1. But there is something else here that greatly afflicts and disconsolates the soul, and that is that, as this dark night prevents her powers and affections, she cannot raise affection or mind to God, nor can she pray to him, seeming to her what Jeremiah (Lm. 3, 44), that God has placed a cloud in front so that the prayer does not pass. Because this means what the alleged authority (Lm. 3, 9) says, is to know: he blocked and closed my roads with square stones. And if he sometimes prays, it is so without force and without juice, that it seems to him that God neither hears him nor pays attention to it, as this prophet also implies on the same authority (Lm. 3, 8), saying: When I will cry out and beg, he has excluded my prayer. In truth, this is not the time to talk to God, but rather to put, as Jeremiah says (Lm. 3, 29), his mouth in the dust, if by chance any present hope should come to him, patiently suffering his purgation. God is the one who walks here passively doing the work in the soul; that's why she can't do anything. From where neither pray nor assist with warning to divine things can, nor less in other temporary things and dealings. He has not only this, but also many times such alienations and such deep forgetfulness in his memory that he spends many moments without knowing what he did or what he thought, or what he is doing or what he is going to do, nor can he notice , even if he wants to, to nothing of what he is in.
2. That, since here not only the understanding of his fire and the will of his affections are purged, but also the memory of his speeches and news, it is also convenient to annihilate it regarding all of them, so that what he says of himself is fulfilled David (Ps. 72, 22) in this purgation, is to know: I was annihilated and did not know. Which not to know refers here to these insipiences and forgetfulness of memory, which alienations and forgetfulness are caused by the interior recollection in which this contemplation absorbs the soul. Because, in order for the soul to remain disposed and tempered to the divine with its powers for the divine union of love, it was appropriate that it first be absorbed with all of them in this divine and dark spiritual light of contemplation, and thus be abstracted from all affections and apprehensions of a creature, which lasts singularly according to the intention. And so, the simpler and purer this divine light rams into the soul, the more it darkens, empties, and annihilates it with regard to its particular apprehensions and affections, as well as things above and below; and also, the less simple and pure it attacks, the less it deprives it and the less obscure it is to it. It is something that seems incredible to say that supernatural and divine light darkens the soul the more it has more clarity and purity; and the less, it is less dark. Which is well understood if we consider what is proven above with the sentence of the Philosopher, it is convenient to know; that supernatural things are so much darker to our understanding, as they themselves are clearer and more manifest.
3. And, so that it is more clearly understood, we will put here a similarity of natural and common light. We see that the sunbeam entering through the window, the cleaner and purer it is of atoms, the less clearly it is seen, and the more atoms and specks the air has, the clearer it appears to the eye. The cause is because the light is not what is seen by itself, but the medium with which the other things that it strikes are seen; and then she, by the reverberation she makes in them, is also seen, and if she did not hit them, neither they nor she would be seen; in such a way that, if the sun's ray entered through the window of one room and passed through another on the other side through the middle of the room, as long as it did not strike something or there were no atoms in the air in which to reverberate, the room would not have more light than before, not even the lightning would be seen; Before, if one looked well, then there is more darkness where the lightning is, because it deprives and obscures something of the other light, and it cannot be seen, because, as we have said, there are no visible objects in which it can reverberate.
4. For neither more nor less does this divine ray of contemplation in the soul, which, ramming into it with its divine light, exceeds the natural light of the soul, and in this it darkens it and deprives it of all the apprehensions and natural affections that before through the natural light apprehended: and thus, it not only leaves it dark, but also empty according to the powers and appetites, both spiritual and natural, and, thus leaving it empty and in the dark, it purges and illuminates it with divine spiritual light, without thinking the soul that it does not have it, but it is in darkness, as we have said of lightning, which, although it is in the middle of the room, if it is pure and has nothing to strike against, it cannot be seen. But in this spiritual light that the soul is overwhelmed with, when it has something to reverberate about, that is, when something is offered to be understood spiritually and of perfection or imperfection, no matter how small an atom it may be, or judgment of what is false or false. true, then he sees and understands it much more clearly than before he was in these darknesses. And neither more nor less does he know the spiritual light that he has in order to easily know the imperfection that is offered to him, just as when the ray that we have mentioned is dark in the room, although he cannot be seen, if a person offers to pass through it. hand or whatever, then you see the hand, and you know that that light from the sun was there.
5. Where, because this spiritual light is so simple, pure, and general, not affected or particularized to any natural or divine intelligible particular, since it has the powers of the soul empty and annihilated regarding all these apprehensions, hence it is that with great generality and the soul knows and penetrates easily whatever is offered from above or below; That is why the Apostle said (1 Cor. 2, 10) that the spiritual penetrates all things, even the depths of God. Because of this general and simple wisdom is understood what the Holy Spirit says by the Sage (Wisdom 7, 24), namely: That it touches everywhere because of its purity, that is, because it does not particularize any intelligible particular nor affection.
And this is the property of the spirit purged and annihilated of all particular affections and intelligences, which, in this not liking or understanding anything in particular, dwelling in its emptiness and darkness, embraces everything with great disposition, so that it may be verified in he that of Saint Paul (2 Cor. 6, 10): Nihil hagentes, et omnia possidentes. Because such blessedness is due to such poverty of spirit.