1. From what has been said we will see how this dark night of loving fire, as well as in the dark, inflames the soul. We will also see how, just as the spirits are purged in the other life with material dark fire, in this life they are purged and cleansed with spiritual dark fire of love; because this is the difference: that there they are cleaned with fire, and here they are cleaned and illuminated only with love. Which love David requested (Ps. 50, 12)) when he said: Cor mundum creates in me, Deus, etc. Because the purity of heart is not less than the love and grace of God; because the pure in heart are called by our Savior blessed (Mt. 5, 8), which is as much as saying "in love", since blessedness is not given for less than love.
2. And that the soul is purged by illuminating itself with this fire of loving wisdom (because God never gives mystical wisdom without love, since love itself infuses it), Jeremiah shows it well (Lm. 1, 13) where he says: He sent fire into my bones and taught me. And David (Ps. 111, 7) says that God's wisdom is silver examined in fire, that is, in purgative fire of love. Because this obscure contemplation instills love and wisdom in the soul, to each one according to his capacity and need, illuminating the soul and purging it, as the Wise Man says (Ecli. 51, 2526) of his ignorance, as he says that did it with him.
3. From here we will also infer that the same Wisdom of God purges these souls and illuminates them that purges the angels of their ignorance, making them aware, enlightening them of what they did not know, deriving from God through the first hierarchies to the last, and from there to men. That, for this reason, all the works that angels and inspirations do, are said with truth in Scripture and property to be done by God and by them; because ordinarily it derives them from them, and they also from one to another without any delay, just like the sunbeam communicated by many stained-glass windows arranged among themselves; that, although it is true that by itself the ray passes through all of them, each one still sends and infuses it into the other more modified, according to the manner of that stained glass window, somewhat more abbreviated and remiss, as it is more or less close to the sun.
4. From which it follows that the higher spirits and those below, the closer they are to God, the more they are purged and clarified with a more general purification; and that the latter will receive this much more dim and remote illumination. From which it follows that man, who is the last, to whom this loving contemplation of God has been derived, when God wants to give it to him, that he has to receive it in his own way, very limited and painfully.
Because the light of God that illuminates the angel, enlightening him and softening him in love, for being pure spirit, ready for such an infusion, to man, for being impure and skinny, naturally illuminates him, as has been said above, darkening him, giving him pain and I squeeze, as the sun does the rheumy and sick eye, and fall in love passionately and afflictively, until this same fire of love spiritualizes and refines him, purifying him until he can gently receive the union of this beloved influence in the manner of angels and already purged, as we shall say later, through the Lord. But, in the meantime, this contemplation and love news receive it with the predicament and desire for love that we say here.
5. This inflammation and longing for love is not always felt by the soul; because at the beginning of this spiritual purgation, everything goes to this divine fire more to dry and arrange the wood of the soul than to heat it; but now, as time goes on, when this fire is already warming the soul, it very ordinarily feels this inflammation and heat of love.
Here, as the understanding is further purged through this darkness, it happens that sometimes this mystical and loving theology, together with inflaming the will, also wounds by illustrating the other power of the understanding with some news and divine light, so tasty and thinly , that, helped by it, the will is marvelously fervent, burning in it, without it becoming anything, that divine fire of love in living flames, so that it already seems to the soul the living fire because of the living intelligence that is gives. And from here is what David says in a psalm (38, 4), saying: My heart was warmed within me, and a certain fire, while I understood, was kindled.
6. And this understanding of love with the union of these two powers, understanding and will, which are united here, is a thing of great wealth and delight for the soul; because it is a certain touch in the Divinity and already principles of the perfection of the union of love that awaits. And so, to this touch of such elevated feeling and love of God, one does not arrive until after having undergone many works and a great part of the purgation; but for other lower ones, which very ordinarily occur, so much purgation is not necessary.
7. From what we have said here it follows that in these spiritual goods, which are passively infused by God into the soul, the will can very well love without understanding the understanding, just as the understanding can understand without loving the will; because, since this dark night of contemplation consists of divine light and love, just as fire has light and heat, it is not inconvenient that, when this loving light is communicated, it sometimes hurts the will more, inflaming it with love, leaving in the dark to the understanding without hurting it with the light; and others, illuminating it with light, giving intelligence, leaving the will dry, just as it also happens to be able to receive the heat of the fire without seeing the light, and also to see the light without receiving the heat of the fire, and this is done by the Lord who infuses as wants.