Seventh Dwelling.
Chapter 1.

You may think, sisters, that so much has been said about this spiritual path that there cannot possibly be anything left to say. It would be a great mistake to think this, for God's greatness has no limit, and neither will His works. Who could ever finish recounting His mercies and greatness? It is impossible. So do not be surprised by what has been said or what is still to be said, because it is only a small part of what there is to tell about God.

He shows us great mercy by having communicated these things to someone, so that we can learn of them. In this way, the more we know that He communicates Himself to creatures, the more we shall praise His greatness and strive not to undervalue the souls in whom the Lord takes such delight. Each of us has a soul, but because we do not value it as a creature made in God's image deserves, we do not understand the great secrets within it either.

May His Majesty, if He so wishes, guide my pen and help me understand how to tell you something of all there is to say and of what God makes known to those He brings to this dwelling.

I have begged His Majesty earnestly for this, because He knows that my intention is that His mercies should not remain hidden, so that His name may be praised and glorified more.

I hope that, not for my sake but for ours, sisters, He will grant me this favor. Then you may understand how important it is that nothing on your part should prevent your Bridegroom from celebrating this spiritual marriage with your souls, for it brings so many blessings, as you will see.

Oh, great God! A creature as wretched as I am seems to tremble at speaking of something she is so far from deserving to understand. It is true that I have felt deeply abashed, wondering whether it would be better to finish this dwelling in a few words. It seems to me that you will think I know it from experience, and that causes me immense embarrassment, because, knowing what I am like, I find it terrible.

On the other hand, it has seemed to me that this is temptation and weakness, however much you may make such judgments. Let God be praised and understood a little more, even if the whole world shouts at me. Besides, perhaps I shall already be dead when this is read. Blessed be the One who lives and will live forever, amen.

When our Lord wishes to take pity on what this soul suffers and has suffered through longing for Him, He brings her, whom He has already spiritually taken as His bride, into His dwelling before the spiritual marriage is consummated. This is the seventh dwelling. For just as He has His dwelling in heaven, He must have a place in the soul where His Majesty alone dwells—another heaven, so to speak.

It matters greatly, sisters, that we should not think of the soul as something dark. Because we do not see it, we are probably most inclined to imagine that there is no inward light other than the light we see, and that within our soul there is darkness.

As for the soul that is not in grace, I admit that she is in darkness. This is not because she lacks the Sun of Justice, who is within her giving her existence, but because she is unable to receive the light. As I think I said in the first dwelling, someone had understood that these poor souls are as though in a dark prison, bound hand and foot, unable to do any good through which they could gain merit, blind and mute.

We may rightly have compassion on them and remember that we once found ourselves in the same condition, and that the Lord can also have mercy on them.

Let us take special care, sisters, to beg Him for this, and not neglect it, because praying for those in mortal sin is an immense act of charity. It is much greater than helping a Christian whom we saw with his hands bound behind his back by a strong chain, tied to a post and dying of hunger. Not because he has no food—there are exquisite foods beside him—but because he cannot pick them up and bring them to his mouth. Moreover, he feels a great aversion to food and sees that he is about to die, not a death like those here, but an eternal one.

Would it not be very cruel to stand watching him without putting food into his mouth? What, then, if through your prayer his chains were removed? You can see for yourselves.

For the love of God, I ask you always to remember these souls in your prayers.

We are not speaking to them now, but to those who, through God's mercy, have already done penance for their sins and are in grace. We can consider the soul not as something confined to a corner and limited, but as an inward world containing as many beautiful dwellings as you have seen. It is reasonable that this should be so, since within this soul there is a dwelling for God.

When His Majesty wishes to grant her the favor of this divine marriage, He first brings her into His dwelling. He wishes this entrance to differ from the other times He has brought her in during raptures. I do believe that He then unites her with Himself, just as in the prayer of union I have already described. Yet the soul feels that she is being called to her higher part, rather than being brought into her center, as happens here in this dwelling.

This matters little: in one way or another, the Lord unites her with Himself. But He does so by leaving her blind and mute, as Saint Paul was at his conversion, unable to perceive how or in what way she receives the favor she enjoys. The great delight the soul then feels comes from finding herself close to God. But when He unites her with Himself, she understands nothing, because all her faculties cease to act.

Here it is different: our good God now wishes to remove the scales from her eyes so that she may see and understand something of the favor He grants her, though in an unfamiliar way. Once she is within that dwelling, the Most Holy Trinity, the three Persons, is shown to her through an intellectual vision, by means of a certain presentation of the truth. This happens with a fervor that first comes to her spirit like a cloud of extraordinary brightness.

These Persons are shown to her as distinct, and through a wonderful knowledge the soul receives, she understands with the greatest certainty that the three Persons are one substance, one power, one knowledge, and one God. Thus, what we believe by faith the soul understands there, we may say, by seeing it. Yet she does not see it with the eyes of the body, because it is not an imaginative vision.

Here the three Persons communicate Themselves to the soul, speak to her, and make her understand those words which, according to the Gospel, the Lord spoke: that He, the Father, and the Holy Spirit would come to dwell in the soul that loves Him and keeps His commandments.

Oh, God help me! How different it is to hear these words and believe them from understanding in this way how true they are! Each day this soul is more amazed, because it seems to her that They have never left her. On the contrary, she clearly sees, in the way I have already described, that They are within her soul, in its very, very deepest part, in a profound place she cannot describe because she has no learning. She feels this divine companionship within herself.

You may think that, according to this, the soul will not be herself but will be so absorbed that she cannot attend to anything. She can attend much more than before to everything that is in God's service, and when she has no tasks, she remains with that delightful company. If the soul does not fail God, He will never, in my opinion, cease to make His presence known to her so clearly. She has great confidence that God will not abandon her or allow her to lose this favor He has granted. This is reasonable to think, although the soul remains more careful than ever not to displease Him in anything.

It must be understood that the soul does not perceive this presence as fully—that is, as clearly—as it is revealed to her the first time and on certain other occasions when God wishes to give her this gift. If that were so, it would be impossible to attend to anything else, or even to live among people. But although she does not always perceive it in so clear a light, whenever she pays attention she finds this companionship.

Let us now imagine someone in a brightly lit room with other people, and that the windows were closed and the room became dark. Although she no longer has light to see them and will not see them until the light returns, she still knows they are there. The question is whether she can make the light return so that she may see them again whenever she wishes.

This is not in her hands; it happens when our Lord wishes the window of the understanding to open. He shows her great mercy by never leaving her and by wanting her to know it with such certainty.

Here it seems that the divine Majesty wishes to prepare the soul for something further through this wonderful companionship. It is clear that she will receive great help in advancing toward perfection in everything and in losing the fear she sometimes felt before the other favors God granted her, as I have already said.

So it was: she found herself better in every way, and it seemed that, however many sufferings and responsibilities she had, the essential part of her soul never moved from that room. For this reason, she felt in a certain way that there was a division in her soul. Amid the great sufferings she endured shortly after God granted her this favor, she complained about that part of her soul, as Martha complained about Mary. Sometimes she told it that it was always enjoying that peace as it pleased, while leaving her with so many sufferings and responsibilities that she could not join it.

This will seem absurd to you, daughters, but it truly happens this way. Although we understand that the soul is entirely united, what I have said is not a fantasy but something very frequent.

That is why I said that inward things are seen which allow us to understand with certainty that, in a way, there is a very clear distinction between the soul and the spirit, although they are one. The division perceived is so subtle that it sometimes seems the soul and the spirit act differently, according to the delight the Lord wishes to give them.

It also seems to me that the soul is something distinct from its faculties and that they are not one and the same. There are so many things within, and such subtle ones, that it would be presumptuous for me to try to explain them.

We shall see it there, if the Lord grants us the favor of bringing us, through His mercy, to the place where we can understand these secrets.

Pareceros ha, hermanas, que está dicho tanto en este camino espiritual, que no es posible quedar nada por decir. Harto desatino sería pensar esto; pues la grandeza de Dios no tiene término, tampoco le tendrán sus obras. ¿Quién acabará de contar sus misericordias y grandezas? Es imposible, y así no os espantéis de lo que está dicho y se dijere, porque es una cifra de lo que hay que contar de Dios.

Harta misericordia nos hace que haya comunicado estas cosas a persona que las podamos venir a saber, para que mientras más supiéremos que se comunica con las criaturas, más alabaremos su grandeza y nos esforzaremos a no tener en poco almas con que tanto se deleita el Señor, pues cada una de nosotras la tiene, sino que como no las preciamos como merece criatura hecha a la imagen de Dios, así no entendemos los grandes secretos que están en ella.

Plega a Su Majestad, si es servido, menee la pluma y me dé a entender cómo yo os diga algo de lo mucho que hay que decir y da Dios a entender a quien mete en esta morada.

Harto lo he suplicado a Su Majestad, pues sabe que mi intento es que no estén ocultas sus misericordias, para que más sea alabado y glorificado su nombre.

Esperanza tengo que, no por mí, sino por nosotras, hermanas, me ha de hacer esta merced, para que entendáis lo que os importa que no quede por vosotras el celebrar vuestro Esposo este espiritual matrimonio con vuestras almas, pues trae tantos bienes consigo como veréis.

¡Oh gran Dios!, parece que tiembla una criatura tan miserable como yo de tratar en cosa tan ajena de lo que merezco entender. Y es verdad que he estado en gran confusión pensando si será mejor acabar con pocas palabras esta morada; porque me parece que han de pensar que yo lo sé por experiencia, y háceme grandísima vergüenza, porque, conociéndome la que soy, es terrible cosa.

Por otra parte, me ha parecido que es tentación y flaqueza, aunque más juicios de estos echéis. Sea Dios alabado y entendido un poquito más, y gríteme todo el mundo; cuánto más que estaré yo quizá muerta cuando se viniere a ver. Sea bendito el que vive para siempre y vivirá, amén.

Cuando nuestro Señor es servido haber piedad de lo que padece y ha padecido por su deseo esta alma que ya espiritualmente ha tomado por esposa, primero que se consuma el matrimonio espiritual métela en su morada, que es esta séptima; porque así como la tiene en el cielo, debe tener en el alma una estancia adonde sólo Su Majestad mora, y digamos otro cielo.

Porque nos importa mucho, hermanas, que no entendamos es el alma alguna cosa oscura; que como no la vemos, lo más ordinario debe parecer que no hay otra luz interior sino ésta que vemos, y que está dentro de nuestra alma alguna oscuridad.

De la que no está en gracia yo os lo confieso, y no por falta del Sol de Justicia que está en ella dándole ser; sino por no ser ella capaz para recibir la luz, como creo dije en la primera morada, que había entendido una persona que estas desventuradas almas es así que están como en una cárcel oscura, atadas de pies y manos para hacer ningún bien que les aproveche para merecer, y ciegas y mudas.

Con razón podemos compadecernos de ellas y mirar que algún tiempo nos vimos así y que también puede el Señor haber misericordia de ellas.

Tomemos, hermanas, particular cuidado de suplicárselo y no nos descuidar, que es grandísima limosna rogar por los que están en pecado mortal; muy mayor que sería si viésemos un cristiano atadas las manos atrás con una fuerte cadena y él amarrado a un poste y muriendo de hambre, y no por falta de qué coma, que tiene cabe sí muy extremados manjares, sino que no los puede tomar para llegarlos a la boca, y aun está con grande hastío, y ve que va ya a expirar, y no muerte como acá, sino eterna, ¿no sería gran crueldad estarle mirando y no le llegar a la boca qué comiese? Pues ¿qué si por vuestra oración le quitasen las cadenas? Ya lo veis.

Por amor de Dios os pido que siempre tengáis acuerdo en vuestras oraciones de almas semejantes.

No hablamos ahora con ellas, sino con las que ya, por la misericordia de Dios, han hecho penitencia por sus pecados y están en gracia, que podemos considerar no una cosa arrinconada y limitada, sino un mundo interior, adonde caben tantas y tan lindas moradas como habéis visto; y así es razón que sea, pues dentro de esta alma hay morada para Dios.

Pues cuando Su Majestad es servido de hacerle la merced dicha de este divino matrimonio, primero la mete en su morada, y quiere Su Majestad que no sea como otras veces que la ha metido en estos arrobamientos, que yo bien creo que la une consigo entonces y en la oración que queda dicha de unión, aunque no le parece al alma que es tan llamada para entrar en su centro, como aquí en esta morada, sino a la parte superior.

En esto va poco: sea de una manera o de otra, el Señor la junta consigo; mas es haciéndola ciega y muda, como lo quedó San Pablo en su conversión, y quitándola el sentir cómo o de qué manera es aquella merced que goza; porque el gran deleite que entonces siente el alma, es de verse cerca de Dios. Mas cuando la junta consigo, ninguna cosa entiende, que las potencias todas se pierden.

Aquí es de otra manera: quiere ya nuestro buen Dios quitarla las escamas de los ojos y que vea y entienda algo de la merced que le hace, aunque es por una manera extraña; y metida en aquella morada, por visión intelectual, por cierta manera de representación de la verdad, se le muestra la Santísima Trinidad, todas tres personas, con una inflamación que primero viene a su espíritu a manera de una nube de grandísima claridad, y estas Personas distintas, y por una noticia admirable que se da al alma, entiende con grandísima verdad ser todas tres Personas una sustancia y un poder y un saber y un solo Dios; de manera que lo que tenemos por fe, allí lo entiende el alma, podemos decir, por vista, aunque no es vista con los ojos del cuerpo, porque no es visión imaginaria.

Aquí se le comunican todas tres Personas, y la hablan, y la dan a entender aquellas palabras que dice el Evangelio que dijo el Señor: que vendría El y el Padre y el Espíritu Santo a morar con el alma que le ama y guarda sus mandamientos.

¡Oh, válgame Dios! ¡Cuán diferente cosa es oír estas palabras y creerlas, a entender por esta manera cuán verdaderas son! Y cada día se espanta más esta alma, porque nunca más le parece se fueron de con ella, sino que notoriamente ve, de la manera que queda dicho, que están en lo interior de su alma, en lo muy muy interior, en una cosa muy honda, que no sabe decir cómo es, porque no tiene letras, siente en sí esta divina compañía.

Pareceros ha que, según esto, no andará en sí, sino tan embebida que no pueda entender en nada. ­ Mucho más que antes, en todo lo que es servicio de Dios, y en faltando las ocupaciones, se queda con aquella agradable compañía; y si no falta a Dios el alma, jamás El la faltará, a mi parecer, de darse a conocer tan conocidamente su presencia; y tiene gran confianza que no la dejará Dios, pues la ha hecho esta merced, para que la pierda; y así se puede pensar, aunque no deja de andar con más cuidado que nunca, para no le desagradar en nada.

El traer esta presencia entiéndese que no es tan enteramente, digo tan claramente, como se le manifiesta la primera vez y otras algunas que quiere Dios hacerle este regalo; porque si esto fuese, era imposible entender en otra cosa, ni aun vivir entre la gente; mas aunque no es con esta tan clara luz siempre que advierte se halla con esta compañía.

Digamos ahora como una persona que estuviese en una muy clara pieza con otras y cerrasen las ventanas y se quedase a oscuras; no porque se quitó la luz para verlas y que hasta tornar la luz no las ve, deja de entender que están allí. Es de preguntar si cuando torna la luz y las quiere tornar a ver, si puede.

Esto no está en su mano, sino cuando quiere nuestro Señor que se abra la ventana del entendimiento; harta misericordia la hace en nunca se ir de con ella y querer que ella lo entienda tan entendido.

Parece que quiere aquí la divina Majestad disponer el alma para más con esta admirable compañía; porque está claro que será bien ayudada para en todo ir adelante en la perfección y perder el temor que traía algunas veces de las demás mercedes que la hacía, como queda dicho.

Y así fue, que en todo se hallaba mejorada, y le parecía que por trabajos y negocios que tuviese, lo esencial de su alma jamás se movía de aquel aposento, de manera que en alguna manera le parecía había división en su alma, y andando con grandes trabajos, que poco después que Dios le hizo esta merced tuvo, se quejaba de ella, a manera de Marta cuando se quejó de María, y algunas veces la decía que se estaba ella siempre gozando de aquella quietud a su placer, y la deja a ella en tantos trabajos y ocupaciones, que no la puede tener compañía.

Esto os parecerá, hijas, desatino, mas verdaderamente pasa así; que aunque se entiende que el alma está toda junta, no es antojo lo que he dicho, que es muy ordinario.

Por donde decía yo que se ven cosas interiores, de manera que cierto se entiende hay diferencia en alguna manera, y muy conocida, del alma al espíritu, aunque más sea todo uno. Conócese una división tan delicada, que algunas veces parece obra de diferente manera lo uno de lo otro, como el sabor que les quiere dar el Señor.

También me parece que el alma es diferente cosa de las potencias y que no es todo una cosa. Hay tantas y tan delicadas en lo interior, que sería atrevimiento ponerme yo a declararlas.

Allá lo veremos, si el Señor nos hace merced de llevarnos por su misericordia, adonde entendamos estos secretos.