Of the fier of love.
The Nature of Spiritual Fire
The author clarifies that the fire of love is a purely spiritual experience rather than a physical sensation.
Everyone who talks about the fire of love doesn't really know what it is, and I can't tell you what it is, either—except for this: it isn't physical, and it isn't felt by the body. A soul might feel it during prayer or devotion while still in the body, but it doesn't feel it through any physical sense.1 Even though the body might grow warm when this works in a soul—as if heated by the delightful labor of the spirit—the fire of love is not physical; it exists only in the spiritual desire of the soul.2 This is clear to anyone who experiences and understands devotion, but some people are so simple that they assume, because it's called fire, it must be hot like physical fire. That is why I said what I said.
The Threefold Path of Prayer
The author transitions from the nature of love to the practical instruction regarding the different kinds of prayer.
Now as for the other matter — to know what prayer is best to use — I'll say as it seems to me. You should understand that there are three kinds of prayer.
Read the original Latin
Alle men and women that speken of the fier of love knowe not wel what it is, for what it is I can not telle thee, save this may I telle thee, it is neither bodili, ne it is bodili feelid. A soule mai fele it in praiere or in devocioun, whiche soule is in the bodi, but he felith it not bi no bodili witt. For though it be so, that yif it wirke in a soule the bodi mai turne into an heete as it were chafid for likynge travaile of the spirit, neverthelees the fier of love is not bodili, for it is oonly in the goostli desire of the soule. This is no doute to no man ne woman that felith and knoweth devocion, but summe aren so symple and wenen bicause that it is callid fier that it schulde be hoot as bodili fier is. And forthi I seie that I have seid. Now as to that othir, for to knowe what prayer were best for to use, y schal seie as me thenkith. Thou schalt undirstonde that there are thre maner of praieres.
Notes
- 1 ↩ME 'he felith' takes the soul as personal ('he'); rendered as 'it' for contemporary English while keeping the soul as the sensing subject.
- 2 ↩'likynge travaile' rendered as 'delightful labor': the soul's glad spiritual effort whose secondary effect can warm the body, without making the fire itself bodily.
Scala Perfectionis (The Scale of Perfection) 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