The Soul's Joyful Madness — The Interior Castle

Teresa explains effects that prove the flight of the spirit genuine and describes another favor, the jubilee of the soul. Souls who have tasted sublime union now live in painful though delicious exile: life wearies them, death is longed for, and love flames at the slightest provocation so that raptures occur even in public, bringing persecution and confessor's fears. Though confident alone with God, they worry about deception yet cannot resist desiring these graces, resigning themselves to His hands while striving to avoid even venial sin.

Teresa warns against confusing spiritual tears with bodily weakness or melancholy; constant weeping may injure health without proving love. Works, not tears, are what God asks: practice virtues, let tears fall when He sends them, and do not force emotion as holiness. Among these favors God sometimes grants jubilation, a strange prayer where faculties rejoice with God yet cannot explain how.

The soul wants everyone to praise with her, like Francis hailed as herald of the great King or the father of the prodigal calling friends to feast. Teresa calls this holy folly safer in the convent than in the world, where praise of God scandalizes. She delights when her sisters spontaneously praise the Lord, for jubilee is supernatural, cannot be manufactured, and may last a day while the soul seems inebriated yet not deprived of sense.