Experiencing union

Likewise, divine goodness granted me, afterward, the grace that from two there was made one, because I could not will anything except as he himself willed. How great is the mercy of the one who realized this union! -- it almost completely stabilized my soul. I possessed God so fully that I was no longer in my previous customary state but was led to find a peace in which I was united with God and was content with everything.
(pp. 181-182)

And I saw in myself two sides and it was as if these had been separated by a furrow. On one side I saw fullness of love and every good, which was from God and not from me. On the other side I saw myself as arid and saw that nothing good originated in me. By this I discovered that it was not I who loved -- even though I saw myself as total love -- but that which loved in me came from God alone. Afterward God's love and mine converged, which brought about an even greater and more burning love than before. As a result my desire was to hasten toward that love.
(p. 183)

When I am in that darkness I do not remember anything about anything human, or the God-man, or anything which has a form. Nevertheless, I see all and I see nothing. As what I have spoken of withdraws and stays with me, I see the God-man. He draws my soul with great gentleness and he sometimes says to me: "You are I and I am you." I see, then, those eyes and that face so gracious and attractive as he leans to embrace me. In short, what proceeds from those eyes and that face is what I said that I saw in that previous darkness which comes from within, and which delights me so that I can say nothing about it. When I am in the God-man my soul is alive. And I am in the God-man much more than in the other vision of seeing God with darkness. The soul is alive in that vision concerning the God-man. The vision with darkness, however, draws me so much more that there is no comparison. On the other hand, I am in the God-man almost continually. It began in this continual fashion on a certain occasion when I was given the assurance that there was no intermediary between God and myself. Since that time there has not been a day or a night in which I did not continually experience this joy of the humanity of Christ.
(p. 205)

Even if at times I can still experience outwardly some little sadness and joy, nonetheless there is in my soul a chamber in which no joy, sadness, or enjoyment from any virtue, or delight over anything that can be named, enters. This is where the All Good, which is not any particular good, resides, and it is so much the All Good that there is no other good. Although I blaspheme by speaking about it -- and I speak about it so badly because I cannot find words to express it -- I nonetheless affirm that in this manifestation of God I discover the complete truth. In it, I understand and possess the complete truth that is in heaven and in hell, in the entire world, in every place, in all things, in every enjoyment in heaven and in every creature. And I see all this is so truly and certainly that no one could convince me otherwise. Even if the whole world were to tell me otherwise, I would laugh it to scorn. Furthermore, I saw the One who is and how he is the being of all creatures. I also saw how he made me capable of understanding those realities I have just spoken about better than when I saw them in that darkness which used to delight me so. Moreover, in that state I see myself as alone with God, totally cleansed, totally sanctified, totally true, totally upright, totally certain, totally celestial in him. And when I am in that state, I do not remember anything else...

When I leave that supreme state in which I do not remember anything else, I come back and see myself in those good things I have just spoken about, but at the same time I see myself completely full of sin and obedient to it, devious, impure, totally false and erroneous, and yet I am in a state of quiet. For what remains with me is a continual divine unction, the highest of all and superior to any I have ever experienced in all my life.

God is the one who leads me and elevates me to that state. I do not go to it on my own, for by myself I would not know how to want, desire, or seek it. I am now continually in this state. Furthermore, God very often elevates me to this state with no need, even, for my consent; for when I hope or expect it least, when I am not thinking about anything, suddenly my soul is elevated by God and I hold dominion over and comprehend the whole world. It seems, then, as if I am no longer on earth but in heaven, in God. This state I am in far surpasses all others, for it is a state of such great fullness, clarity, certainty, ennoblement, and expansion that I feel no other previous state came anywhere near it. Christ's faithful one told me, brother scribe, that she had experienced this unspeakable manifestation of God more that a hundred times, even thousands and thousands of times, and each time her soul had received something fresh, and what it experienced was always novel and different.
(pp. 214-216)

But once the soul is perfectly united to God, it is placed in the seat of truth, for truth is the seat of the soul... It possesses God to the fullness of its capacity. And God even expands the soul so that it may hold all that he wishes to place in it. The soul then sees the One who is, and it sees that all else is nothing except insofar as it takes its being from him. In comparison, everything up until now seems as nothing to it -- as, indeed, all created reality. Nor are death, infirmity, honor, or dishonor of any concern to it. The soul is so satisfied and at rest that it desires nothing; it even loses the capacity to desire and to act effectively because it is bound to God. In this light it sees so well that God does everything with order and appropriateness that even in his absence, it does not pine. Likewise it becomes so conformed to God's will that even in his absence it is content with everything he does and entrusts itself totally to him.
(p. 223)

©1999 by Deb Platt