1. In which verse the soul understands the fire of love that we have said, which, in the manner of material fire in the wood, is ignited in the soul on this night of painful contemplation. Which inflammation, although it is in a certain way like the one that we declared above that happened in the sensitive part of the soul, is in some way as different from that which he now says, as is the soul from the body, or the spiritual part of the soul. sensitive. Because this is an inflammation of love in the spirit in which, in the midst of these dark predicaments, the soul feels alive and acutely wounded by strong divine love in a certain feeling and suspicion of God, although without understanding anything particular, because, as we say, the understanding is in the dark.
2. The passionate spirit in love sits here a lot, because this spiritual inflammation makes passion of love; that, inasmuch as this love is infused, it is more passive than active, and thus engenders in the soul a strong passion for love. This love is already having some union with God, and thus participates in something of its properties, which are more actions of God than of the soul itself, which are subject to it passively; although what the soul does here is give its consent; but to the heat and strength, temper and passion of love or inflammation, as the soul calls it here, only the love of God that unites with it sticks to it. Which love finds so much more place and disposition with the soul to unite and hurt in it, the more locked up, alienated and disabled it has all the appetites to taste things of heaven or earth.
3. Which in this dark purgation, as has already been said, happens in a great way, since God has tastes so weaned and so collected, that they cannot taste anything they want. All of which God does so that, separating them and gathering them all to himself, the soul may have more strength and ability to receive this strong union of God's love, which by this purgative means already begins to give, in which the soul has to love with great force of all the forces and spiritual and sensitive appetites of the soul: which could not be if they spilled over into liking something else. Therefore, in order for David to receive the strength of love from this union of God, he said to God (Ps. 58, 10): I will keep my strength for you, that is, of all the ability and appetites and strength of my powers. , not wanting to use its operation or taste outside of you in something else.
4. According to this, in some way one could consider how much and how strong this inflammation of love could be in the spirit, where God has collected all the forces, powers and appetites of the soul, both spiritual and sensitive, so that all this harmony can be used his strength and virtue in this love, and thus come to truly comply with the first precept, which, rejecting nothing of man or excluding anything of his from this love, says (Dt. 6, 5): You shall love your God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.
5. Collected here, then, in this inflammation of love all the appetites and forces of the soul, being wounded and touched, according to all of them, and passionate, what can we understand that the movements and digressions of all these forces and appetites will be, seeing themselves inflamed and wounded by strong love and without possession and satisfaction of it, in darkness and doubt?; Undoubtedly, suffering from hunger, like the dogs, which David says (Ps. 58, 7, 1516) they surrounded the city, and, not seeing their fill of this love, they remained howling and moaning. Because the touch of this love and divine fire dries up the spirit in such a way and inflames his appetites to satisfy his thirst for this divine love so much that he turns around a thousand times and turns to God in a thousand ways and manners with greed and appetite desire. David very well understands this in a psalm (62, 2), saying: My soul thirsted for you: how many ways has my flesh been to you!, that is, in desires. And another translation says: My soul thirsted for you, my soul is lost or perishes for you.
6. This is the reason why the soul says in the verse that "anxiously in love" and does not say: "anxiously inflamed with love", because in all things and thoughts that it stirs in itself and in all business and He loves things that are offered to him in many ways, and desires and suffers in the desire also in this way in many ways in all times and places, not resting on anything, feeling this desire in the inflamed wound, according to the prophet Job (7 , 24) gives it to understand, saying: Just as the servant desires the shade and as the mercenary desires the end of his work, so I had the empty months and I counted the lengthy and laborious nights for myself. If I lie down to sleep, I will say: when will I get up? And then I will wait for the evening, and I will be full of pain until the darkness of the night.
It makes this soul narrow, it does not fit within itself, it does not fit in heaven or on earth, and it is filled with pain to the point of darkness that Job says here, speaking spiritually and for our purpose: to wait and suffer without consolation from a certain hope of some kind. light and spiritual good, as the soul suffers here. Hence the yearning and pain of this soul in this inflammation of love is greater, inasmuch as it is multiplied in two parts: the first, from the spiritual darkness in which it sees itself, which afflicts it with its doubts and misgivings; the other, from the love of God, which inflames and stimulates her, which with her loving wound already marvelously terrifies her.
7. Which two ways of suffering in such a season is well understood by Isaiah (26, 9), saying: My soul desired you in the night, that is, in misery; and this is the one way to suffer from this dark night. But with my spirit, he says, in my bowels until the morning I will watch over you; and this is the second way of suffering desire and longing on the part of love in the bowels of the spirit, which are spiritual affections.
But in the midst of these dark and loving sorrows, the soul feels a certain company and strength inside, which accompanies it and exerts so much effort that, if this weight of tight darkness ends, it often feels alone, empty and weak. And the cause is then that, as the strength and efficacy of the soul was stuck and passively communicated by the dark fire of love that rammed into her, from here it is that, ceasing to ram into her, the darkness and the strength and heat of love cease. in the soul.