I now want to explain—because some of you don’t know—what mental prayer is, and please God we shall practice this as it ought to be practiced. But I fear that mental prayer also involves much labor if the virtues are not obtained—although it’s not necessary that they be possessed in as high a degree as is required for contemplation. I say that the King of glory will not come to our soul—I mean to be united with it—if we do not make the effort to gain the great virtues. I want to explain this because if you should catch me saying something that isn’t true you wouldn’t believe anything, and you would be right if I did so knowingly; but God forbid! If I should say something that isn’t true, it would be a matter of my not knowing more or not understanding. I want to say, then, that there are times when God will want to grant some great favor to persons who are in a bad state so as to draw them by this means out of the hands of the devil.
O my Lord, how often do we make You fight the devil in arm to arm combat! Isn’t it enough that You allowed him to take You in his arms when he carried You to the pinnacle of the temple (cf. Mt 4:5) so that You might teach us how to conquer him? But what would it be like, daughters, to see him, with his darknesses, next to the Sun. And what fear that unfortunate one must have borne without knowing why, for God didn’t allow him to understand it.1 Blessed be such compassion and mercy. . . .
To return to what I was saying, there are souls that God thinks He can win to Himself by these means. Since He sees they are completely lost, His Majesty desires that nothing be wanting on His part. And even though they are in a bad state and lacking in virtue, He gives them spiritual delight, consolation, and tenderness that begin to stir the desires. And He even places them in contemplation sometimes, though He does so rarely and it lasts only a short while. He does this, as I say, so as to try them to see if with that favor they will want to prepare themselves to enjoy Him often. But if they don’t prepare themselves—pardon me; or better, may You pardon us, Lord, for it is a great evil when after You bring a soul like this to Yourself it approaches and becomes attached to some earthly thing.
For myself I hold that there are many to whom our Lord God gives this test, but few who prepare themselves for the enjoyment of the favor of contemplation. When the Lord grants it and we do not fail on our part, I hold as certain that He never ceases to give until we reach a very high degree. When we do not give ourselves to His Majesty with the determination with which He gives Himself to us, He does a good deal by leaving us in mental prayer and visiting us from time to time like servants in His vineyard (cf. Mt 21:3). . . .