St.
Teresa of Avila,
The interior castle.
Mansion 7,
Selected Verses.
He has thus designed to unite himself with his creature.
He has bound himself to her as firmly as two human beings are joined in wedlock and will never separate himself from her.
Spiritual betrothal is different,
And like the grace of union,
Is often dissolved.
For though two things are made one by union,
Separation is still possible and each part then remains a thing by itself.
This favor generally passes quickly,
And afterward the soul,
As far as it is aware,
Remains without his company.
This is not so in the spiritual marriage with our Lord,
Where the soul always remains in its center with its God.
Union may be symbolized by two wax candles,
The tips of which touch each other so closely that there is but one light.
Or again,
The wick,
The wax,
And the light become one,
But the one candle can again be separated from the other and the two candles remain distinct.
Or the wick may be withdrawn from the wax.
But the spiritual marriage is like rain falling from heaven into a river or stream,
Becoming one in the same liquid,
So that the river and rainwater cannot be divided.
Or it resembles a streamlet flowing into the ocean,
Which cannot be afterward disunited from it.
This marriage may be also likened to a room in which the bright light enters through two windows.
Though divided when it enters,
The light becomes one in the same.
Perhaps when St.
Paul said,
He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him,
He meant this sovereign marriage,
Which presupposes his majesty's having been joined to the soul by union.
The same apostle says,
To me,
To live is Christ,
And to die is gain.
This,
I think,
Might here be uttered by the soul,
For now the little butterfly of which I spoke dies with supreme joy,
For Christ is her life.
This becomes more manifest by its effects as time goes on,
For the soul learns that it is God who gives it life,
By certain secret intuitions too strong to be misunderstood,
And keenly felt,
Although impossible to describe.
These produce such overmastering feelings that the person experiencing them cannot refrain from amorous exclamations.
For from the bosom of the divinity,
Where God seems to ever hold the soul fast clasped,
Issue streams of milk which solace the servants of the castle.
I think he wishes them to share,
In some way,
The riches the soul enjoys.
Therefore,
From the flowing river in which the little streamlet is swallowed up,
Some drops of water flow every now and then to sustain those who in bodily things must serve the bride and bridegroom.
A person who has unexpectedly plunged into cold water could not fail to be aware of it.
Here the case is the same,
But even more evident.
A quantity of water could not fall on us unless it came from some source.
So the soul feels certain that there must be someone within it who lances forth these darts and vivifies its own life,
And that there is a sun from whence this brilliant light streams forth,
From the interior of the spirit to its faculties.
