Chapter 8

Of the great profit that she derived from not entirely abandoning prayer, for fear that she might lose her soul. She describes the excellence of prayer as a help towards winning back what is lost, and exhorts everyone to practise it. She tells what great gains it brings and how very beneficial it is even for those who may later give it up, to devote some time to anything as good

IT is not without reason that I have dwelt so long on this period of my life. I plainly see that it will give no one any pleasure to read about anyone so wicked, and I would wish my readers to hold me in abhorrence as a soul so obstinate and ungrateful to One who conferred such mercies on it. I wish also that I had permission to tell how often I failed God through not having leaned on the strong pillar of prayer.

I spent nearly twenty years on this stormy sea, falling and evermore rising again, but to little purpose as afterwards I would fall once more. My life was so far from perfection that I took hardly any notice of venial sins and, though I feared mortal sins, I was not sufficiently afraid to keep myself out of temptations. I must say that this was one of the most painful ways of life that can be imagined. I derived no joy from God and no pleasure from the world. When I was among the pleasures of the world, I was saddened by the memory of what I owed to God, and my worldly affections disturbed me when I was with God. A battle like this is so painful that I do not know how I managed to endure it for a month, still less for so many years. Nevertheless, I can plainly see the great mercy which the Lord did me, in still giving me the courage to pray, while thus consorting with the world. I say ‘courage’ because I do not know anything for which greater courage is needed than for plotting against the King, knowing that He knows it and yet never withdrawing from His presence. For though we are always in the presence of God, it seems to me that those who practise prayer are present in a special way, for they see that He is watching them, while the rest may be in God’s presence for several days without remembering that He can see them.

It is true that in these years there were many months, and I believe once a year on end, in which I kept myself from offending God, and gave myself much to prayer. During that time I took various careful precautions against sinning – and I mention this because what I am writing must tell the whole truth. But since I have little memory of those good days, they must have been few and the bad ones numerous. Yet not many days passed without great periods of prayer except when I was very ill or very busy. When I was ill, I was nearer to God, and I contrived that the nuns who were around me should be so too. I prayed the Lord for this, and often spoke with Him. So, omitting the year of which I have been speaking, of the twenty-eight years since I started to pray I have spent more than eighteen in this strife and contention between converse with God and the society of the world. As for the rest, which remain to be described, the battle has not been light, though its causes have been different. But since I have, as I think, been in God’s service, and have come to know the vanity of the world, all has gone smoothly, as I shall tell later.

My reason for relating all this at such length is, as I have already said, to show God’s mercy and my ingratitude, also that men may understand what a great blessing God confers on a soul in disposing it to serious prayer, although it is not as prepared for it as it should be. Yet if it perseveres through sins and temptations and the countless varieties of snares laid by the devil, I am certain that the Lord will bring it in the end to the port of salvation, just as – so far as can be seen at present – He has brought me. May it please His Majesty that I may never be lost again!

The great blessings possessed by those who practise prayer – and by this I mean mental prayer – have been described by many saintly and good men. Glory be to God for this! If it were not so, though I have little humility, I am not presumptuous enough to speak on this subject. I can say what I know from experience, namely that however sinful a man may be, he should not abandon prayer once he has begun it. It is the means by which all may be repaired again, and without it amendment would be much more difficult. Let him not be persuaded by the devil, as I was, to give it up out of humility. Let him believe rather that his words are true who says that if we will truly repent and resolve not to offend Him, He will return to his former friendship with us1 and grant us favours once more, sometimes even more generously than before, if only our repentance deserves it As for the man who has not begun to pray, I beg him for the love of our Lord not to forego this great blessing.

Here there is no place for fear, only for desire. Even if a man does not make progress or strive for perfection, so that he may deserve the gifts and delights lavished by God on those who do, yet he will gradually attain knowledge of the road that leads to Heaven; and if he perseveres I place my hope for him in the mercy of God, since no one ever took His Majesty for his friend without receiving a reward. Mental prayer is, as I see it, simply a friendly intercourse and frequent solitary conversation with Him who, as we know, loves us. Now if love is to be true and friendship lasting, certain conditions are necessary. On the Lord’s side, as we know, these cannot fail, but our nature is wicked, sensual, and ungrateful. Therefore, you cannot succeed in loving Him as He loves you, since it is not in your nature to do so. But when you see how important it is to you to have His friendship, and how much He loves you, you must rise above the pain of being so much in the company of One who is so different from you.

O my God, how infinitely good You are! It is in this relationship that I seem to see You and myself. O joy of the angels, when I think of it, I long to dissolve in love for You! How true it is that You suffer those who will not suffer You to be with them! What a good friend You are, O my Lord, to comfort and endure them, and wait for them to rise to Your condition, and yet in the meantime to be patient of the state they are in! You take into account, O Lord, the times they loved You, and for one moment of penitence forget all their offences against You. This I have clearly seen in my own case, and I cannot see, O my Creator, why the whole world does not strive to draw near to You in this bond of friendship. The wicked, whose nature is unlike Yours, should come to You so that You may make them good. They should allow You to be with them for some two hours each day even though they may not be with You, but are engaged in a thousand revolving thoughts and distractions, as I used to be. But by making this effort against themselves, and desiring to be in such good company – for at the beginning, and sometimes later on, they can do no more – you compel the evil spirits, Lord, to cease their attacks, and every day the devil has less strength against them, till finally you give them the victory. So, O Life of all lives, You slay none of those who trust in You, and want You for their friend, but preserve the life of the body in greater health, and give life to the soul.

I do not understand the fears of those who are afraid to begin mental prayer. I do not know what frightens them. It is to the devil’s profit to instil fear into us, so that he may do us real harm. By making me afraid he prevents my thinking how I offended God and how much I owe Him, of the existence of hell and of glory and of the great trials and sorrows that He endured for me. This was the whole extent of my meditation, for so long as I was subject to these dangers. It was on this that I dwelt whenever I could, and very often over a period of some years I was more occupied with the wish that the time I had assigned myself for prayer would end, and with listening whenever the dock struck, than with other and better thoughts. Very often I would have undertaken any sharp penance that might have been laid upon me more willingly than the act of recollection preparatory to prayer. Indeed, the violence with which the devil assailed me was so irresistible, or my bad habits were so strong, that I never got so far as to pray; and the depression I felt on entering the oratory was so strong that I had to avail myself of all my courage to force myself in. As for courage, they say that mine is far from slight, and it is well known that God has given me more than a woman’s share of it, though I have made poor use of it.

In the end the Lord came to my help, and after I had forced myself to pray I found greater peace and joy than at some other times when I have prayed because I wanted to.

If the Lord bore for so long, then, with so wicked a creature as I – and this was clearly the way in which all my ills were remedied – why should anyone be afraid, however wicked he may be? However bad his condition, he will not remain in it for as many years as I did after receiving so many favours from the Lord. Seeing that He bore so long with me only because I desired and sought some place and time for Him to be with me, how could anyone despair? This desire came to me very often without my willing it, merely because I had forced myself to seek it, or the Lord Himself had forced me to do so. If prayer is so beneficial and so necessary, therefore, to those who do not serve Him but offend Him, and if no one can find any possible harm in it that would not be greater without it, why should men who serve God and wish to do so give it up? I can see no reason, unless it is that they wish to add more trials to those that they must endure in this life, and to close the door on God in order to prevent His giving them the joy of prayer. I am truly sorry for them, since they are serving God at great cost to themselves. For the Lord Himself pays the costs of those who practise prayer; in return for a little effort on their part He gives them such consolations as will enable them to bear all their trials.

Since there will be much to tell of these joys which the Lord gives to those who persevere in prayer, I will say no more here, only that prayer is the door to those very great favours that He has conferred upon me. Once it is closed, I do not know how He can do so. Though He may wish to take His delight in a soul and to give it delight, He has no means of entrance. Unless He finds it solitary and pure and deeply desirous to receive His favours, He can do nothing. If we put many obstacles in His way and make no effort to remove them, how can He come to us? Nevertheless we wish God to grant us great favours!

In order to reveal His pity and to show what a great benefit I drew from not having abandoned prayer and reading, I will here describe the assaults that the devil delivers on a soul in order to gain it, and the compassion with which the Lord endeavours to win it back. It is important that my readers should understand this, and so guard themselves against the dangers for which I did not myself watch out I implore them, above all, for the love of Our Lord and for the great love with which He is continually seeking to win us back to Him, to guard against the occasions for sin. For once caught, we have nothing to rely on when so many enemies assail us, and our own weaknesses are so great that we cannot defend ourselves.

I wish that I could describe the captivity which my soul suffered in those days. I fully realized that I was a prisoner, but did not know how; nor could I entirely believe that what my confessors made so little of was as wicked as I felt it to be in my soul. One of them, to whom I had gone with a scruple, told me that even if I were raised to high contemplation, such happenings and conversations were not unfitting. This was towards the end, when, by the grace of God, I was withdrawing more and more from great dangers, although not altogether avoiding the situations from which they arose. When my confessors saw my good resolutions and my constancy at prayer, they thought that I was doing a great deal. But in my soul I knew that I was not fulfilling my obligation towards Him to whom I owed so much. I am sorry now for my soul’s great suffering, and for the little help it received from anyone but God, also for the opportunities to wander off in pursuit of its pastimes and pleasures, which were offered to it by those confessors who said that they were legitimate.

Sermons too were a torment to me, and no small one, since I was very fond of them. If I heard anyone preach earnestly and well, I felt a particular affection for him rise in me unbidden; I do not know how this came about. A sermon rarely seemed so bad to me that I did not listen to it with pleasure, even though others who heard it said that the preaching was poor. But if it were good, it brought me a most special refreshment. To speak of God or hear Him spoken of hardly ever wearied me, once I had begun to pray. In one way I drew great comfort from sermons, but in another they distressed me because they made me see that I was far from being what I should have been.

I prayed the Lord to help me. But, as it seems to me now, I must have erred in not placing my complete trust in His Majesty and completely mistrusting myself. I sought for help, and made efforts. But I could not have understood that nothing is of much use unless we abandon all reliance on ourselves, and place it in God. I wished to live, and clearly saw that I was not living but wrestling with the shadow of death. There was no one to give me life. For He who might have done so was right in not coming to my aid, seeing that He had brought me back to Himself so many times, and each time I had forsaken Him.