Libro Primero — Capítulo 5
The Roots of Spiritual Anger
Beginners often experience irritability and anger when the sweetness of spiritual consolation is withdrawn.
The imperfections beginners fall into regarding the vice of anger. 1. Because of the craving many beginners have for spiritual consolations, many imperfections of the vice of anger very commonly take hold of them; for when the savor and pleasure in spiritual things runs out for them, they naturally find themselves sour, and with that displeasure they carry with them they go about whatever they handle with a bad grace, get angry very easily over any little thing, and sometimes there is no one who can put up with them.12 This often happens after they have experienced some delightful sensible recollection in prayer: once that pleasure and savor ends, their natural self is left sour and without appetite, just like a child taken away from the breast it was nursing on with enjoyment.3 In that natural state, if they don't let themselves be carried away by the listlessness, there is no fault, but only an imperfection that must be purged by the dryness and distress of the dark night.
The False Zeal of the Self-Righteous
Some beginners fall into a restless, critical spirit by judging others under the guise of religious zeal.
2. There are also others among these spiritual people who fall into another kind of spiritual anger: they grow angry at other people's vices with a certain restless zeal, finding fault with others; and sometimes they feel urges to rebuke them angrily, and they even do so at times, setting themselves up as masters of virtue. All of this is contrary to spiritual meekness.
Impatience with One's Own Imperfection
A lack of humility leads many to become angry with themselves for not achieving holiness instantly.
3. There are others who, when they see that they are imperfect, get angry at themselves with an impatience that is not humble; and they grow so impatient about this that they would want to be saints in a single day. Among these there are many who resolve a great deal and make grand resolutions, and because they are not humble and do not distrust themselves, the more resolutions they make, the more they fall and the more they grow angry, having no patience to wait until God gives it to them when He is pleased to do so—which is also against the spiritual meekness already named, and which cannot be fully remedied except by the purgation of the dark night.4 Although some have so much patience in this desire to make progress that God would not want to see so much of it in them.5
Read the original Latin
De las imperfecciones en que caen los principiantes acerca del vicio de la ira.
1. Por causa de la concupiscencia que tienen muchos principiantes en los gustos espirituales, les poseen muy de ordinario muchas imperfecciones del vicio de la ira; porque, cuando se les acaba el sabor y gusto en las cosas espirituales, naturalmente se hallan desabridos y, con aquel sinsabor que traen consigo, traen mala gracia en las cosas que tratan, y se aíran muy fácilmente por cualquier cosilla, y aun a veces no hay quien los sufra. Lo cual muchas veces acaece después que han tenido algún muy gustoso recogimiento sensible en la oración, que, como se les acaba aquel gusto y sabor, naturalmente queda el natural desabrido y desganado; bien así como el niño cuando le apartan del pecho de que estaba gustando a su sabor. En el cual natural, cuando no se dejan llevar de la desgana, no hay culpa, sino imperfección que se ha de purgar por la sequedad y aprieto de la noche oscura.
2. También hay otros de estos espirituales que caen en otra manera de ira espiritual, y es que se aíran contra los vicios ajenos con cierto celo desasosegado, notando a otros; y a veces les dan ímpetus de reprenderles enojosamente, y aun hacen algunas veces, haciéndose ellos dueños de la virtud. Todo lo cual es contra la mansedumbre espiritual.
3. Hay otros que, cuando se ven imperfectos, con impaciencia no humilde se aíran contra sí mismos; de lo cual tienen tanta impaciencia, que querrían ser santos en un día. De éstos hay muchos que proponen mucho y hacen grandes propósitos, y como no son humildes ni desconfían de sí, cuantos más propósitos hacen, tanto más caen y tanto más se enojan, no teniendo paciencia para esperar a que se lo dé Dios cuando él fuere servido: que también es contra la dicha mansedumbre espiritual; que del todo no se puede remediar sino por la purgación de la noche oscura. Aunque algunos tienen tanta paciencia en esto del querer aprovechar, que no querría Dios ver en ellos tanta.
Notes
- 1 ↩concupiscencia here is disordered appetite for felt spiritual pleasure (gustos espirituales), not sexual lust; rendered as craving.
- 2 ↩mala gracia is peevish ill grace / disagreeable manner in dealings, not divine grace.
- 3 ↩recogimiento sensible is felt/experiential recollection in prayer, not mere mental concentration; el natural is the lower natural appetite/self, not 'nature' in the abstract.
- 4 ↩Spanish "cuando él fuere servido" is rendered "when He is pleased to do so," preserving the older sense that God acts when it serves His will, not on the soul's timetable.
- 5 ↩"Tanta paciencia en esto del querer aprovechar" names an excess still bound to the hunger for spiritual advance: so much of that patience that God would not want that much in them. The irony is intentional—even the more "patient" form of this drive can be disordered.
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