She desires to get nearer and nearer to God in spite of the pain that she often experiences. Perhaps the first pains we experience are when we are in contemplation of God and are caught by God into High Contemplation. He will at times expose the soul to so much of the Divine Power that she cannot sever herself from the too great fulness of Union with God, though the body is crying to her to do it and the sufferings of the body are all felt by the soul, which is pulled two ways: all this is very painful and makes us almost in a fear of God again. Why should Perfect Love inflict this pain on us? It may be to remind us that He is not only Love, but Power, Might, Majesty, and Dominion also. Yet could this ever be forgotten? It seems incredible. But it does not do to trust to one's soul, or to count on what she will do or not do: we know that the soul has forgotten almost everything about God, so much so that we are now thankful to arrive even so far as being quite certain that He exists! What infinite kindness that He should consent and condescend to Himself be her Teacher! But He does so condescend, and the more the soul relearns of God, the more she also learns that He is never weary of working for us all: this keeps the soul in a state of intense gratitude.
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When the soul arrives at Union with God, does she remain always in Union? Yes, but not at the degree of Union which is Contact. What is the difference? It can perhaps be most easily explained (though extremely imperfectly) by referring to the union of married life. In this union, though we live in one house, we are not always both in that house at the same time; but this does not dissolve our union, and we both know our way to return there, and the right to meet is always ours. When we are both in the house, although not in the same room, there is a much nearer feeling about it, and we are apt to give a momentary call one to the other, just to have the pleasure of response: yet, though we are aware the other one is in the house and that there is no part of the house where we are forbidden to meet—it is not enough; love requires more: it will be necessary for one to go and seek the actual presence of the other (the soul does this by a quiet prayer with perhaps a few words, but more probably no words). The one finds the other one; but the other one is occupied, so the one waits patiently (this is passive contemplation), and suddenly the occupied one is so constrained by love for the waiting one that he must turn to her, open wide his arms, and embrace her—they meet, they touch, they are content. In spiritual life this is contact or ecstasy or rapture. Here comes in the immensity of the difference between joys physical and joys spiritual—physical joys being limited to five senses: spiritual joys being above senses and open to limitless variations; but in order that these may be known in their fulness, we must eventually (after leaving the flesh) rise to immense heights of perfection: the joys enjoyed by the Archangel would destroy a lesser angel: the degree of joy that invigorates the saint, that sends him into rhapsodies of happiness, would destroy the sinner—(becoming insupportable agony to the sinner). This celestial joy is, fundamentally, a question of the enduring of some un-nameable energy. How can energy be a means of this immeasurable Divine joy? After years of experience I find I cannot go back upon the knowledge that I acquired on the very first occasion of experience—that energy is a fundamental principle of the mystery.
But how, it may very well be asked, do sins interfere with the reception of this activity? Sins are all imperfections, thickenings of the soul from self-will: pure soul is necessary for the happy reception of this celestial activity, and because impurities are automatically dissipated by this activity, and the dissipation or dispersion of them is the most awful agony conceivable when too suddenly done, what is bliss to the saint is the extremity of torture to the sinner. Now we come very fearfully and dreadfully to understand something more of the meanings, the happenings, of the Judgment Day. Christ will inflict no direct wilful punishment on any soul; but when He presents Himself before all souls and they behold His Face, immediately they will receive the terrible might of the activity of celestial joy. The regenerated will endure and rejoice; the unrepentant sinner will agonise, and he must flee from before the Face of Christ, because the agony that he feels is the dispersal of his imperfect soul; and where shall the sinner flee, where shall he go to find happiness? for saint and sinner alike desire happiness, and there is in Spirit-life only one happiness—the Bliss of God. So then let us be careful to prepare ourselves to be able to receive and endure this happiness, even if it can at first be only in a small degree, so that we shall not be condemned by our own pain to leave the Presence of God altogether and consequently lose Celestial Pleasures; let us at least prepare ourselves to remain near enough to know something of this tremendous living.
It was this Divine Activity which on the night of the Too Great Happiness so anguished my imperfect soul. But that night, and that anguish, taught my soul what she could never have learnt by any other means, and what it was I learnt I find myself unable to pass on to anyone; but that night was for my soul the turning-point of her destiny, that night altered my soul for evermore; that night I knew God as deeply as He can be known whilst the soul is in flesh.
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God uses also a peculiar drawing power. All souls feeling desire towards God are to a greater or lesser degree conscious of this, and, as we know, frequently remain conscious of it as a desire and nothing further to the end of life in flesh. By means of it He draws a soul towards Himself until, because of it, the whole being is willing to make efforts at self-improvement, and this is the essential: it is this cleaning up of the character, this purification, which alone can bring us to the point where we can receive God's communications of Himself (in other words, ecstasies and periods of reunion with Celestial-living). Ecstasies inspire and awaken the soul: they convince the mind absolutely of the existence of another form of living and of God Himself.
After ecstasy the efforts of the entire being are bent on trying to perfect itself, and extraordinary Graces may be freely and almost continually given to us in order to make improvement more rapid for us. The feeling for God which before ecstasy was a deep (and often very painful) longing for God now increases to a burning, never-ceasing desire for Him: only three thoughts can be said to truly occupy a person from this stage onwards—how to please God, how to get nearer to Him, how to show practical gratitude. He may increase the flow of His Power to a soul till she is in great distress, longing to leap out of the body owing to the immensity of God's attraction. This attraction at times has a very real and sensible effect upon the body: it feels to counteract gravity, it makes the body feel so light it is about to leave the ground; it affects walking, and unaccountably changes it to staggering. To receive this attraction can be an ecstatic condition, but is by no means ecstasy. So long as we have power to move the body by will we are not in true ecstasy. In ecstasy the body feels to be disconnected in some unaccountable manner from the will; it lies inert, though it knows itself and knows that it stills lives—which fundamentally differentiates it from sleep, because in sleep we do not know our body, we do not know if we are alive or dead, we know nothing. In ecstasy is no such blankness: merely the body is perforce inert, it would be entirely forgotten but for its periods of distress.
Neither can ecstasy be confused with dreaming, by even the most simple person. In dreaming, objects and events of a familiar type still surround us; the total inconsequence with which they present themselves alone makes dream-living unlike actual living, for it remains fundamentally of the same type—physical and full of persons, forms, objects, and word-thoughts. We can procure sleep by willing it, but we cannot will to procure ecstasy: we find it totally independent of will.
The Attraction of God can be a penetrating pain, because the soul, terribly drawn to God, exceedingly near Him, yet remains unsatisfied even in this close proximity. Why? Because she is being subjected to one Force only—she longs, she remains near, and receives nothing. God is not bestowing His Activity upon her, which is the way that she "knows" Him—she is not living the celestial life.