I Will Lay Hold Upon Thee and Bring Thee into My Mother's House; There Thou Shalt Teach Me, and I Will Give Thee a Bowl of Spiced Wine, and New Wine of My Pomegranates.
The soul finding herself thus intimately connected with God, experiences two things. One is, that her Bridegroom is in her as she is in Him, just as an empty vase thrown into the ocean is full of the same water by which it is surrounded, and contains without comprehending that within which it is contained, so that the soul who is borne by her Bridegroom bears Him also. And whither does she bear Him? thither only where she can go: she bears Him into the bosom of her Father, which is her mother's house, that is the place of her birth. The other thing which she experiences is, that there He instructs her, bestowing upon her the knowledge of His secret things, which is only given to the favorite Spouse, to whom He teaches every truth that is necessary for her to know, or with which, from the excess of His love, He desires that she should be acquainted. O wonderful knowledge! communicated with but little stir, in the ineffable but ever eloquent silence of the Divinity. The Word unceasingly speaks to the soul, and instructs her in such way as to shame the most enlightened teachers.

But in proportion as He teaches the soul, insinuating Himself by degrees more and more into her, and continually enlarging her passive capacity, the faithful soul causes Him to drink of her spiced wine and of the new wine of her pomegranates. This is the fruit of charity in her, for she perpetually offers up to Him everything which He confers upon her, in the greatest purity. There is a constant flux and reflux of intercommunications; the Bridegroom bestowing upon the Bride and the Bride rendering to the Bridegroom. O incomparable Spouse! shall I say it? Thou art partaker of the intercourse of the Holy Trinity, for thou receivest without ceasing and renderest as incessantly what thou receivest.

verse 1 who will give
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