第五章

描述靈魂的翱翔——天主提升靈魂的另一種方式，需要極大的勇氣方能承受。天主深愛靈魂，樂於賜予此恩，書中詳加說明。本章獲益極豐。

1. 神魂的翱翔。2. 靈魂完全失去自主。3. 蓄水池的比喻。4. 蒙受此恩後的義務。5. 由此生出的謙遜。6. 被釘十字架的主如何安慰這樣的靈魂。7. 謙遜的靈魂對這些恩惠懷有畏懼。8. 神魂突然翱翔。9. 所見的景象。10. 靈魂是否留在身體之內。11. 以色列子民所帶回的憑證。12. 此恩非出自魔鬼。13. 第三種恩惠：輕視塵世。14. 接受此恩所需的勇氣。

1. 出神還有另一種形式，雖然本質上與前章所述相同，卻在靈魂內產生截然不同的感受。我稱之為「神魂的翱翔」，²⁸⁸因為靈魂突然感到一種急速的運動，彷彿神魂被以令人震驚的速度帶走，在最初尤為如此。因此我說，蒙天主賜予此恩的靈魂，除了要有堅強的勇氣，還需有大信德、大信靠與完全的依順，好讓天主隨意處置它。

2. 姐妹們，你們以為一個神志清醒的人，看到自己的靈魂被提升離開身體——有時，照我們所讀到的，連肉身也隨之浮起——²⁸⁹心裡不過是輕微的驚慌嗎？在那最初的瞬間，靈魂並不確定這究竟是否出於天主的作為，而她既不知神魂往哪裡去，也不知是誰提升了她，更不明白這一切如何發生。這種動作能抵抗嗎？不能；有人告訴我，抵抗只會加速這運動。天主此刻似乎要讓那個屢屢將自己完全交託在祂手中、也屢屢獻上自身的靈魂明白：它已不再屬於自己，於是越抗拒，便越被帶走得猛烈。因此這個人下定決心，從此不再抵抗，如同麥稈被琥珀吸引時那樣順從——這景象你們或許見過——把自己交在全能者手中，深知凡事順勢而為才是上策。說到麥稈，一位強壯結實的大漢提起一根麥稈，想必就像我們威能無限的大能者提升我們的神魂那般輕而易舉。²⁹⁰

3. 我先前在第四重居所談過的那個蓄水池²⁹¹——雖然我記不清確切在哪裡——先前是靜靜地、悄悄地注滿，沒有任何擾動；但如今，那位節制泉源與水流、不許海洋越過疆界的偉大天主²⁹²鬆開了閘門，洪流以磅礡之勢湧入蓄水池，一股巨浪騰空而起，足以將我們靈魂這葉小舟高高托起。船本身、船長與水手都無法憑己意駕馭海浪的狂烈，阻止波濤將船帶往任何地方；更遑論靈魂的內在，此刻哪裡能停留在自己願意之處，或強迫感官與官能超越天主所定的範圍而行動——至於外在的能力，在這裡全然無用武之地。

4. 姐妹們，我只是寫到這位大君王、大天主之無限能力的顯現，便已驚歎不已，更何況那些親身領受的人？我深信，若天主陛下以這樣的方式向世上最大的罪人顯現，他們必定從此不敢冒犯祂——縱然不是出於愛，至少也是出於畏懼。那些以如此崇高的方式接受教導的靈魂，負有何等重大的義務，要竭盡全力不使這樣的主人失望！我奉祂的名懇求你們，姐妹們，凡是蒙受過這些或類似恩惠的，切勿只滿足於領受，而要記住：蒙賜越多，欠還越重。²⁹³

5. 這一想法使靈魂深感恐懼：若非主賜予所需的大勇氣，它必定終日悲苦不堪。因為一旦回顧天主陛下為它所行的一切，再審視自己，便發現自己所做的善事何其稀少，遠不及所應盡的本分；更糟的是，那可憐的一點點功勞也充滿瑕疵、缺失與懶散。為了淡忘所有善行的種種不足（若它確曾行過善），它覺得最好是把這些通通忘卻，時刻銘記自己的罪過，把自己投入天主的仁慈懷抱——因為它無力償還這份恩情——只求祂施予憐憫與慈悲，正如祂向罪人一貫展示的那樣。

6. 也許祂會如同對待某位在苦難中跪於苦像前的人那樣回應她——那人極為憂苦，覺得自己從未有任何東西可以奉獻給天主、也從未有任何祭獻。被釘十字架的主安慰她說，祂將自己在受難中承受的所有痛苦與勞累，全部賜予她，使她能以之作為己有，獻給天父。²⁹⁴我從她口中得知，她當下便感到安慰；這些話在心中滋養了她，每當感到自己的可憐渺小，她都會憶起這些話，從中得到鼓勵與安慰。我還能舉出好幾個同類的例子——都是從許多熱心祈禱的聖善之人那裡聽來的——但我不敢細述，免得你們以為這些都是我自身的經歷。

7. 我認為這個例子極具意義：它說明，靠著認識自己的一無所有、時刻憶念自己的貧乏與卑微、深知我們所有的一切都是從祂領受而來，²⁹⁵便能蒙天主喜悅。因此，姐妹們，為了接受主為提升到此境界的靈魂所賜的這一恩惠，以及許多其他恩惠，需要勇氣；我想，倘若靈魂是謙遜的，接受最後這份仁慈反而需要更多的剛毅。願天主為了祂的名賜予我們謙遜。

8. 回到神魂突然翱翔這件事。靈魂看來確實離開了肉身——但肉身並未死去，另一方面，這個人當然也沒有死亡——只是有那麼幾秒，她自己也說不清神魂究竟是否仍在體內。²⁹⁶她感到自己已被完全帶進另一個截然不同的境界，遠異於我們所住的世界；其中展示的光明如此超然，²⁹⁷以致就算她窮盡一生試圖描繪那光明與所見的奇事，也絕無法辦到。在那一瞬間，她的心靈一次領受到無數的事，縱使想像力與理智花費多年試圖一一列舉，也想不起其中千分之一。

9. 這異象不是智性的，而是想像性的，靈魂的眼睛所見，比肉眼見到塵世事物還要清晰。雖無一言道出，神魂卻學到了許多真理；例如，若它見到某位聖人，便立刻認得，猶如與對方相識多年一般。²⁹⁸有時，除了靈魂的眼睛以智性異象所見的，還有其他事物顯示給它。在想像性的異象中，通常可以見到我們的主，有一群天使隨侍左右；然而，無論是肉眼還是靈魂的眼睛，²⁹⁹都見不到任何東西，因為這些異象以及許多難以言說的事，都藉著某種奇妙的直覺被揭示，那是我無法解釋的。也許曾蒙此恩、又比我更有才能的人，或許能夠描述——但我認為這是極困難的事。

10. 我無法確定靈魂在這期間是否仍在體內：我既不敢肯定，也不敢否認。我時常這樣想：正如太陽停在天上，光芒卻能瞬間抵達大地，靈魂與神魂（二者如同太陽與其光芒，本為一體）也可能在停留本位的同時，藉著從正義的真太陽傳來的那股熾熱力量，讓某個更高的部分超越自身向上飛升。其實，我也不確定自己在說什麼，但確實發生的是：在靈魂深處，有一種翱翔以子彈出膛的速度騰起（我實在想不出更好的名字）。這運動雖然無聲，卻清晰可辨，絕不可能是幻覺。³⁰⁰靈魂幾乎完全出離自身——至少它的感受如此；其間奧秘大事向它顯示，等這人回復知覺後，所領受的益處極大，視塵世一切財富如糞土，比不上她所見之物。此後人世生活讓她難以忍受，那些曾令她喜悅的，如今全都不放在心上。³⁰¹

11. 當初奉命率先前往應許之地的以色列子民，帶回了那地的果實。³⁰²在這裡，天主似乎也要讓靈魂見到它正前往之地的一點面貌，賜予它勇氣，去走過那段艱辛漫長之旅的試煉——既已知道自己必往何處才能得到安息。你們或許以為，如此短暫的時間哪能獲得這般益處，然而唯有親身體驗過此恩在靈魂裡留下何等顯著益處的人，才能體會其中的價值。

12. 由此可以清楚看出，這絕非魔鬼的作為；無論想像力還是邪惡者，都無法製造出在靈魂裡留下如此平安、寧靜與美好果實的東西，尤其是以下三種崇高的恩惠。³⁰³第一種是對天主偉大的領悟——我們目睹愈多，便愈清晰地認識祂。第二種是出自自我認識的謙遜：看到自己這樣卑微的受造物，面對創造了如此奇事的造物主，竟曾在過去冒犯祂，或敢在此刻仰望祂，由此生出謙遜。

13. 第三種恩惠是輕視塵世的一切，除非那些東西是奉獻於這樣偉大的天主的服務。天郎以這些珠寶開始裝扮祂的新娘；這些珠寶如此珍貴，祂不容她輕率地珍藏。³⁰⁴這些異象如此深刻地銘刻在她的記憶裡，我相信她永遠不會忘記，直到永遠享有為止；若要忘記，那將是最大的不幸。³⁰⁵但那賜予她這些禮物的淨配有能力賜給她恩寵，使她不至於失去。

14. 我曾說過，靈魂需要勇氣——你們以為，當神魂感受到真的與肉身分離，察覺到自己失去知覺卻不明原因，這對神魂來說是小事嗎？賜予一切其餘恩惠的主，也必賜予剛毅之力。你們會說，這樣的驚惶是有充分報償的，我也這樣認為。願那能賜予如此恩惠的主永受讚美，願天主陛下俯就，使我們配得上事奉祂。阿門。

TREATS OF THE SAME SUBJECT AS THE LAST CHAPTER AND DESCRIBES THE FLIGHT OF THE SPIRIT, WHICH IS ANOTHER WAY BY WHICH GOD ELEVATES THE SOUL: THIS REQUIRES GREAT COURAGE IN ONE EXPERIENCING IT. THIS FAVOUR, BY WHICH GOD GREATLY DELIGHTS THE SOUL IS EXPLAINED. THIS CHAPTER IS VERY PROFITABLE.

1. The flight of the spirit. 2. Self-control completely lost. 3. Symbol of the two cisterns. 4. Obligations following these favours. 5. Humility produced by them. 6. How our crucified Lord comforted such a soul. 7. A humble soul fears these favours. 8. Mysteries learnt during the flight of the spirit. 9. Imaginary visions sometimes accompany intellectual ones. 10. How the flight of the spirit takes place. 11. The soul fortified by it. 12. Three great graces left in the soul. 13. The third grace. 14. Fear caused by this favour.

1. THERE is another form of rapture, which, though essentially the same as the last, yet produces very different feelings in the soul. I call it the ‘flight of the spirit,’²⁸⁸ for the soul suddenly feels so rapid a sense of motion that the spirit appears to hurry it away with a speed which is very alarming, especially at first. Therefore I said that the soul on whom God bestows this favour requires strong courage, besides great faith, trust, and resignation, so that God may do what He chooses with it.

2. Do you suppose a person in perfect possession of her senses feels but little dismay at her soul’s being drawn above her, while sometimes, as we read, even the body rises with it?²⁸⁹ She does not know where the spirit is going, who is raising her, nor how it happens; for at the first instant of this sudden movement one does not feel sure it is caused by God. Can it possibly be resisted? No; resistance only accelerates the motion, as some one told me. God now appears to be teaching the soul, which has so often placed itself absolutely in His hands and offered itself entirely to Him, that it no longer belongs to itself; thus it is snatched away more vehemently in consequence of its opposition. Therefore this person resolved to resist no more than does a straw when attracted by amber (a thing you may have seen); she yielded herself into the hands of Him who is Almighty, seeing it is best to make a virtue of necessity. Speaking of straw, doubtless it is as easy for a stalwart, strapping fellow to lift a straw as for our mighty and powerful Giant to elevate our spirit.²⁹⁰

3. It seems that the cistern of water of which I spoke (but I cannot quite remember where) in the fourth mansion,²⁹¹ was formerly filled gently and quietly, without any movement; but now this great God Who restrains the springs and the waters and will not permit the ocean to transgress its bounds,²⁹² lets loose the streams, which with a powerful rush flow into the cistern and a mighty wave rises, strong enough to uplift on high the little vessel of our soul. Neither the ship herself nor her pilot and sailors can at their choice control the fury of the sea and stop its carrying the boat where it will: far less can the interior of the soul now stay where it chooses or force its senses or faculties to act more than He Who holds them in His dominion decrees; as for the exterior powers, they are here quite useless.

4. Indeed I am amazed, sisters, while merely writing of this manifestation of the immense power of this great King and Monarch. Then what must be felt by those who actually experience it? I am convinced that if His Majesty were to reveal Himself thus to the greatest sinners on earth, they would never dare to offend Him again—if not through love at least through fear of Him. What obligations bind those taught in so sublime a manner to strive with all their might not to displease such a Master! In His Name I beg of you, sisters, who have received these or the like favours, not to rest content with merely receiving them but to remember that she who owes much has much to pay.²⁹³

5. This thought terrifies the soul exceedingly: unless the great courage needed was given it by our Lord, it would suffer great and constant grief; for looking first at what His Majesty has done for it and then upon itself, it sees how little good it has performed compared with what it was bound to do, and that the paltry service it has rendered was full of faults, failures and tepidity. To efface the remembrance of the many imperfections of all its good deeds (if indeed it has ever performed any) it thinks best to forget them altogether and to be ever mindful of its sins, casting itself on the mercy of God since it cannot repay its debt to Him and begging for the pity and compassion He ever shows to sinners.

6. Perhaps He will answer as He did to some one who was kneeling before a crucifix in great affliction on this account, for she felt she had never had anything to offer God nor to sacrifice for His sake. The Crucified One consoled her by saying that He gave her for herself all the pains and labours He had borne in His passion, that she might offer them as her own to His Father.²⁹⁴ I learnt from her that she at once felt comforted and enriched by these words which she never forgets but recalls whenever she realizes her own wretchedness and feels encouraged and consoled. I could relate several other incidents of the same kind learnt in conversation with many holy people much given to prayer, but I will not recount them lest you might imagine they relate to myself.

7. I think this example is very instructive; it shows that we please our Lord by self-knowledge, by the constant recollection of our poverty and miseries, and by realizing that we possess nothing but what we have received from Him.²⁹⁵ Therefore courage is needed, sisters, in order to receive this and many other favours which come to a soul elevated to this state by our Lord; I think that if the soul is humble it requires more valour than ever for this last mercy. May God grant us humility for His Name’s sake.

8. To return to this sudden rapture of the spirit. The soul really appears to have quitted the body, which however is not lifeless, and though, on the other hand, the person is certainly not dead, yet she herself cannot, for a few seconds, tell whether her spirit remains within her body or not.²⁹⁶ She feels that she has been wholly transported into another and a very different region from that in which we live, where a light so unearthly is shown²⁹⁷ that, if during her whole lifetime she had been trying to picture it and the wonders seen, she could not possibly have succeeded. In an instant her mind learns so many things at once that if the imagination and intellect spent years in striving to enumerate them, it could not recall a thousandth part of them.

9. This vision is not intellectual but imaginary and is seen by the eyes of the soul more clearly than earthly things are seen by our bodily eyes. Although no words are pronounced, the spirit is taught many truths; for instance, if it beholds any of the saints, it knows them at once as well as if intimately acquainted with them for years.²⁹⁸ Occasionally, besides what the eyes of the soul perceive in intellectual vision, other things are shown it. In an imaginary vision it usually sees our Lord accompanied by a host of angels; yet neither the bodily eyes nor the eyes of the soul²⁹⁹ see anything, for these visions and many other things impossible to describe, are revealed by some wonderful intuition that I cannot explain. Perhaps those who have experienced this favour and possess more ability than myself may be able to describe it, although it seems to me a most difficult task.

10. I cannot tell whether the soul dwells in the body meanwhile or not: I would neither affirm that it does nor that the body is deprived of it. I have often thought that as, though the sun does not leave his place in the heavens yet his rays have power to reach the earth instantaneously, so the soul and the spirit, which make one and the same thing (like the sun and its rays) may, while remaining in its own place, through the strength of the ardour coming to it from the true Sun of Justice, send up some higher part of it above itself. In fact I do not understand what I am talking about, but the truth is that, with the swiftness of a bullet fired from a gun, an upward flight takes place in the interior of the soul. (I know no other name for it but ‘flight.’) Although noiseless, it is too manifest a movement to be any illusion³⁰⁰ and the soul is quite outside itself; at least that is the impression made upon it. Great mysteries are revealed to it meanwhile, and when the person returns to consciousness she is so greatly benefited that she holds all this world’s goods as filth compared with what she has seen. Henceforth earthly life is grievous to her and what used to please her now remains uncared for and unnoticed.³⁰¹
   ’Muchas veces he pensado, si como el sol estándose en el cielo, que sus rayos tienen tanta fuerza, que no mudándose él de allí, de presto llegan acá; si el alma y el espíritu (que son una misma cosa, como le es el soly sus rayos) puede, quedándose ella en su puesto, con la fuerza de calor que le viene del verdadero Sol de justicia, alguna parte superior salir sobre sì misma. En fin, yo no sé lo que digo, lo que es verdad es, que con la presteza que sale la pelota de un arcabuz, cuando le ponen el fuego, se levanta en lo interior un vuelo (que yo no sé otro nombre que le poner) que aunque no hace ruido, hace movimento tan claro, que no puede ser antojo en ninguna manera; y muy fuera de si misma, á todo lo que puede entender, se le muestran grandes cosas.’

11. Those children of Israel who were sent on first to the Land of Promise brought back tokens from it;³⁰² so here our Lord seems to seek to show the soul something of the land to which it is travelling, to give it courage to pass through the trials of its painful journey, now that it knows where it must go to find rest. You may fancy that such profit could not thus quickly be obtained, yet only those who have experienced what signal benefits this favour leaves in the soul can realize its value.

12. This clearly shows it to be no work of the devil; neither the imagination nor the evil one could represent what leaves such peace, calm, and good fruits in the soul, and particularly the following three graces of a very high order.³⁰³ The first of these is a perception of the greatness of God which becomes clearer to us as we witness more of it. Secondly, we gain self-knowledge and humility from seeing how creatures so base as ourselves in comparison with the Creator of such wonders have dared to offend Him in the past or venture to gaze on Him now.

13. The third grace is a contempt for all earthly things unless they are consecrated to the service of so great a God. With such jewels the Bridegroom begins to deck His Bride; they are too valuable for her to keep them carelessly.³⁰⁴ These visions are so deeply engraved in her memory that I believe she can never forget them until she enjoys them for evermore, for to do so would be the greatest misfortune.³⁰⁵ But the Spouse Who gave her these gifts has power to give her grace not to lose them.

14. I told you that courage was required by the soul, for do you think it is a trifling matter for the spirit to feel literally separated from the body, as it does when perceiving that it is losing its senses without understanding the reason? There is need that He Who gives all the rest should include fortitude. You will say this fright is well rewarded, and so say I. May He Who can bestow such graces be for ever praised and may His Majesty vouchsafe that we may be worthy to serve Him. Amen.