Still in the fourth mansions, Teresa apologizes for scattered writing, then distinguishes sensible devotion from divine consolations or the prayer of quiet. She compares two fountains: one filled through distant pipes and aqueducts, the other rising directly from the spring. Aqueduct water resembles devotion gained by meditation, labor, and our own effort, producing commotion yet profiting the soul.
Spring water signifies God granting supernatural peace, calm, and sweetness in inmost depths we cannot locate or explain. This joy does not strike the heart like earthly happiness; it begins deeper, dilates the soul, and gradually overflows through mansions, faculties, and even the body. Teresa pictures an interior brazier releasing fragrance the soul senses more than words can tell.
She believes the will unites with God's will here, and subsequent conduct proves authenticity. Daughters long to enter this state, yet Teresa warns against chasing consolations: love God without self-interest, accept that wretched services cannot earn so great a reward, prepare by desiring suffering and imitating Christ, remember God promised salvation through commandments not special favors, and know that some saints beg Him to withhold consolation. We labor in vain if the spring does not flow; humility, humility, for God lets Himself be vanquished by this and grants what we ask when we make no efforts to acquire them.
Coming Up in Chapter 7
Next Teresa describes the prayer of recollection, where God gathers the scattered faculties inward like a shepherd calling lost sheep home before deeper consolations arrive Teresa returns to the fourth mansions to describe the prayer of recollection that usually precedes divine consolations. Unlike ordinary meditation, this gathering is supernatural: without retiring or shutting the eyes, the soul suddenly finds solitude as senses loosen and.
