The Epithalamium: of the divine and incarnate Bridegroom and of the divine bride in conjugal union with her Spouse
Dictated by John of St. Samson, O.Carm. (1571-1636) trans. by Br. Neil B. Conlisk, O.Carm. (from Jean de Saint-Samson, Hanneke Hooft, and Hein Blommestijn. 2000. Méditations et soliloques. Rome: Edizioni Carmelitane. )
My brother, whoever you may be, if this work should fall into your hands, do not be surprised at what you find, or if the title draws you in to read it, as it is very believable that it will. It is comprised of the of the eminence of the Object, and of the subject in the Object, and of the profound abyss of the entire Object, and of the action of the loving subject, and of the love of the Object in his subject, and of the subject in her Object. This is not written for everyone, but for those whom it touches, thereby becoming love in it.
You can leave behind what you do not understand in this work, being what it is, since it is for this above mentioned purpose, as I have understood it, that I have produced this work, a subject that requires understanding in its total eminence. So let this book be as it is, without straining your mind to investigate and understand it, for it is not to be digested sensibly or intellectually, but simply and lovingly, essentially and in total abstraction, not in its entirety, but in parts.
Eventually, you will find in it the reciprocal love of the Bridegroom toward his faithful bride, and of the bride in her Bridegroom. As a result, if you feel in some way, stirred up in your own soul, the ardor of your loving desire, and insatiable love for the Bridegroom, then you will not be offended by what you find in this treaty. On the other hand, if you are without this, completely a stranger to it, either by pure and profound speculations or otherwise, than this treaty cannot move you. Nevertheless, you can detach yourself from this, and profoundly submit yourself to the desire and curiosity of common men to seek their good, and let this gently carry away your reason.
It is not important to me, whether you or others understand me about all this, nor the rest of what I have written. Every truth has its own taste, and proper terms, by which it manifests itself to whom it wills, more or less, or all of what it is, both in the subject itself, as well as in those who are similar.
What is the matter at hand, my Love and my Life? What? I see well what it is: I am to sing of the unique loves of the Bridegroom and his bride, and of the bride becoming love in her Bridegroom. But you, what do you do, my fear Life and Spouse? Are you not passionately distraught for me? It must be so, and I do not doubt it, because if it were not so, you would never have become bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh; (Gen 2:23) you would never have condensed your infinitude to totally fill up the limits of my humanity and espouse me, and then what follows, which is to say something great. Tell me, my Life and my Spouse, is not this whole ineffable mystery something for the admiration of the Seraphim, rather than for the expression of someone like me, your spouse, who does not know what to do or say about this, except to babble on about this? It is astonishing, how the contemplation of your essential and objective beauty produces, in me and for me, a ravishing joy far beyond admiration; and this the effect of the ravishing love of the Object in himself, which which and in which the spouse is attentively and firmly possessed, to thereby enjoy you, her Spouse, and your divine delights which she finds in you; producing a very simple and very naked love, and ineffable knowledge and enjoyment, of what you are, in what you are.
What then? Ah, my Spouse! If I could express the ineffable sight I have of you, and the ease that rejoices me more and more, in my ineffable joy that you are, without a doubt I would. But what? In thinking and wanting to do this, what would it be to try, but to call me and reduce me to the impossible; that is to speak of and express the effects of this state that is in you and me, an object of admiration beyond admiration; in a word, frankly, I’m in love with the love of my Spouse. Indeed, the angels are laughing at me now, at my excesses in my struggle to show you in myself, and your love and beauty, which animates and renews me with a totally new ease in my faculties. Seeing that what I am, and what I see and possess–in you my, Spouse, and you in me–-is a thing far beyond sense and expression; my beauty not only inebriates you without limits, but makes you divinely distraught.
What have I thought to do, and what have I thought to say, since you are totally and simply in my own flesh? Isn’t this to say everything? Since you are all being. And what astonishes me about this–speaking of the common, reciprocal and unique union of us both–is to see the boldness of some of your spouses to try to reveal to men the abyss of abyss of all this, since it is manifestly seen that to speak even as highly as one can about it would be rather to diminish the glory and profundity of this, our our reciprocal and conjugal union, simple and unique, of our flesh and spirit, that is to say anything about it. On the other hand, to shut up and be quiet about this would be all my pleasure and joy, for I know that it is in silence that I desire to see and possess the ineffable mystery of us both, in the common and reciprocal union of us both. On the contrary, to shut up and be quiet about this would be my pleasure and all my joy, whereas I know that it is in this silence that I have and desire to see the ineffable mystery of us both, of the common and reciprocal union of us both, seeing that I would honor you infinitely by doing so, and by this itself. But what do I say? Forgive me, my Spouse, I said that I will see you and possess you ineffably! And I say it again? Forgive me, my dear Spouse, for it seems that I do not what I am saying and doing. But we possess one another like this, you in me and for me, and me in you and for you.
What else is there to say or think about this, since we are both totally in our center and repose? To speak well about this, as I know: You have ravished me, O my Spouse, of you and in you, and you hold me as divine, in your divinity and by your divinity; I believe this firmly, and this is not astonishing to me, because I am your spouses, consummated in love and by love, totally divine and totally lost in you. Yes. And were you not hoping in good faith to possess your spouse alone, with her possessing you also, in the impetuous strength of our conjugal love that ravishes us both equally and with ease in our common joy and repose, and which makes us cling to one another ever more closely, in the strength of our united embraces; thus we are both equally contented, equally satisfied, in the ease that ravishes us both, the one in the other and the one for the other.
I don’t want anything more than to be one of your spouses, employed by you to announce that they languish of your love, since we possess each other in our common joy, and we embrace each other so closely in the intimate depths of yourself, where I am not so much in love with you, as I am absorbed into the same love that you have for yourself. And the spouse that has experienced this knows that the charms and attractions of your ravishing beauty, and the delights in which your spouses are melted with love and ease by your divine and unique embraces, cannot be expressed by words, no matter how internal or essential they may be. Because the ravishing vision of yourself, as ravishing Object in your subject–that is in your spouse, which I am—in the same moment that you ravish her, you steal her away from her desire and words, by the impulsive force of her infinite happiness, and take possession of her infinitely beyond sense, desire and words; in such a manner that she does not want, nor dare, nor is even able, to say anything to express this.
But what? What do I think and what do I do? You see my point, my dear Spouse, is that I wish to establish and build all my happiness, and enjoyment of my object, in your uniquely divine nature. Yes, my Love, this is all my pleasure and delight; but nevertheless, I wish to leave without leaving, by also loving that flesh that is united to this same divine nature; henceforth, to love supremely, and like the divinity itself, this flesh that you have loved, and will love forever, in yourself; since it is of you and for you. But from whom have you taken this flesh if not from me? So that you are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone (Gn 2:23), as well as life of my life and love of my love? And so, why have you taken it from me, as well as my form in my form? Is there a place for my flesh in your beatitude? Why have you taken it from me, if not because you want me to love you madly, and so to constitute my repose in being united to my Spouse, and in my Spouse, which you are? And would you be astonished if I embrace you totally nakedly in the activity of my impetuous love, totally divine in your divinity and totally divine in your humanity; you who are, and who have for your glory and felicity, the one and only human and divine support, which is your divinity and humanity?
Tell me, my Life? Is it possible for your spouse to see the eternal Word of the eternal Father within the limits of her enclosure, to be espoused to him and rendered totally divine in his divine self–by the flow, and beyond the flow, of your active play, exercised in the secret and effective power of the love of yourself, of you in me and me in you, in the uniqueness of us both? Would it have been possible for your spouse, which I am, to not have been totally ravished with delight and love at the first sight of this, in the love of her divine and human Spouse, which you are? No, no, it could not be so, nor should it be otherwise. For why do any of this, if not, purely and plainly, to possess each other in the divinely effective strength of our mutual, simple and unique embraces? The action, passion, and joy of our embraces are ineffably ineffable in our common repose and enjoyment of one another.
But what? My Love, everyone is astonished, even your most cherished spouses, at the totally strange revenge to take upon your spouses following their infidelities. For, the vengeance that you take upon them is to totally espouse them to your nature and your Divine Majesty, by a totally ineffable mystery and sacrament–and this is how it is experienced, and truly spoken of, by your divine spouses, as a sacrament of unique love–becoming love more and more, and better and better, your spouses in love, in the same force of your active love; this love overpowers them in the depths of their souls at the moment of their conjugal union with you, with torrents of your divine illuminations, joys and delights, for the consummation of our divine mariage, which is divinely consummated in them and you, where we are one with yourself in yourself, your love in your love, your delights in your delights, and your perpetual contemplation in your joy and contemplation; this consummation is quickly goaded on, without ceasing, in the active flow of our common and reciprocal loving game, in the common, reciprocal and simple enjoyment of one another in one another, simply consummated in the unity of us both, in simplicity of spirit, sight, thought, intelligence, attention, light, taste, repose and love. Behold, my Love, this is how your love flows out of you and is fruitful, of which we are its most admirable and prodigious effects, not by ourselves but by you, this same love flows out of you into us and for us.
Each of your spouses knows well, my Life and my Spouse–having the manifest and visible exuberance of your love overflowing in them and for them–that you only resemble yourself; and thus it is fitting, O my dear Spouse, to receive this flow, totally and eternally, from the principle of your eternal production of your infinite fecundity, in which you resemble yourself, and are distinctly yourself in yourself, without prejudice to resembling me in my nature by making yourself similar to me in myself, or to speak better according to this truth, to render me totally like yourself in myself, you make me like yourself, of yourself, in yourself and for yourself. But what? My love, if this is how you avenge yourself against me, for the injuries that you have received from me, then this revenge is not only tolerable, but also sweet and delicious, especially because it is done out of love and in love, to make me and render me love in the unique love of us both. O my Spouse, is it licit for you to avenge yourself like this?
But since love compels me to avenge myself, as you do–I speak of the effects of your love, uniquely, plainly and profoundly possessed by you in me and me in you–I will avenge myself as you do the same, I mean by unceasingly plunging myself, by the strength and vigor of my infinite love of your, into the depths of the depths and the abyss of abyss; until, by the strength to act and suffer in love, I am totally reduced and consumed in you and your love, to adhere simply, uniquely and nakedly to you by the simple view that I have of you in yourself; so then I will be totally lost in you. Is it astonishing to see me proceed like this? With moans and cries, to love you simply and nakedly, both within and without, to possess you always equally in the insatiable infinity of my loving appetite, which isn’t, nor ever will be, satisfied until it possesses you purely and plainly, to be so fully abounding with you that I may give you to others in abundance, to satisfy and fulfill them by the excesses of your exuberance.
Sing boldly, O spouses of a Bridegroom such as mine! You who are my companions in this fate so joyful as ours! Sing at my happy insistence and I will sing at yours, a new song of endless praises of the infinitely excessive grandeur and love of our Bridegroom, coming to so admirably espouse us, to deify us of him and in him, and to make us one with himself.
But, O my sweet Life, I have not specified to you the ways that I would avenge myself for the sweet and loving war that you wage upon me, in the perpetuity of your love. What I would do, I say, is this: while you are pleasing yourself with your acts of very deep love, by which you incessantly come to me, I will incessantly return to you, doing my utmost, by the infinite strength of my reciprocal love for you; and by our frequent and mutual meetings—or it would be better to say infinitely frequent and unceasing—we will battle spirit to spirit until one of us succumbs to the other’s actions. But what do I say? Forgive me, O my Love, for my excesses in what I think and say; I say that until my action, my power, and my strength have succumbed to you and yours, and are animated by your love, and thus am totally languished, let me henceforth writhe and be possessed by your love, purely and plainly, without any possible resistance on my part.
Sing then, my dear companions, sing at my insistence, a new song of infinite praise of our Bridegroom, since he has revealed, so admirably, the excesses of his infinite prodigy, by the profound and total consummation of our divine marriage with him, simply and uniquely consummated by him in us and us in him, beyond the conjoined power of our union of him in us and us in him, but in the divine Unity itself, where the three persons of the Trinity reside, and fulfill all with their active and joyful felicity, rendering themselves completely blessed, and at all points, in the total and mutual complexive contemplation of one another and in one another.
Tell my, my Spouse, have I spoken too boldly, or thought badly about this? Since I have told you, and you understand, that I should not have to leave from here and go out to express nothing, seeing that in our enjoyment of one another, we possess one another, beyond all comprehension, in an view and repose that is ineffably ineffable, and which cannot be expressed by specific ideas, conceived or infused, which are infinitely different than what actually is. And what use is it to express the tings that are by things that are not, or likewise, to express the things that are not by things that are? So tell me, my Life and my Love, where can the truth be found in all of this, when the Object ravishes me by himself and in himself, and in his plentitude I feel myself overflow more abundantly than can be imagined? Where if not in the truth that you are beyond being, in the eminence of being and the eminence of non-being, in being and beyond being, by the power of sureminent negation?
When this truth is accomplished in us both, tour other spouses cannot look at me without seeing that I am your cherished and unique bride, by the manifest and evident signs of your radiant and exuberant love flowing from me to you, whether I perceive them or not. Yet all my desire is to be perpetually hidden within, and known only to you, who are my Bridegroom, my Life, and my All. Yes, it is so, and who would be astonished at seem me so beautiful, as a sign of your beauty, O my Spouse? (Sg 8:6) No, no one is astonished at seeing me proclaim that I am totally beautiful, since by coveting my beauty as you do, you perfect it until it is entirely accomplished, by yourself and your infinitude, for the plain satisfaction of yourself.
But what, my Love and my Life? Whenever I amuse myself by conversing with you about the consummation of our divine marriage, in the strength of my excess, and more so by your excess, I sometimes forget about my very urgent and extreme needs of hunger and thirst with which I suffer; for to tell you the truth, O my Spouse, I am suffering from the hunger and thirst of love in the abundance of my joy. Because I infinitely hunger and thirst to possess you personally and totally, hidden under the mantle of your Sacrament of love, which you have instituted by the excessive power of your love toward me, to unite me personally and totally to you, by the power of my hunger and thirst for you, to possess you personally in this Sacrament of Love, consummated in yourself and by yourself, and by the consuming love of your spouses with me for you and in you, without privation to my creature-hood. I am hungry, O my Love! Come quickly to satisfy your spouse, with the objective joy that you are, in this our communion made one, by the power of our rapid and ravishing excesses, and then your spouse will be totally content, satisfied and plainly delighted.
If you do not hurry yourself, to come and enter quickly, into our bed of common repose and joy (Sg 3:1), then I will surely languish in my impatience, waiting for the moment, so happy and fortunate, when you will lovingly deign to enter into your spouse, to fill her totally with exultation and jubilation, the radiant and dazzling plentitude of yourself redounding to the very intimate and profound depths of herself; and the voluptuous inundations of this plentitude overflow from all her faculties, as she floats abroad along the very spacious sea of your divinity, of the Bridegroom and bride having become one, without distinction or difference, if one may say so.
I do not intend by this, O my Love and my Life, to separate nor distinguish, in the slightest way, your gifts from yourself, this would be sensual and not divine, as I am, because you are never without all your gifts, so that you possess them purely and plainly forever, and as I will possess you, O my Spouse, so I will never know the privation or scarcity of your gifts, as the Bridegroom is not in himself, nor in His spouse, without the total plentitude of His gifts, for to embellish, adorn and sovereignly fulfill her, as far as possible, according to the eternal order of His eternal prescience in the eminence of His supreme degree.
But, O my Love, how you are a devouring fire that devours your spouses, to be totally engulfed in you, and to plunge, lost and drowned in the depth of the depths, in the abyss of the abyss, of your humanized divinity, in which they burn both from you and in you, whether in your love, or in you, which is better to say? In which they are totally consumed by your supreme felicity in them and in you, and for them in you. I have always told you, O my Love, that I don't understand why you abase me so greatly as this, to dilate me in such a common manner, since this is ineffable and ineffably possessed, this has to be seen and possessed in the reciprocal joy of two lovers made one, beyond admiration and without admiration, as I have said.
But tell me my Spouse, how have you consummated your love for yourself in me? I have already said this, but command me not to go our from here again, since it is fitting for me to enter into the deepest depths of yourself. By the renunciation of the vigorous efforts of my love, and then my a secret passive force, I subsist in your intuitive contemplation, very simple and very unique, which holds me in its intuitive regard, fixedly and immobile arrested within yourself; where you perpetually delight and maintain yourself, in your simple and unique subsistence, to the most profound depths of yourself, existing equally within yourself by your eternal principle, beatifying yourself, of yourself and in yourself. And myself and the rest of your spouses, we are quickly drawn into the unique love that proceeds from your mutual regard and love toward us, in the infinite power of your entire fecundity and the sovereign existence of what we are, to be totally drawn into you, or to be totally there already, as some of your spouses are.
And so, seeing myself plunged so deeply into you, why am I astonished if, in the sweetness of your ineffable love, you tell me that I am totally beautiful, without any spot or blemish? (Sg 4:7) For I know that this will be so when I am transformed by you and in you, as you desire me to be. I will not expand here on the effects of this love, since where there is love there is undoubtably all its effects; and if any of its effects are lacking then love is not perfect, but more or less so, or not at all. But what does it seem that I want to say here? Since you understand me well enough, by my simple and unique sights, my unique and essential conversations, and my simple regards, which fly subtly and agilely to you like thunder and lightening. Yes, these express myself to you enough.
Ah, my Love and my Life, what does it matter that you call me beautiful, being so in love with you as I am, whether in love or beyond love, in the very love of yourself. Or rather, in yourself, you so ravish your spouses by your beauty that they are totally transformed in it, by the power of the conjoined love that binds, intertwines and unites us so tightly into a knot, a bind so unique, of love so intimate and deep, that it cannot be comprehended. Suppose then, Ah my Life and my Love, that our common knowledge about this is true, then you have just cause to make me known to angels and men, or to say better, to the youth who run after the odor of your perfume (Sg 1:4), in the power of your ravishing beauty, so to never lose sight of your, not this effective and delicious sentiment. You, I say, have a just cause, O my Love and my Spouse, to proclaim me highly and clearly as totally beautiful, totally pure, and totally holy, without blemish, which is not completely true in one sense but in another sense it is very try. It is enough that you understand me about this, and that this secret is spoken between us both.
But what, my Love and my Life? I am your bride of love and of blood, and you are reciprocally my Bridegroom of love and of blood. (Ex 4:25) But, O my Love, it has been too long, that I have sighed for you, and after the possession of your Majesty in person, and for the prompt celebration of our divine nuptials, avidly and insatiably desired by us both. By the exercise and action, in which our love and desire our produced, our spirits are totally renewed, and our supreme and divine joy is sustained. Again, you understand me well about this, which is an excessive secret.
But, before I continue with my simple and ardent sighs after my good, infinitely and ever more desired, I have to tell you a truth: I do not so much admire your power to make all things, not even to make this admirable and august Sacrament, which is of no use to you except to hide and veil the glory of your majesty from me, as much as I infinitely admire your consuming love itself, as I have said, in the reality of the most holy, most venerable, and most august Sacrament, of consuming and consummated love, containing your very self, true God and true man, living, to ravish, by yourself and in yourself, your very chaste and divine spouse. If anyone is found without admiration and delight about this, as I say I am in admiration, what do you want me to say, O my Love, but the truth, which is that she is not a unique, profound, perfect, intimate, simple and totally divine spouse of yours? Because it is impossible for love to not produce love, wherever it is; common sense attests to this and its truth is well understood and experienced, that your spouse is made to be so more by the power of your love than by her love, in you, O my Spouse, where she resides infinitely better as your subject than by animating and vivifying herself.
And if some consider me dark and swarthy, it is true that I am. (Sg 1:6) Nevertheless, I am beautiful beyond all imaginable and understandable beauty; beautiful, I say, in the arms of my divine Bridegroom, and in myself by his secret and intimate operations, by which he establishes me in himself and fulfills me to overflowing with supernatural beauty; and this makes me behave, even exteriorly, with well ordered charity and graceful gestures and movements, for the illumination of common men, and with the perfect exercise of all the virtues, as it is so with all your other spouses; and this is how Wisdom is manifested infinitely, to arrive at all and to penetrate all, from one end to the other, quickly, powerfully and simply.
But at the moment, I must cease all these considerations of my loving excess, which do not express well enough of you within me, your suppose, because that is impossible, but rather of what is mine in place of you, who are my Bridegroom and my all. And so, we must come to the point of my desire. Alas! Alas! Why do you delay so long, to come and take possession of me, for our reciprocal and mutual contentment and satisfaction? Alas! Alas! The center of my heart, the strength of my life, how long have I waited for you, in my impatience, and in my consuming love that devours and consumes me totally in the strength of its ardor, by the excessive and famished desire that I have for our mutual and personal conjoining, without intermediary between us both!
Since you see me in this extreme state, enter into possession of your spouse without delay! For the midday breeze has blown through our garden, and its aromatic odors exhale smoothly, and ravish into admiration those whom they divinely touch. (Sg 4:16) We will delight to please ourselves, O my Spouse and my Life, when you enter within me, and I am sure that the pleasure and contentment that we will have will be so great that it would pain me to move, and this will constitute our mutual delights together. O my Spouse and my Life, our garden is so well enclosed and protected, that no other person can discover our loving frolicking, (Sg 4:12) which renders this place sovereignly accomplished. And after all this, we will carry on reciprocally, the one in the other and the one for the other, in our mutual caresses, divine kisses, and mutual embraces, mutually and infinitely delightful to us both. And then we will retire into our chamber, sovereignly decorated and adorned as our common abode, in which you singularly delight yourself to dwell, to repose at midday. This has long been prepared, and is waiting for you, do not delay any longer to satisfy your spouse there.
But, O my Love and my Life, you enter into me at the very same movement that I express this, to totally fulfill my desire and satisfy my famished appetite with your essential delights by the very close union of us both. To fulfill me so, you demand that I dilate myself, and I have dilated myself infinitely, and you always delight yourself to fulfill me, by the personal and reciprocal union of us both, and so you flow into me with the abundance of the impetuous torrents of your divine and simple delights. And we possess each other totally, purely and plainly, O my Love and my Life, by the power of our reciprocal embraces, so that in this, no creature, with all their industry, can ever trouble our common repose.
But I must tell you, O my Bridegroom, that as my very life and breathe are not as dear and agreeable to me as you are, so I am deeply jealous of you; which means that I fear your withdrawal from me, and you absence, even for one moment, more that I can express to you. Indeed, I wish well, O my Love, that you visit and delight my companions with your divine presence and delights, since you delight yourself sovereignly everywhere, and you can do all, but do not take all of your take all of your contentment, and make all your frolicking, with them and in them, without me and to the prejudice of mine, but this depends on your good pleasure, and the power of your love.
But what? Does it seem to you, my Love, that in my abundance I fear my enjoyment of you to be frustrated, as I have in the past? No, whatever I say, I do not fear this, because you are mine and I am yours. You possess me and I possess you, all in all, entirely and totally. For we are one in the unity and uniqueness of us both, in which we are equally delighted with the beauty and love of one another, in one another, by the mutual and ineffable embraces of one another, in one another. We are equally possessed with delights, in equality and simplicity, in simple love, in our simple and simply unique essence, beyond action, beyond passion, beyond inondation, beyond love in love itself, of the same love without love. All of this is realized in the very simple, very unique, and very attentive, reciprocal and mutual, vision of us both, in the unique simplicity of us both, beyond comprehension, beyond admiration without admiration, ineffably ineffable. I am totally submerged and lost in love and ease, beyond love and ease, in the unique Object which holds me immobility delighted and adhering in perpetual attention, without attention, in you and with you, my unique Object and my Spouse. What is all this? Let him conceive of it is he can, express it if he knows how; if one desires to, it is licit to do so, if he can, but it is better to be silent, as one should; because it is here that our intuitive joy, reciprocally and mutually possessed in us both, speaks not of this nor anything like it, but of something infinitely other than this, by its profundity, in perpetual and ineffable silence.
But notwithstanding this view, I have left without leaving, by an excess of words, for you say to me, in our common and loving joy, that I have so often engulfed you personally, as I hold you and possess you by the same engulfment I make of you in myself; for you have made use of my effective action, and are always equally effective in the strength of our common love, to personally and totally engulf me in yourself, where I have always been what I am at present, united with yourself in yourself, without difference nor distinction from yourself. And what had astonished me about this, while I was newly espoused to you, is that by the effect means of my repudiation of myself, you offered your very self for the effective consummation of your love in in myself and in yourself. So that, we are conjoined in a solemn marriage, as Bridegroom and bride, for the total consummation of our reciprocal love in the unity of us both; not as two separate persons, but in the unique unity of us both, beyond unity, in the profound and simple unity of two persons. In this union, we are united in a simple unity, and we enjoy our common good and objective repose in mutual and simple adhesion of one another and in one another, for our simple and unique enjoyment, and before which it is necessary, out of honor and reverence, that every creature should be silent.
But, My Love and my Life, some of your other spouses, my companions, have added to my langours over your absence, infinite subjects of inconceivable pain. You see me lament like this over my misfortune, as I pass and repass by them like a wandered and a vagabond, more dead than alive in the strength of my grief. And whether they know what they say to me or not, they said, “O the most beautiful of all women, where has your Spouse gone? Is it possible that you are so unfortunate to have lost him without your knowledge, or that he has fled from you by chance?” (Sg 6:1) No, my Love, I don’t believe that they know what they are saying, for if they had, they would have been deeply attentive to not have so overwhelmed me with grief. For my sorrow was so overwhelming and excessive, understanding what you are in yourself, that if you had not secretly sustained men, they would have seen me faint and fall down dead at their feet.
My Love and my Life, our common repose and joy possesses the one of the other, in one another, to recreate us in the power of our present joy, excessively beyond the excess of comprehension and expression, as it appears from looking at the past all present. And this is produced mutually by us both, in the very simple strength of our actual love, which moves us by the combined force of our very unique and simple embraces. By this simple force, in which I am totally melted and dilated, immobility in your ineffable essence, in the truth of this excess beyond expression, and infinitely beyond this in your total divinity and humanity, there I become divinely human and humanly divine, and in the total plentitude of this, all is understood and incomprehensible, to your spouse, which I am. In this, O my Love, consists all my present joy and felicity.
But, my Love and my Bridegroom, you see that we enjoy our mutual love on the bed ordained for us, for us both to divinely weave ourselves together in the sweetness of our simple, unique and ineffable embrances. On this bed, ordained for the Bridegroom and bride, you and I enjoy each other at noon day, beyond sense and comprehension. Do you not see, my Spouse, how during our loving frolicking, reciprocally taken of one another and in one another, my nard spreads its odor? (Sg 1:12) It is sufficient that we understand each other about this.
But while I continue to manifest our infinite overflowing in the infinite overflowing of myself, where I surpass not only myself but also all of creation, and all that could ever be, I feel infinitely more strongly and tightly grasped by you, in the totally extraordinary strength of your loving embraces. In the ineffable and divine sweetness of the total plentitude and expanse of yourself, of which I feel so extraordinarily ravished by ease and love, I am totally melted and transfused to never be–and a very great never–more than yourself; I see and feel myself so near to death, to totally expire, because of what you are, and what I am in you. I embrace and possess this in our very simple and very unique repose, by our very simple flow of divine delights, which is our repose, and in the unity of us both, and for us both, without distinction nor difference between what we are, seeing and possessing the one of the other and the one in the other. Ah! My Love and my Spouse, if you embrace and hold me more tightly, then you will surely make me die of ease and love! Truly, such a death would be very much desired by me, because I feel it to be so sweetly and infinitely delectable, but O my Love and my Spouse, if I die like this, what will the angels say of you? Would they not judge you, and rightly so, to be excessively passionate with love for your spouse, which I am. Indeed, more passionate than you are with them, for you don’t hold them so sweetly and lovingly in your divine arms, so that they live to the point of dying.
But, O my Love and my Bridegroom! O the center of my heart, O the fullness of my delights! Ah, my life and my all! You embrace me so tightly, you embrace me so sweetly, you overwhelm me so easily, you delight me so blissfully, even to the height of my total felicity that you are, and in that joy I become eternal, without time nor eternity, indeed without moment! Ah, I fail totally! Ah! I cannot do it. I am dying and expiring of love and ease within your suressential bosom; the exquisite beauty and delight with which you so powerfully ravish me with the life and ease of love, in love beyond love, in repose and fruition beyond repose and fruition, in simplicity beyond simplicity, ineffably ineffable, in the ineffable beyond the ineffable!
I have finally come to you here, my daughter and my spouse, at the supreme point of your satisfaction, eagerly desiring to consume you in me and of me, even to make you die so sweetly in my arms, in the sweet strength and loving violence of my very strong and very tight embraces. I embrace you with my divine arms in the infinite expanse of my essence and my love; for by this equitable action of divine play, equally active in us both, I render you simple and joyful, of me and in me, and in all that I am you are totally transformed beyond all degrees of transforming love.
So, you have attained to your original essence, which I am, and in which you live and reside as myself, without distinction nor difference from myself, which is your repose, your total felicity and your total paradise. But see, O daughters of Jerusalem, I adjure you to not awaken my beloved bride, until she does so herself by her own free will. (Sg 2:7) But you, O my daughter and my spouse, I embrace you as you embrace me. The same love that sweetly forces me to hold you tightly and uniquely to myself and in myself, the same love, I say, strongly compels you by its sweet and impulsive force, to hold my close to yourself. For in the delicious strength of our mutual and complementary love and enjoyment of one another, beyond love of one another, you remain immobility adhering to me, and you are rendered like me, without loss nor privation of your created essence, possessing myself, in myself, and all that I am. You remain there, by the loving action of us both, and by the loving passion and surpassion of us both, in us both.
For what you do not have, and what you are not, and what you cannot be, that is to know myself, in myself, and of myself, you will become and possess in the active love of us both together, where you are totally united with myself, in the reciprocal and mutual love, passive and surpassive, of us both. So that, as your surpass yourself by the force of your active appetite and hunger, you fly out of yourself into myself, into the eternal enjoyment and infinite expanse of your Bridegroom, for my infinite contentment and yours; and because of your great and supreme similitude with my divine nature, we do not seem to flow from two subjects into two subjects, but by an active and reflexive redoundance, and on account of the supreme union of us both, which is essential and totally personal, we are united beyond the personal and conjugal union of us both, in the same unity of my very holy and very simple active fecundity, to where you return to the complete joy of all, fruitful and unique, by the infinite strength of my simple and unique love, flowing from all that is distinct in this fecundity as from its simple, original and active principle; where the mutual and reciprocal love of the simple fecundity ravishes all by the power of its unique simplicity, and where we ineffably enjoy the ineffable embraces and delights of one another and in one another, for the mutual and reciprocal pleasure of one another and in one another; which is made and possessed equally and mutually, equally equal, in the mutual and reciprocal love that conjoins us together, by the ineffably ineffable embraces that are sweet and delicious, of one another and in one another, by a transfusion of simple totality to a unique simplicity, in a simple unity, where all fecundity is possessed in a simple repose; infinitely beyond intelligence and comprehension, and beyond being, in the being beyond being, by the simple unity flowing in the very simple love and vigor of its very vigorous and infinite fecundity, actively and always, equally and immobility subsisting within itself to produce a love equal to itself; a love that ravishes its mutual and vivifying object by a total engulfment of love and joy, but the same effect and unique love, equal, absolute and distinct in itself, for the common joy and total repose of its active fecundity, which flows back to itself by the same effect of love to a complexive repose of all in a very simple unity; and this produces a simple unity, simple love, simple delight and simple repose which is well capable of rendering blessed by the mutual contemplation and mutual embrace of one another, in one another, made one, felt as one, and possessed as one, equal in fecundity of unity and uniquely one beyond fecundity, in the rapid and engulfing love which is its essence and substance itself, in its essence and substance, beyond the active love flowing out of its active and personal fecundity for its own felicity, simple and plain; and all of this in the rapid force of simple unity, which, in the rapid strength of its anticipating and ravishing embraces, draws all to itself and totally delights its own object by a distinction equal to itself, in the simple and unique love of itself, in itself, in the totally common essence and substance of this unique fecundity; in the simple and unique unity, ravishing all its active fecundity by itself, in their common essence, joy and repose, beyond the active flow of itself by itself, for the active and reflexive conversion of herself to herself.
This is evidently pulling us together, my daughter and my spouse, and is all there is to say to you, and all there is to understand; because my essential action and operation within you is my word and our loving colloquy, both in all of this and beyond all of this, which effects our common joy and repose, both by the rapid savory flow of my infinitely simple operation that is beyond the flow of my operation, totally inundating you with simple light and delight.
And this, my daughter and my spouse, is what I am, and what we are in what I am, for my humanity and divinity subist together equally, the one of the other, in the other and for the other, and your divinized humanity subsists of me, in me and for me. We will embrace each other in a manner totally different, and with an ardor more simple, than ever before, by our infinite appetite, beyond the plain and total consumption of yourself in me and for me, to totally possess and consummate our equal, mutual and reciprocal pleasure, totally total and plainly satisfying us both; where you will hold and possess–purely, plainly and always equally–the total felicity of my infinite nature, and this will cause my excessively excessive love to fully redound toward you, with you and in you, boldly and excessively, so that you have and possess the simple flow of my felicity, of me and in me, to the full proportion of all that you are, for your simple and entire satisfaction. And so, whether going or coming from Lebanon, to me and in me, your Bridegroom, from simple love to simple repose, you are crowned with the abundant flow of my blessings, filling all your created powers with my essential and objective glory and light.
Then you will gloriously enjoy me, purely and plainly, in the total consummation of my love and joy in you, for you will be blessed by me and in me, this blessing being caused by the fullness of joy of myself and in myself. And if, in the past all present, you have been so blessed, by me and in me, to have eaten so often your honeycomb with your honey, (Sg 5:1) in the force of our common love, and you understand me well about this. You will possess me here, in this present state, without time nor eternity, in the plain and entire satisfaction and felicity of myself. And in this beatitude, I will transform you in myself, in the consummation of gory and seraphic love, in proportion to the desire of my excessive and eternal love for your, in which you will be united with myself, in the similitude of myself beyond my similitude.
This supposes, and makes known, my glory consummated in you, and yours in mine and of mine, so that our essential love will perpetuate my essential glory in you, to the measure and proportion that you are in myself, whom am your Spouse, totally consummating and totally fulfilling you and all my spouses. Thus, I make you and them divine in my consuming divinity, consummated in you and them, in the surexcellence and sureminence of your state and theirs, in this finite and infinite state of you and me, without loss or prejudice to me, but outside of yourself, from us both, in myself, all infinitely diverse in the stability and immobility of myself and what I am, in my infinitely infinite goodness and glory, plainly sufficient for the supreme felicity of a nature such as mine. For by living and possessing, for myself, of myself, and in myself, the light and happiness proper to all that I am, I am totally worthy of myself, and of the entire possession of myself, and of this entire and total felicity, which I possess in the human and divine being that I am, above and beyond human and angelic beings, as well as beings not human nor divine, making my humanity and divinity the sole an unique support for what we are, in us both.
This experiential vision and knowledge that you desire, and which you will possess perfectly your substance is fixed in myself, enjoying what I am and what I possess while you also enjoy what you are and what you possess, I will totally overwhelm you with my happiness, felicity and delight, and totally transform your being in the suressential sureminence of mine, totally ravishing, totally overwhelming, and totally drowning you in the similitude of myself beyond my similitude. And so you see, my daughter, how and in what way the joy that you will have of me and in me, and the reciprocal joy that I will have of you and in you, will be in a very different of surexcellence and sureminence than that in which we possess each other in this present and mortal life.
This being made so, my daughter and my spouse, whom I invite and call with a very deep ardor, and totally suressential embraces that are very simple and unique, to come with me to Lebanon to be crowned by me with the love and glory of myself; to possess me and my glory infinitely, according to the degree and state of your sureminent and suressential love, in which we hold each other interiorly with the strength of our plain desire and plain satisfaction, equally embracing each other. By this sureminent force, we will embrace each other in a manner totally different, with an ardor more simple, than ever before, beyond the plain and total consummation of us both, in the plentitude of our equal pleasure of our mutual, reciprocal and infinite desire, totally possessed and totally consummated, to the totally total and plainly plain satisfaction of us both.
And you will leave without leaving from my divinity, or to say better, from our divinity, to see and contemplate me in myself to the measure and proportion of your suressential existence, possessed by you and in you, in the the love and glory consummate by myself, of which, in which and by which you will be uniquely united to your supreme center. You will possess me in the plentitude of your felicity, in the same plentitude of my felicity, both essential and accidental, in mine and yours. You understand me well about all this, and all these secrets are, for us both, the most profound, most loving, most secret and most intimate excesses of our reciprocal love. You understand me well about all this; and all these secrets, are, for us both, the most profound, most loving, most secret and most intimate excesses of our reciprocal love, where we possess each other, as I have always said, the one of the other and the one in the other, in our equal and reciprocal love, and in our equal felicity, equally I say, as you know, and understand me well about this.
And so I tell you, from my humanity, which you will possess very sweetly in its supreme plentitude, that you will return to my divinity to possess me in very deep and simple ardor and love, by the very simple and profound glory flowing unceasingly and fully from the full plentitude of myself to you. From whence, whenever you proceed to go out, you will never be without me and my glory, and leaving without leaving, you will return to me, in the same joy of myself and my glory, where you will never leave.
But notwithstanding this truth, my daughter, I want you to understand the extreme pleasure I have in seeing your profound excess. For when you were dying in me, of joy and ease, in the force of my excessive love for you, yes, while you were dying and expiring in me, you did not solicit your companions, my other spouses, with pitiable an loving cries, nor even the angelic beings, to surround you with flowers and support you with apples (Sng 2:5), to be able to endure longer in life and vigor, to love me as is proper, and to satisfy the insatiable and famished desire of your loving appetite. This excess of passive love, beyond passion and surpassion, sweetly compels me to love you more than I can make you understand, but, as much as I can, to make you feel my love in the very simple and continual gaze that you have of me, which flows into all of your mannerisms, and all else that I have expressed to you throughout our common journey of reciprocal and loving enjoyment of one another
And you cannot doubt, my daughter and my spouse, that if you had been able to receive more, I would have given more, and I would have shown you myself. But what? You already see me totally and nakedly, and you possess me totally and nakedly. What could I do more for you, and what more could I show you than myself, in all of myself? And in the total plentitude and expanse of myself? Within which, being totally lost and extended, you become one with myself, and possess me in myself. Do you not know well, O my daughter, my spouse, that my knowledge, my beauty, and all that I am in myself, is to be admired by you with an excessive admiration at times, and beyond admiration of the others? And my knowledge and beauty have been reinforced in the strength of our conjugal desire and unique love, but you will never be able to comprehend them, for the ineffably ineffable fact that they are what I am in myself. No, my daughter, you will never be able to arrive at my knowledge and beauty, for you are constrained to possess them in me, and me in them, and you in me, in very simple ignorance and very simple love. Yet you will infinitely surpass all knowledge of what I am by possessing me, and adhering nakedly and simply to me, by our union in which we possess each other in the uniqueness of us both, in the common and unique objective enjoyment of one another.
You have greatly delighted me, O my daughter and my spouse, in what you have not hesitated to express and describe in your excess, since it has been the Holy Spirit who has sufficiently revealed this to you in its fullness. But you, my daughter, all that I am, within and without, makes me see that I have forever delighted you, by what I am and what I have done, and what I produce of myself and by myself, for the common good, joy and repose of us both, in the loving union of us both, which in the force of our mutual excesses makes us one, by us both, in the uniqueness of us both; and because of this, you are my well beloved daughter and spouse, in whom I am eternally fulfilled. Come my daughter, come my spouse, come with me to Lebanon, come and you will be crowned.