CAPÍTULO 15. En el cual se declaran los demás versos de la dicha canción.
The Blessed Escape from Captivity
The soul recognizes the joy of breaking free from the captivity of natural passions and appetites.
Oh happy chance! I went out unnoticed, my house already at rest. 1. It takes as a metaphor the wretched state of captivity: whoever breaks free from it counts that escape a blessed fortune, without any of the prisoners stopping them. After original sin, the soul is truly like a captive in this mortal body, subject to natural passions and appetites. It considers it a stroke of good fortune to escape their siege and subjection unnoticed—that is, without being hindered or caught by any of them.✦1
Resting the House of the Senses
True spiritual freedom is achieved only when the sensory appetites are mortified and the soul is at rest.
2. This is why it served her well to go out in the dark night—that is, in the deprivation of all pleasures and the mortification of all appetites, just as we have described. She did this with her house already at rest—meaning the sensory part, which is the house of all the appetites, already stilled by conquering and putting them all to sleep. Until the appetites are put to sleep through mortification in the sensual nature, and that same sensual nature is at rest from them so that it no longer wars against the spirit, the soul does not go out into true freedom to enjoy union with her Beloved.2
Read the original Latin
¡Oh dichosa ventura! , salí sin ser notada estando ya mi casa sosegada.
1. Toma por metáfora el mísero estado del cautiverio, del cual el que se libra tiene por dichosa ventura, sin que se lo impida alguno de los prisioneros. Porque el alma, despues del primer pecado original, verdaderamente está como cautiva en este cuerpo mortal, sujeta a las pasiones y apetitos naturales, del cerco y sujeción de los cuales tiene ella por dichosa ventura haber salido sin ser notada, esto es, sin ser de ninguno de ellos impedida ni comprehendida.
2. Porque para esto le aprovechó salir en la noche oscura, que es en la privación de todos los gustos y mortificación de todos los apetitos, de la manera que habemos dicho. Y esto, estando ya su casa sosegada, conviene a saber, la parte sensitiva, que es la casa de todos los apetitos, ya sosegada por el vencimiento y adormecimiento de todos ellos. Porque hasta que los apetitos se adormezcan por la mortificación en la sensualidad, y la misma sensualidad este ya sosegada de ellos, de manera que ninguna guerra haga al espíritu, no sale el alma a la verdadera libertad, a gozar de la unión de su Amado.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rom.7.23-Rom.7.24 — But I see another law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind, and making me captive to the law of sin which is in my members. Rom.7.24 — Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Notes
Ascent of Mount Carmel companion
A daily portion of stillness
Chosen Portion delivers one short contemplative reading and a guided moment of silence each day — the ascent, one step at a time.
Chosen Portion is the paced doorway into this collection: it portions the dense mystical treatises into one daily reading plus guided silence, exactly as the 14-day plan teaches.
- Daily bite-sized excerpts from the contemplative classics, never a wall of text
- A built-in timed stillness practice that grows from 2 minutes to 10
- Gentle progression through the tradition — the app remembers where you are on the ascent