Unity of souls is experienced, not only with those in the body, who have affinity with ourselves, but also with those out of the body. I realise with the holy prophet David, a correspondence and unity, which renders our souls one in God. You will experience this unity with the saints more fully, when all perception of self is taken away. St. Paul says, "Ye are come to an innumerable company of angels—to the spirits of just men made perfect." David was in the Old Testament, what Paul was in the New. They were both deeply interior Christians. The Apostles, after having received the Holy Ghost, spake all languages. This has also a spiritual meaning. They communicated grace, according to the necessities of each one. This is speaking the word—the efficacious word, which replenishes the soul. This nourishing, life-giving word is represented by the manna, and the reality is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is himself the bread of life in the soul. Amen, Jesus!
PAINFUL EXPERIENCE.
To-day my health is better, and I find myself able to reply to your letter. Let the view of yourself that God gives you, be accepted, whether it relates to your fallen condition in general, or to particular faults; but add nothing to this view by your own reflections. These continual reflex acts of the mind, do not help you; they do not remove the faults. I am not surprised, that you find in yourself so many evils; evils which render you almost insupportable to yourself. When God accomplishes the work of purification, he removes all that is opposed to the divine inflowing life.
These evils of your nature, which are now apparent, and which were deeply concealed, are perceived by you, only because they are passing out from their hiding-places. All persons do not have so deep a knowledge of themselves; therefore do not suffer so much, because all are not destined to so profound a death and burial while in the body. Be silent, and drink the bitter cup. These humiliations will endure until your state is in some degree perfected; after which they will become more and more slight, and only at intervals, until the death and burial is consummated.
ECSTACY OF THE MIND, AND THE WILL OR HEART.—THE DIFFERENCE.
The intellectual part of man can be in some degree united to God; but the soul loses itself in God, only by the loss of the will and by love. This loss of the will is the true ecstasy, which is a permanent state, and is effected without any violence to nature. When love is the controlling exercise, the will follows, and the soul is reduced to unity; as in the natural exercise of love, the stronger the love, the greater the submission of the soul to the object beloved. Sacred love does not bind parts, but draws it fully, until it is absorbed wholly in this divine oneness.
The mind may tend towards its divine object, with ardor, but the will not concurring, causes dissonance and swooning, or impetuous transports. I call this momentary ecstasy; it cannot long endure without separating the soul from the body.
The difference between these two states is, as that of water, retained in the air by a machine, and of a river, running naturally into the sea, as ordered by the grand Architect of the universe. Love, which carries the will in its train, changes the whole man; this is the divine, the true ecstasy. This is what is called transformation, and loss of the soul in God. It is certain, however, that the creature always remains a being distinct from God.