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The Architecture of the Soul
The author introduces the complex nature of the human person, composed of body, soul, and spirit, as the foundation for self-examination.
A human being has many parts within himself, because he has a body with all its senses, a soul with all its appetites, and a spirit with all its powers—understanding, memory, and will; and so there can be sin against the rightness and order that ought to be in each of these things.
A Rule for Interior Examination
A practical guide for confessing failures in bodily discipline, custody of the senses, mortification, humility, and prayer.
So let him accuse himself first of not treating his body with the rigor and hardness he should have—in eating and drinking, in clothing and sleep, as in everything else—but instead of being very soft and indulgent toward it, and a friend to himself. Of not keeping the imagination and the other interior senses as recollected and guarded as he should have, but leaving them wide open and scattered—hearing, seeing, speaking, and imagining many idle and needless things that later hinder the heart's recollection and attention in prayer.1 Of not having mortified his appetites and broken his own will as he should have, but instead having followed it and carried it out in almost everything. Of not being as humble in heart and in deed as he should have been, nor knowing himself to be as low and wretched as he is, nor treating himself as such. Of having been lukewarm and lazy in prayer, of having often broken its thread for trivial reasons, and of not having stayed in it with as much recollection and attention as he should have.
Read the original Latin
El hombre tiene en sí muchas partes, porque tiene cuerpo con todos sus sentidos, y ánima con todos sus apetitos, y espíritu con todas sus potencias, que son entendimiento, memoria y voluntad; y así puede haber pecado contra la rectitud y orden que había de haber en cada cosa destas. Acúsese, pues, primeramente, de no tratar su cuerpo con aquel rigor y aspereza que debería, así en el comer y beber y vestir y dormir, como en todas las otras cosas; antes ser muy blando y piadoso para con él, y amigo de sí mismo. De no traer, así la imaginación como los otros sentidos interiores, tan recogidos y guardados como debería, sino muy placeros y derramados, oyendo, viendo, hablando, imaginando muchas cosas ociosas y excusadas, que después impiden el recogimiento del corazón y la atención de la oración. De no haber mortificado sus apetitos y quebrado su propia voluntad, como debía, antes seguídola y cumplídola casi en todas las cosas. De no ser tan humilde de corazón y obra, como debería, ni conocerse por tan vil y tan miserable como es, ni tratádose como a tal. De haber sido tibio y perezoso en la oración, y cortado muchas veces el hilo della por livianas causas, y no haber estado en ella con tanto recogimiento y atención, como debería.
Notes
- 1 ↩Early Spanish 'placeros' (likely 'plazeros') with 'derramados' suggests open to the world / unguarded rather than merely pleasant; rendered 'wide open'.
A Brief Form of Confession companion
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