybody else could hear. I did not reply, because these people were entirely ignorant of the kind of songs I sing to Christ, my Intercessor, and of the sweet harmonies that I put forth. They imagined that no one could hear this spiritual song, simply because they themselves didn't understand how such things could be. But it is absurd to assume that some­body who is totally dedicated to God cannot receive a special gift from his Beloved, just because they have not experienced anything like this.

That is why I thought that I should make some kind of answer, so that people who argue like this do not have things all their own way. Is it any of their business how other people live their lives — people -whose way of life is in many -ways superior to their own? People who know far more about the unseen world than they? Can't God be allowed to do what he likes? "Are their eyes evil because he is good?"¹³ Do they really want to reduce the will of God to their own limited standards? Is it not true that all men belong to God and that he can choose the people he wants and reject the rest, he who gives whatever he wants to whomsoever he wishes, -whenever he chooses? Whatever he does, he always shows his immense benevolence!

My guess is that the reason these people grumble and make false accusations is that they want people who are better than they are to come down to their own level and conform to their inferior standards. They think that they are superior when in fact they are the underdogs. And so my soul plucked up the courage to tell them something about that music that rose up from the fire of love and that I sing to Jesus, and throbs with the sweetest harmonies. But then they attacked me even more fiercely because I tried to avoid the external and audible songs that are usually sung in church and the organ pieces that the congregation listens to. They also com­plained that I only heard Mass when I had to — I had no choice in this matter — or when it was an important holy day in order to prevent the slander and bitter attacks of the people. All I have ever wanted to do was to sit and concen­trate on Christ and on him alone. That -was why he gave me this spiritual song, as a means of offering praise and prayer to him. The people who argued with me did not agree with this and tried to make me conform to their form of worship, but I could not possibly abandon the grace of Christ and give in to stupid men who had no understanding of my inner life what­soever. I put up with their talk and did -what I had to do, according to the state in which my Lord had placed me.

I mention this and give thanks and glory to Christ so that there will be an end to this kind of idiocy among people, this presuming to sit in judgment. What I have been doing has not been inspired by a fantasy or as a joke, as some people interpret my actions. It is true that many people are deceived and believe that they have been given something that they have not, but an invisible joy really has come to me and I really have been warmed within by the fire of love, which has lifted my heart far above these lesser matters. I now rejoice with Jesus, leaving the external melodies far behind, and enter the song within my soul.

Besides hating things that contaminate and rejecting the empty words of other people, I have also tried not to eat more food than necessary and at the same time not to discipline myself excessively — even though I have been said to be ad­dicted to the houses of the rich, to indulge myself at table and to be a ban viveur\ But through the grace of God, my soul is ordered quite differently: it takes delight in the things of heaven rather than delicious tidbits. Since that time I have never ceased to love solitude. I have chosen to live far from men, as far as my physical needs permit, and I have received one consolation after another from my Beloved.

The Way of Love

Someone with a vocation, -who has chosen to love Christ alone, transforms himself into his Beloved. He has no worldly possessions and he does not want to own anything, but he follows Christ in voluntary poverty and lives content­edly on the alms that others give him. He has a clear con­science, sweetened with a heavenly savor, and he pours out his heart in love for his Creator. Every day he tries to increase and lose himself in his longing for heaven. Everyone who renounces the world and genuinely wants to be in­flamed by the Holy Spirit will take care that he does not let himself grow cold in prayer and meditation. For in this way and by the tears that accompany his prayers as •well, indeed, as Christ's grace, the mind is kindled with a marvelous love. Once it has been kindled, it rejoices and, rejoicing, it is raised to the contemplative life. The soul that is in this exalted state flies far away; snatched beyond itself, it dis­covers that the heavens have opened and offer their secrets to its inner eye.

But a man must first work very hard at his prayer and meditation for a few years, barely taking time out to attend to the needs of his body. By ardently applying himself to prayer, rejecting any false ideas, he does not weary in his quest for the experience of divine love, night and day. This is how the Almighty Lover inspires new love into the one -who loves him and raises him up to a spiritual peak far above the things of this world and the clamor of vain, vicious thoughts. Now "no dead flies destroy the sweetness of the ointment,"¹⁴ for they have all vanished. And finally the love of God will become sweet indeed and he will be intoxicated with its subtle sweet­ness; he will taste this miraculous honey until he is aware of nothing within himself but the consoling infusion of this fla­vor, -which is a sign of the highest sanctity. Anointed with this sweetness, he will strive to remain vigilant, because anyone who feels his heart aflame with the fire of eternal love is certainly not going to allow his mind to turn away from this enlightenment, this sweet mystery. . . .

A person who loves the Godhead, -whose -whole being is saturated -with love for the Beauty that -we cannot see, rejoices in his inmost being. He is gladdened by that entrancing fire because he has dedicated himself wholly to God. And so, when Christ wills and not by virtue of his own deserts, he will receive a sound that descends from heaven into his heart. His meditation -will be transformed into a song and his mind will dwell in this -wondrous harmony. . . .

Now at this point, something happens to the lover that I have never found in any learned texts or heard explained. That is, that this song springs to his very lips and he -will sing his prayers in a spiritual symphony of heavenly sweetness; he will find that -when he tries to speak he can only stammer because he is slowed down by the abundance of his inner happiness and the peculiar nature of this song. Something that previously -would have taken him only an hour, he can now scarcely finish in half a day. While he is receiving this heavenly song, he will sit by himself and mix as little as possible -with those who are singing psalms and will deliber­ately avoid singing with the others. I am not saying that everybody should attempt this, but let somebody who has received this gift do what he wants, because he is led by the Holy Spirit and his life is not going to be put off course by the words of mere men!

Moreover, his heart will be living in brightness and fire and he will be lifted above himself by this astonishing music. He will not take any notice of the status of men, even if he is considered a simpleton or a bumpkin. He will praise God in the depths of his being with jubilant song: this praise bursts out aloud; his most sweet voice rises up to heaven and our Divine Majesty loves to hear it.

A man whose beauty is desired by the King has a comely face because he possesses the uncreated Wisdom within him­self. For his wisdom is drawn from a hidden source and she is enjoyed by those who are in love with eternity. She is certainly not found here on earth by people who lead indulgent lives, but she lives in the kind of man I have been talking about, because he has been totally absorbed into the love of Christ and his whole inner self cries out for God. This cry is his love, his song, and he raises a great shout that reaches God's ears. This enthusiasm for perfection constitutes the longing of a good man. His is not a shout of this world, because he is yearning only for Christ. His inner being is ablaze with the fire of love: his heart is lit up and burning. He engages in no external task that cannot be turned to good. He praises God in a jocund song — but in silence! His odes are not for the ears of men, but he utters his songs of praise in the presence of God in inexpressible sweetness.

 The Great Shout

There is one way by which a man who has been raised to holiness can find out whether he possesses this song I have been describing, namely, that he cannot stand the noise of psalm-singing unless his own song is mentally in tune -with it. It is ruined if he has to speak outwardly. It is true that some people become distracted in their singing and psalmody, not because they have achieved perfection but because they have restless minds and the words of other people interrupt their prayers and confuse them. This sort of thing does not affect the perfect man. People whose piety is •well-founded cannot be distracted from prayer and meditation by shouting or noise or by anything else: these things only shatter this song. For this sweet spiritual song is very special indeed and only given to very special people! It has nothing in common with that ordinary physical singing that is used in churches and other places. It clashes horribly with all outward sounds made by the human voice and with physical noises that we hear with our ears. It is only among the choirs of angels that it finds something that it is in harmony with, and people who have experienced this song describe it -with astonishment and ap­proval.

So, you men, look and understand! Don't be deceived because, for the honor of Almighty God and for our own convenience, I have shown you why I used to run away from singers in church and why I did not like to mix with them and chose not to listen to the organ playing. These -were an obsta­cle that got in the way of this sweet sound; they forced these magnificent songs to die away. So don't be surprised if I ran away from something that -would have destroyed me: I would have been wrong not to have left something that I knew would deprive me of the most beautiful song of all. I would have been at fault to have done anything else. I know from Whom I received it and I have tried to submit perfectly to his will, in case he should take from this ungrateful -wretch a gift that he had so generously bestowed upon him. . . .

But people -who have got their learning from books instead of receiving it directly are puffed up by their compli­cated theories and ask scornfully: "Where did he get this from? What teacher has he been listening to?" They do not believe that those who are in love with eternity can be in­structed by a Teacher within, so that they speak far more eloquently than people who spend their entire time studying for empty degrees. But if the Holy Spirit inspired so many people in the olden days, why should he not raise up today those who love him to let them gaze upon the glory of God? — especially since some of our contemporaries are deemed not unequal to the men of the past? Yet I don't call mere human opinion "approval," because men are often wrong in what they approve: they choose people whom God has rejected and reject his chosen ones! The people who are really approved are inwardly aflame with eternal love.  

It is both fitting and reasonable that somebody who loves the Almighty should be caught up to contemplate higher things in his mind and to give utterance to the song that surges through his soul, which is ablaze -with the fierce, bright fire of love. This fills him with sweet devotion. His entire being is a hymn, which breathes the fragrance of his Savior's sweetness. As he sings he is led on to an experience of total delight and, with this well of fervor bubbling up in his soul, he is taken into the sweet embrace of God. He is overwhelmed and enriched with the most intense ardor when this singular comfort comes to him and he is crowned with the highest blessings. He shines whiter than snow and glows more redly than a rose because he has been set alight with God's flame. Adorned with a pure conscience, he walks in white garments. He has been taken up above other men almost in secret, because of the melody that is ever in his heart and the abundant, sweet fervor that re­mains with him. He not only offers himself wholeheartedly as a sacrifice while he praises Christ with his spiritual music, but he also urges other people to love him so that they rush to give themselves to God with total dedication. For anybody who loves Christ and clings to him with all his heart will be given joy during his exile, because the delicious taste that the love of Jesus brings to him transcends any experience we have here below and I cannot even describe the smallest part of it adequately.

For who can describe a fervor that is ineffable? Who can lay bare such infinite sweetness? I know that if I wanted to speak of this inexpressible joy, I would seem as though I were trying to empty the sea, drop by drop, bit by bit, and push it down into a tiny hole in the ground! It is no wonder that I, who have scarcely tasted a drop of this towering experience, cannot disclose the immensity of this eternal sweetness. Nor is it surprising that you, with your blunted perceptions and distracting fleshly thoughts, are incapable of taking it in, even if you are clever and intelligent and zealous in the service of God. . . .

And so the lover who is fired by these spiritual caresses and who is purged of all sordid and passing thoughts that distract him from the one thing necessary strives with all his power to gaze upon his Beloved. And then, bursting from the source of this yearning love, his shout ascends to the Creator, though it seems to him as though he were calling from a long way away. He raises that interior shout, which is only found in the most ardent lovers. Here I find myself inarticulate because of my usual stupidity and dullness. I am simply not able to describe the shout itself, its mighty power °r even the pleasure that comes just from thinking about it, reeling it, or experiencing it. I cannot tell you about it now, nor will I be able to do so in the future, because I do not know how to rise above the limitations of my sensuous experience unless I simply tell you that the shout is the song. Who is there to sing the music of my songs to men, express the joys of my passion with ardent love and the warmth of my youthful longing, so that from this society of warmth and song I might at least seek out my essential nature? Or so that the degree of music that I have deemed worthy to receive might be made known to me? Or that I might find that I had been freed from my unhappiness? There are things that I cannot presume to claim for myself, since I have not yet found -what I hoped for, but I might be able to enjoy them in the sweet comfort of a friend.

If I really thought that that shout and that song was entirely hidden from my outward ears — which is what I am actually trying to make clear — I -would give anything to find someone who was experienced in this melody. Once he had written down that unspoken music, he would be able to sing my joy to me and bring forth to the light of day those spiritual notes and songs that I have not been embarrassed to bring into the presence of my Beloved, in his Name, which is above all others. Such a person would be more precious than gold to me and I would not find a single one of the valuable things that we treasure during our exile equal to him. For the charm of virtue would be manifest in him and he would really be able to search out the secrets of love. In a -word, I would love him as I love my own heart and it would never occur to me to hide anything from him because he would reveal the song that I am longing to understand to me. He would make my joyful shout clear and plain. The more I understood, the more I -would exult and the more fruitful woould be my imitation of him. For the fire of love would then be shown clearly to me and my song would shine out distinctly, so that everybody -would be able to see. My babbling thoughts would not struggle –without anybody to turn these into praise, and I would not toil in vain. But as it is, I am totally exhausted by my exile and my problems weigh so heavily upon me that I can scarcely keep going. And at the same time as I am inwardly aflame with uncreated heat, outwardly I am skulking miserably, to all appearances depressed and in the dark!

So, my God, to whom I offer all the devotion of my heart, won't you remember me in your mercy? Because I am a poor wretch and I need your mercy. Surely you will raise up into your light the yearning that holds me in its grasp, so that when the time is right I shall have what I long for. You 'will trans­form the toil by which I make reparation for my sin into a mansion of delights, so that melody may live in the former abode of sorrow and I will see my Beloved whom I desire in the grace of his beauty. I am pining for him, and once I have been clasped in his embrace I would praise him for ever and ever, for He is the one I desire.

Rapture

To those in •whom the beauty of God has inspired a longing, their passion of spirit reveals a pure love. Such a person wants nothing but his Beloved and all his other affec­tions have been totally extinguished. So his mind is now freely borne to what he loves so sweetly and the union of their -wills is strengthened and made firm. Nothing can now hold the lover back from his project or make him think again, so that, in the supreme happiness of love, he can take his desire to himself and -with the last obstacle down, he can rush into the arms of his Beloved.

Among all the other delights he is experiencing, he be­comes aware of a heavenly secret that has been incorporated into his sweet love and that is known only to him. The special pleasure that intoxicates the joyful lovers of Jesus is at work within him; this drives such people more speedily on their -way to the heavenly thrones, where they will enjoy the glory of their Creator forever. They are yearning for this, intent on the things above. On fire within, their inmost being rejoices to be enlightened by such magnificent delights. They seem to be transported by this delectable love and absorbed into this marvelously joyous song.

The experience makes their thoughts as sweet as honey, while they go about their business here below. Because whether they are studying or meditating on Scripture, or writing or debating, they think continuously of their Beloved and this praise that is habitual to them is never diluted. You might find it astonishing that one mind can do two things at once and attend to each one at the same time. That is, the mind offers and sings its love to Jesus, rejoicing in a •way that is its own, and at the same time it can understand what is written in the books and neither activity clashes with the other!

But this grace is not given to everybody indiscriminately, but only to the holy soul, steeped in sanctity, on whom shines the highest love and in whom hymns inspired by Christ -well up spontaneously, so that in an indescribable manner she reverberates with joyful song in the presence of her Creator. Now it is that the soul realizes the mystery of love and rises up to her Beloved -with intense delight and -with a great shout. Her intelligence is most penetrating and acute at this time, her perceptions most refined. The mind is not scattered in this worldly matter or that, but everything is entirely recollected and integrated in God and established there. The soul serves God with a pure conscience and with a shining mind, and she has vowed to love him and surrender to him.

The more pure the love of this lover, the closer is God's presence, the purer his joy in God, the richer his experience of God's goodness, benevolence, and sweetness. For these are the things that God likes to infuse into those who love him and to slip into the hearts of his devout servants with an incompar­able joy. Love, moreover, is only pure when it has not been diluted with a desire for anything else, however trivial, and when there is not the slightest inclination to take pleasure in physical beauty. That would not do at all. His piercing mind has now been purified and is totally established in its desire for eternity. Now that he has been liberated spiritually, he looks constantly at the things that are above, like one who has been snatched away from the beauty of all other things. He will not incline toward them and he cannot love them.

Now, it is clear that the word "rapture" can be under­stood in two ways. The first is when a man is rapt beyond all bodily sensation, so that at the time of his ecstasy it is obvious that his body feels nothing and he is physically helpless. He is not dead, however, but alive because his soul still gives life to his body. Some of the saints and the elect have experienced a rapture like this for their own edification and to instruct other people. Paul, for example, was rapt "into the third heaven."¹⁵ Even sinful people sometimes experience this kind of rapture in a vision, where they see the joy of the blessed and the punishment of the damned to make them amend their own and other people's lives, as we have often read.

But the second type of rapture comes from the raising up of the mind to God in contemplation, and this is the way for all the perfect lovers of God — and only for them. It is just as correct to call this a rapture as the other, because it is just as extreme and beyond our natural experience. It must be a supernatural action when some vile sinner is transformed into a child of God and is borne aloft to him, full of spiritual joy. This second type of rapture is more desirable and lovely, because Christ perpetually contemplated God like this, but this did not make him lose his self-control. So one way is to be rapt in love while retaining physical sensation and the other way is to be rapt out of our senses in some vision or other, terrifying or pleasant. I myself think that the rapture of love is preferable and more of a reward, for to be granted a vision of heaven is a gift of God: we cannot merit it.

Those people can also be called "rapt" who are wholly and completely wrapped up in their Savior's will: they deserve to rise to the highest contemplation. They are enlightened by the uncreated wisdom and deserve to feel the warmth of that Light by •whose beauty they have been seduced. This also occurs when the love of God enables a devout soul to set all her thoughts in order and -when her wandering mind has become stable and she no longer wavers or hesitates. Instead, led on by her love for one thing only, she sighs for Christ, reaching out for him, and is as intent upon him alone as though only two things existed: God and her loving soul. Joined to him by the unbreakable bond of love and flying from the prison of the body in ecstasy of mind, she drinks deeply from the chalice that is more wonderful than we can imagine. She could never have achieved this unless the grace of God had snatched her from her feeble desires and planted her on this spiritual peak where she receives the gifts of grace.

So when she deliberately sets her mind only on divine and heavenly things, her heart now liberated and unshakable, she finds that her mind has been carried away and rapt to heaven, far above all the material things that we can see. Now, •without any doubt, she is about to receive and experience within herself the warmth of love and will shortly melt away in a song as sweet as honey. For this follows rapture in the soul who has been chosen. That is why rapture is such an immense and wondrous thing and, I believe, superior to our other activities in this life. It is considered to be a sure fore­taste of the sweetness of eternity. Unless I am mistaken, it surpasses all the other gifts that God bestows on the saints to reward them during our pilgrimage on earth. For they deserve a higher place in heaven because they have loved God with more fervor and quiet. The very greatest quiet is re­quired to discover and hold on to such love, because if there is too much motion, restlessness, or mental indiscipline it can be neither received nor retained. When one is chosen, therefore, and raised up to this state he lives in great joy, is very virtuous, and dies in sweet security. In the next world, he will be even more distinguished among the choirs of angels.

In the meantime he has this sweetness, warmth, and song, which I mentioned earlier at some length, and by means of these gifts he serves God and, loving God, clings to him and refuses to be separated from him. But because this corruptible body burdens the soul and our earthly dwelling place inhibits our experience with its busy thoughts, he is not always able to rejoice as easily as this nor sing with the same clarity and constancy. Sometimes his soul feels the warmth and sweet­ness more strongly, and finds it difficult to sing. And then, when she [his soul] is about to sing, she is rapt in a wonderful sweetness and ease. But when this warmth is diminished she will often fly off with the greatest pleasure into song, and realize that in ecstasy the heat and sweetness are truly with her. For there is never heat without this sweet delight, though it can sometimes exist without song because any physical singing or noise can impede it and drive it back into reflection. But they are more clearly present in solitude, where the Beloved speaks to the heart. He is a bit like a timid lover who cannot embrace his girlfriend in front of everybody and won't even address her familiarly but acts as though she was just like anybody else to him — even a stranger.

The devout soul who has definitely severed himself from all alien pursuits and desires with all his heart to enjoy only the caresses of Christ, pining ardently for him, will soon arrive at the sweetest joy. Melody flows from him and brings a marvelous pleasure to his soul. She takes this as a sign that in future she will not normally be able to stand any exterior sound, for this music is spiritual. Nobody who is absorbed in worldly matters knows anything about it, however lawful or unlawful their business. Nobody has ever known it but he who has made the effort to keep himself free for God alone.

Love of God

The love of the Godhead wholly penetrates a man and truly sets him aflame with the fire of the Holy Spirit; it takes the soul to Himself with wondrous joy and does not allow him to forget this love for a second. It binds the mind of a lover so that he is not concerned about trivial things but is wholly intent on his Beloved.

If we really love our Lord Jesus Christ we can keep him in our thoughts while we are on a journey, for example, and hold on to our song of love while we are in company. We can remember him at meals, even -while we are enjoying our food and drink. But we ought to praise God with every morsel or sip we take and in the intervals between morsels and meals, we should sing his praises in our minds with honeyed sweet­ness, and mentally cry for him with desire, yearning for him even during meals. And if we are working with our hands, -what is there to prevent our heart rising up to heaven, clinging to the memory of eternal love? So we can be fervent and not lazy at every moment and only sleep will take our heart away from him.

Oh, what great joy and happiness is poured into the lover! Oh, what happy and desirable sweetness fills his soul! For when love is fixed and established in Christ it will always endure. Neither prosperity nor adversity can change it, this loving desire that has its roots in heaven, as the wisest scholars have written. For without doubt, it turns night into day, darkness to light, sorrow into melody, punishment to plea­sure, and toil to the sweetest rest of all. For this love is not a fake or a fantasy but real and perfect, intent on Christ and inseparable from him, and it resounds with harmonies and love songs. And indeed if this is the way you love, as I have shown, you too will be with the best and most distinguished in the Kingdom of God, you too will be in glory and granted that life-giving vision. In the meantime, you will bravely overcome all the assaults of the devils, all our carnal temptation and all desire for the things of this world, because of your fervent love and the power of your prayer. You will also conquer your delight in beauty that is only apparent, because you -will not want even a single stain too arise from your thoughts. Indeed, you will be overflowing -with inner nourishment and you will experience the pleasures of eternal love so that you know beyond any doubt that you are the lover of the eternal King. But none of this happens to anyone unless God gives it to him or unless he realizes that even here below an important part of his future reward is already dwelling within him.

But why do I talk about all this with other people who may be chosen but who do not yet possess this choicest gift? I sometimes marvel at myself because I have spoken of the high state of the lovers of God as though anybody who wanted could attain it. In fact, it is not for somebody who wants it or who hastens after it, but for him whom Christ has loved and raised up and who takes this love into himself. Indeed, my puny mind did not know how to explain what I -was trying to explain in my incoherent way, but I felt compelled to say something about this ineffable matter so that those who hear about it or read it can make the effort to imitate it and find that divine love, which makes all the most beautiful and lovable things of this •world seem like pain and grief.

Consider this intelligently, therefore, and know how this astonishing God creates his lover, how he carries him up to the heights, refuses to let him be cast down by unworthy love or empty hopes, but keeps him safely in himself to be loved most sweetly. For love is a continual meditation with an immense longing for what is beautiful, good, and lovely. For if anything I love is beautiful but not good, I am obviously not fit to love. If, however, it is also good, it must be loved.