1. By this mode of inflammation we can understand some of the tasty effects that this contemplation is already working in the soul; because sometimes, as we have just said, in the midst of these darknesses the soul is enlightened, and light shines in the darkness (Jn. 1, 5), deriving this mystical intelligence to the understanding, the will remaining dry, I mean, without current union of love, with a serenity and simplicity so thin and delightful to the sense of the soul, that it cannot be named, sometimes in one way of feeling God, other times in another.
2. Sometimes it also wounds together, as has been said, in the will, and it turns love on high, tenderly and strongly, because we have already said that these two powers of understanding and will sometimes unite, when the understanding is further purged; the more perfectly and qualified the more they go; but, before arriving here, it is more common for the will to feel the touch of inflammation than the understanding that of intelligence.
3. But here seems to be a question, and it is: why, since these powers are purging at the same time, is the inflammation and love of purgative contemplation felt at the beginning more commonly in the will, than in the understanding the intelligence? her?
To this the answer is that here this passive love does not directly wound the will, because the will is free, and this inflammation of love is more a passion of love than a free act of the will; because this heat of love wounds in the substance of the soul, and thus moves the affections passively. And so, this is called passion of love rather than a free act of the will; which, insofar as it is called an act of the will, insofar as it is free. But, because these passions and affections are reduced to the will, that is why it is said that if the soul is passionate with some affection, the will is, and that is the truth; because in this way the will is captivated and loses its freedom, so that the impetus and force of passion carries it after it. And for this reason we can say that this inflammation of love is in the will, that is, it inflames the appetite of the will; and so, this one is called, as we say, passion of love that works free of the will. And because the receptive passion of the understanding can only receive intelligence nakedly and passively (and this cannot be done without being purged), therefore, before it is purged, the soul feels the touch of intelligence fewer times than that of the passion of love. Because for this it is not necessary for the will to be so purged about the passions, since even the passions help it to feel passionate love.
4. This inflammation and thirst for love, because it is already here of the spirit, is very different from the other one that we mentioned in the night of meaning. Because, although here the sense also takes its part, because it does not stop participating in the work of the spirit, but the root and the living thirst for love sits in the upper part of the soul, that is, in the spirit, feeling and understanding in such a way that what he feels and the lack that makes him what he desires, that all the sorrow of the sense, although without comparison it is greater than in the first sensitive night, does not have him at all, because inside he knows a lack of a great good, which can be measured with nothing seen.
5. But here it should be noted that, although at the beginning, when this spiritual night begins, this inflammation of love is not felt, because this fire of love had not begun to take hold, instead of that God immediately gives the soul a love Such a great estimate of God, that, as we have said, all that she suffers and feels in tonight's work is the anxiety to think if she has lost God and to think if she has left him. And so, we can always say that since the beginning of this night the soul has been touched with a desire for love, now for appreciation, now also for inflammation.
And it can be seen that the greatest passion he feels in these works is this suspicion; because, if then it could be certified that all is not lost and finished, but that what happens is for the better, as it is, and that God is not angry, he would not be given any of those sorrows, rather he would be happy knowing that God makes use of it. Because the esteemed love that she has for God is so great, even though in the dark without her feeling it, that not only that, but she would be happy to die many times to satisfy him. But when the flame has inflamed the soul, along with the esteem it already has of God, it usually gains such strength and verve and longing for God, communicating the warmth of love, that, with great daring, without looking at anything, nor have respect for nothing, in the strength and intoxication of love and desire, without looking at what he does, he would do strange and unusual things in any way and manner that is offered to him (for) being able to find the one his soul loves.
6. This is the reason why Mary Magdalene, being so esteemed in herself as she was before, paid no attention to the crowd of leading and non-leading men at the invitation, nor to look that it was not coming well nor would it seem like she was going to cry and shed tears among the guests (Lc. 7, 3738), in exchange for, without delaying an hour waiting for another time and season, to be able to arrive before the one whose soul was already wounded and inflamed. And this is the drunkenness and audacity of love, that, knowing that her Beloved was locked in the tomb with a large sealed stone and surrounded by soldiers who, so that his disciples would not steal him, guarded him (Mt. 27, 6066) did not give him He gave way for one of these things to be placed before him, so that he would stop going before the day with the ointments to anoint him (Jn. 20, 1).
7. And, finally, this drunkenness and desire for love made her ask the man who, thinking he was the gardener, had stolen her from the tomb, to tell her, if he had taken him, where he had put him, so that she could take him. (Jn. 20, 15); not seeing that that question, in free judgment and reason, was nonsense, since it is clear that if the other had stolen it, she would not tell him, let alone let him take it.
But this has the strength and vehemence of love, that everything seems possible to him and everyone seems to him that they walk in the same way that he walks; because she does not believe that there is anything else that anyone should be employed at, or seek, except for whom she seeks and whom she loves, it seeming to her that there is nothing else to want or be employed at but that, and that everyone is also doing that. For this reason, when the Wife went out to look for her beloved through the squares and suburbs, believing that the others were doing the same thing, she told them that if they found him, they should talk to him, saying that she was sorry for his love ( Song 5, 8). Such was the strength of this Maria's love that it seemed to her that if the gardener told her where he had hidden him, she would go and take him, even if he were more defended.
8. At this level, then, are the cravings for love that this soul is feeling, when she is already taking advantage of this spiritual purgation. Because he gets up at night, that is, in this purgative darkness according to the affections of the will; and with the desire and strength that the lioness or bear goes to look for her cubs when they have been taken from her and she cannot find them (2 Kings 17, 8; Hos. 13, 8), this wounded soul goes looking for her God, because, as it is in darkness, sit without it, dying of love for it. And this is impatient love, which the subject cannot last long without receiving or dying, according to what Raquel had for her children when she said to Jacob: Give me children; if not, I will die (Gn. 30, 1).
9. But it is here to see how the soul, feeling so miserable and so unworthy of God, as it does here in these purgative darkness, has such daring and daring strength to go to join God. The cause is that, since love is already giving strength to it by truly loving it, and the property of love is to want to unite and unite and equalize and assimilate the thing loved, to perfect itself in the good of love, from here it is that, since this soul is not perfected in love, because it has not reached union, the hunger and thirst that it has for what it lacks, which is union, and the forces that love has already placed in the will with which it has made her passionate, make her be daring and daring according to the inflamed will, although according to the understanding, because she is in the dark and not enlightened, she feels unworthy and knows herself to be miserable.
10. I do not want to fail to mention the cause here because, since this divine light is always light for the soul, it does not give it light, as it does afterwards, before it causes the darkness and troubles that we have experienced. saying. Something was already said before this, but this particular is answered: that the darkness and the other evils that the soul feels when this divine light attacks, are not darkness or evils of the light, but of the soul itself, and the light it shines for him to see them. From where, of course, this divine light gives light; but with it the soul cannot see first but what is closest to it or, better to say, in itself, which are its darkness or miseries, which it already sees by the mercy of God, and before it did not see it, because it did not shine on her this supernatural light. And this is the reason why at first he feels nothing but darkness and evil; but, after being purged with their knowledge and feeling, it will have eyes so that this light can show it the goods of divine light; Once all these darknesses and impressions of the soul have been expelled, it already seems that the great benefits and goods that the soul is obtaining in this blessed night of contemplation are beginning to appear.
11. From what has been said it is understood how God here grants the soul the mercy of cleansing and curing it with this strong lye and bitter purge, according to the sensitive and spiritual part, of all the affections and imperfect habits that it had in itself regarding the temporal. and of the natural, sensitive and speculative and spiritual, obscuring his interior powers and emptying them of all this, and tightening and wiping away his sensitive and spiritual affections, and weakening and thinning the natural forces of the soul in relation to all of this (which the man never did). soul by itself could achieve, as we will say later) making God faint in this way to everything that is not God naturally, to go dressing her again, naked and flayed and her old skin. And thus, she is renewed, like the eagle, her youth (Ps. 102, 5), remaining dressed as the new man, who is created, as the Apostle says (Eph. 4, 24), according to God. Which is nothing other than illuminating her understanding with supernatural light, so that human understanding becomes divine united with the divine; and, neither more nor less, to inform it of the will of divine love, so that it is no longer will less than divine, loving no less than divinely, made and united in one with the divine will and love; and the memory, neither more nor less: and also the affections and appetites all changed and turned according to God divinely. And so, this soul will already be a soul of heaven, celestial, and more divine than human.
All of which, as has been seen from what we have said, God is doing and working in her through this night, illustrating her and divinely inflaming her with a yearning for God alone, and not for anything else. Therefore, very justly and reasonably, the soul then adds the third verse of the song, which says:
oh happy fortune!