Teresa first shows mortal sin eclipsing the soul's inner sun. The castle is a pearl and a tree of life beside living waters, then the sun in the centre is covered as if a thick black cloth had been thrown over the crystal. In grace the soul is a well of clear water, rooted like a tree by the river. In mortal sin it grows beside a black pool and bears unwholesome fruit. The fountain itself does not go dark. The covering does. A vision taught her two lessons: a fear of offending God, and humility, because nothing good in us springs from ourselves. She begs her daughters to pray for sinners who live in that blindness.
She turns to the keep, like the kernel under many rinds, and warns beginners not to stay shut inside self-examination. Humility should work like a bee at the honeycomb, then leave the hive. White looks whiter beside black, so staring at one's own faults keeps the springs muddy with cowardly thoughts that feel like humility: people will notice, this is presumption, I shall only fall. She tells them to fix their eyes on Christ instead. In the first mansions the King's light hardly reaches. Worldly honours clog the eyes like dust in a sunlit room. The devil works like a file. A nun takes secret penances against the prioress and loses her health, or spies on sisters in the name of zeal. His aim is to cool charity. Perfection is love of God and neighbour.
In the second mansions souls have begun to pray and know they should leave the first rooms, yet they still lack the determination to avoid occasions of sin. They hear the Lord as a loving neighbour through sermons, books, sickness, and prayer, and the hearing hurts more than the deafness of the earlier rooms, because they cannot follow at once. He may wait many days or years when He sees perseverance. Then the assault grows louder. Devils picture earthly joys as endless, replay former esteem, and warn that penance will ruin health. Reason, faith, memory, and will answer. Worldly ease ends in the grave, the castle already holds what they seek abroad, and the prodigal's choice is to feed with the swine. Worldly habits and bad example still win the skirmish.
Teresa asks for valour, not the soldiers who lay down to drink from the brook before the battle. No manna falls in these rooms, and starting for the sake of sweetness builds on sand. The motto is the cross the Spouse carried. Falls are not a verdict. God can draw good from them, as a merchant takes poison and then the antidote to prove it. Peace has to be sought at home, among the powers of the soul, or it will not be found abroad. Recollection is resumed after interruption, not forced. The door remains prayer. Whoever loves danger, she says, will perish by it.
Coming Up in Chapter 3
Next Teresa greets souls who reach the third mansions with the blessing on those who fear the Lord, then takes the safety back. Life in exile has no security. The rich young man walks away when the cost is named, and a wall that looks finished can still be breached.
